PDF Stonewall Jackson's "Foot Cavalry" by From Brand: Burd Street Pr in History

Description

Aviation historian William Althoff tells the story of the U.S. Navy’s airship; USS Los Angeles; the most successful aircraft of its type ever flown. In dramatic detail; Althoff recounts how the U.S. Navy arranged for the famed German Zeppelin Company to build the ship; thwarted schemes by the U.S. Army’s Air Service to take control of it; and helped plan its record-breaking; historic four-day flight from Germany to the United States. After years of experiments meant to determine its military and commercial application; the airship ultimately failed to command a consensus in the Navy. “Relegated to a lower tier;” Althoff writes; “the rigid type receded to marginal relevance until; on the eve of World War Two; it vanished altogether.” In this book; the early achievements and unceremonious demise of the Los Angeles after a long career symbolize the airship’s unfulfilled promise. Nonetheless; the operational record of this one machine altered American naval aeronautics and greatly influenced transoceanic commercial air transport during a critical period of its development.