USS Macon was a United States Navy rigid airship built for long-range scouting and as a working “flying aircraft carrier,” able to launch and recover small aircraft in flight. Constructed by the Goodyear–Zeppelin Corporation and aided by experienced German engineers, it was among the world’s largest flying objects and remains the largest helium-filled rigid airship ever built. Based at Sunnyvale, California, Macon helped develop practical airborne scouting methods and gained fame in 1934 by locating the cruiser Houston carrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After earlier storm damage left a structural weakness insufficiently reinforced, Macon crashed into the Pacific off Point Sur on February 12, 1935; only two of eighty-three crewmen died.