[4] The inherent strength of these frames allowed the chief designer, Karl Arnstein, to dispense with the internal cruciform structure used by Zeppelin to support the fins of their ships.

While Germany, France and Britain used goldbeater's skin to gas-proof their gasbags, Akron used Goodyear Tire and Rubber's rubberised cotton, heavier but much cheaper and more durable.

[15] The prominent dark vertical bands on the hull were condensers of the system designed to recover water from the engines' exhaust for buoyancy compensation.

[13] Akron could carry up to 20,700 US gal (78,000 L) of gasoline (126,000 lb (57,000 kg)) in 110 separate tanks which were distributed along the lower keels to preserve the ship's trim, giving her a normal range of 5,940 nmi (6,840 mi; 11,000 km) at cruising speed.

What was actually needed was a stable, fast, lightweight scouting airplane with a long range,[18] but none existed capable of fitting between the structural members and into the airship's hangar, as the F9C could.

The trapeze was lowered through the T-shaped door in the bottom of the ship and into the slipstream, with an airplane attached to the crossbar by the 'skyhook' above its top wing, its pilot on board and its engine running.

Charles E. Rosendahl had witnessed, from the control room, Graf Zeppelin almost snagging her fin on high-tension power lines during her heavy take off into an unsuspected but very marked temperature inversion from Mines Field, Los Angeles at the start of the last leg of her round-the-world flight earlier that year.

However, this alteration has been the subject of much criticism as an "inherent defect" in the design and is often alleged to have been a major factor in the loss of Akron's sister ship Macon.

[25] On 7 November 1929, Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, the Chief of the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, drove the "golden rivet" into the main ring of "ZRS4".

The maiden flight of Akron took place around Cleveland on the afternoon of 23 September with Secretary of the Navy Adams and Rear Admiral Moffett on board.

Proceeding to the coast of North Carolina, Akron headed out over the Atlantic where it was assigned to find a group of destroyers bound for Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Ultimately, at 9:08 am on 11 January, the airship succeeded in spotting the light cruiser USS Raleigh and 12 destroyers, positively identifying them on the eastern horizon two minutes later.

[6]: 53–55 As a result of this accident, a turntable with a walking beam on tracks powered by electric mine locomotives was developed to secure the tail and turn the ship even in high winds so that it could be pulled into the massive hangar at Lakehurst.

The basket proved "frighteningly unstable", swooping from one side of the airship to the other before the startled gaze of Akron's officers and men and reaching as high as the ship's equator.

Over the weeks that followed, Akron "showed the flag" on the West Coast of the United States, ranging as far north as the Canada–US border before returning south in time to exercise once more with the Scouting Fleet.

[6]: 58–59 In need of repairs, Akron departed from Sunnyvale on 11 June 1932 bound for Lakehurst, New Jersey, on a return trip that was sprinkled with difficulties, mostly because of unfavorable weather, and having to fly at pressure height while crossing the mountains.

[6]: 61–62 Akron next underwent a period of voyage repairs before taking part in July in a search for Curlew, a yacht which had failed to reach port at the end of a race to the island of Bermuda.

[6]: 63–65 Another accident hampered training on 22 August when Akron's tail fin became fouled by a beam in Lakehurst's massive Hangar No 1 after a premature order to commence towing the ship out of the mooring circle.

During the course of these operations, an overfly of Washington DC was made 4 March 1933, the day Franklin D. Roosevelt first took the oath of office as President of the United States.

[6]: 74 On 11 March, Akron departed Lakehurst bound for Panama stopping briefly en route at Opa-locka before proceeding on to Balboa where an inspection party looked over a potential air base site.

While returning northward, the airship paused at Opa-locka again for local operations exercising gun crews, with the N2Y-1s serving as targets, before getting underway for Lakehurst on 22 March.

[6]: 74–75 On the evening of 3 April 1933, Akron cast off from the mooring mast to operate along the coast of New England, assisting in the calibration of radio direction finder stations.

According to Richard K. Smith, "[u]nknown to the men on board the Akron, they were flying ahead of one of the most violent stormfronts to sweep the North Atlantic States in ten years.

The crew of the nearby German merchant ship Phoebus saw lights descending toward the ocean at about 00:23 and altered course to starboard to investigate, with her captain believing that he was witnessing an airplane crash.

[36] Akron's loss spelled the beginning of the end for the rigid airship in the U.S. Navy, especially since one of her leading proponents, Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, was among the dead.

Ships can be replaced, but the Nation can ill afford to lose such men as Rear Admiral William A. Moffett and his shipmates who died with him upholding to the end the finest traditions of the United States Navy."

Initially, the idea had been to use her as a scout for the fleet, just as the German Navy zeppelins had been used during World War I, with her airplanes being simply useful auxiliaries capable of extending her range of vision or of defending her against attacking enemy aircraft.

[42][43] The mothership herself should stay in the background, out of sight of enemy surface units, and act merely as a mobile advanced base for the airplanes, which should do all of the actual searching.

As a result, the airship's performance in fleet exercises was not all that some had hoped and gave an exaggerated impression of the ship's vulnerability and failed to demonstrate her strengths.

[50] General characteristics Performance Armament This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.