Detroit ZMC-2

The ZMC-2 (Zeppelin Metal Clad 200,000 cubic foot capacity) was the only successfully operated metal-skinned airship ever built. Constructed at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile by The Aircraft Development Corporation of Detroit, the ZMC-2 was operated by the United States Navy at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, from 1929 until its scrapping in 1941. While at Lakehurst it completed 752 flights, and logged 2265 hours of flight time.

Operations

The airship was first flown on August 19, 1929, and transferred to Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, in October 1929. The airship was nicknamed "the Tin Blimp". Its first Navy skipper was Red Dugan, who expressed reluctance at operating the airship, believing it unsafe. Dugan's concerns were proven wrong, though he later lost his life in the crash of another airship, Akron.

It was considered very successful as a sub-scale test vehicle, but the company that built it went bankrupt during the Great Depression, and by the time a successor might have been built, there was little interest in pursuing it. In the year before the Depression, the United States Army was seeking funding for an airship based on the ZMC-2, that would have been larger than the German Graf Zeppelin, and powered by eight engines of 600–800 hp (447–597 kW; 608–811 PS). The U.S. Army planned to use it as a tender for air-launched aircraft, similar to plans the U.S. Navy had for future dirigibles.