U.S. Involvement.

America's relationship to rigid airships was a troubled one. Aside from Germany and Great Britain, nowhere else was the promotion of dirigible transport such a large-scale affair. Beginning in the 1920s Goodyear built blimps for the U.S. Navy. However, the apparent sturdiness of bigger machines with an internal metal structure to sustain them had become legendary as a result of German airship operations during World War I. Eventually, following the purchase of a German-built machine, the Los Angeles, a contract with the Zeppelin Company in Germany cleared the way for the transfer of technological experience that would allow the construction of large rigid airships in the United States. Slow negotiations eventually led to a navy contract for two 6.5-million-cubic-foot airships, numbered ZRS-4 and ZRS-5, valued at $8 million each, signed in October 1928. The dock...