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L class
L-8 delivering supplies prior to the Doolittle Raid
Type	Training airship
Manufacturer	Goodyear
Primary user	US Navy
Number built	22

The L class blimps were training airships operated by the United States Navy during World War II. In the mid-1930s, the Goodyear Aircraft Company of Akron, Ohio built a family of small non-rigid airships that the company used for advertising the Goodyear name. In 1937 the United States Navy awarded a contract for two different airships, K class blimp designated K-2 and a smaller blimp based upon Goodyear’s smaller commercial model airship used for advertising and passenger carrying. The smaller blimp was designated by the Navy as L-1 The L-1 was delivered in April 1938 and operated from the Navy’s lighter-than-air facility at Lakehurst, New Jersey. In the meantime, the Navy ordered two more L-Class blimps, the L-2 and L-3, on September 25, 1940. These were delivered in 1941. L-2 was lost in a nighttime mid-air collision with the G-1 on June 8, 1942.

When the United States entered World War II, the Navy took over the operation of Goodyear’s five commercial blimps. These were the Resolute, Enterprise, Reliance, Rainbow, and Ranger. These airships were given the designations L-4 through L-8 even though their characteristics and performance varied among them. The next four L-Class airships were assembled in the assembly and repair shops at NAS Moffett. These blimps, L-9 through L-12 were completed by April 1943. The last lot of L-Class airships were ordered from Goodyear under a contract of February 24, 1943. This was a lot of ten airships designated L-13 through L-22. All the blimps were delivered by the end of 1943.

As training airships these blimps operated mainly from the two major lighter-than-air bases, NAS Lakehurst and NAS Moffett Field on the southern edge of the San Francisco Bay. While too small for any extensive operation use, they were used in some coastal patrolling. In this mode one of these airships, the L-8, was involved in an incident where in the airship came drifting in from the Pacific Ocean over southern San Francisco in 1942 without either of the crewmen onboard.

Following the end of World War II a number of the L-class blimps were returned to Goodyear.

General characteristics

• Crew: Two
• Length: 147 ft 6 in (44.97 m)
• Diameter: 39 ft 10 in (12.14 m)
• Height: 34 ft 0 in (16.46 m)
• Volume: 123,000 ft³ (3,482 m³)
• Useful lift: 2,540 lb (1,152 kg)
• Powerplant: 2 × Warner R-500-2 radials,, 145 hp (108 kW) each

Performance

• Maximum speed: 61 mph (96 km/h)
• Cruise speed: 46 mph (74 km/h)
• Range: 2,205 miles (3,537 km)
• Endurance: 11 hours  54 min

• Shock, James R. (2001). U.S. Navy Airships 1915-1962. Edgewater, Florida: Atlantis Productions. ISBN 0-9639743-8-6. 
• Althoff, William F. (1990). Sky Ships. New York: Orion Books. ISBN 0-517-56904-3. 

• An account of the L-8 mystery

Designation sequence

• ← H class - J class - K class - L class - M class - N class

Related lists

• List of airships of the United States Navy