Word: 3w
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Designed for long-range detection of attacking aircraft, the huge (403 ft.) ZPG-3W U.S. Navy blimp made an ideal rescue ship. Its slow cruising speed (30-60 knots) and low operating altitude (under 500 ft.) provided an almost perfect platform for the giant (40 ft., 12,000 lbs.) radar antenna rotating inside the helium-filled gas bag. Its great endurance (up to 95 hours without refueling) promised ample range as it beat to seaward off the New Jersey shore one day last week in search of a racing sloop, overdue on a Bermuda-to-Long Island...
...3W crash brought the argument full circle. Vice Admiral Charles E. Rosendahl, U.S.N. (ret.), a survivor of the Shenandoah crash but still the champion of the big, rigid ships, hastened to accuse the Navy of "questionable wisdom" in building oversized, noncompartmented blimps, suggested that with modern construction methods rigid airships would be far safer. Blimp men were equally quick to defend their ships. Even though he still could not explain the crash. Captain Frederick N. Klein Jr., commanding officer of Fleet Airship Wing One (which includes the three remaining ZPGs, along with some smaller blimps), insisted: "I still think...