Akron's final flight set out to calibrate radio direction-finding stations, with Moffett and Mack Trucks executive Alfred F. Masury among those aboard. Masury supported civilian uses of rigid airships, which offered a market that could share the industrial costs of a larger naval programme. Moffett understood that a fleet large enough for sustained two-ocean service depended on that wider industry. More suppliers could reduce cost and protect the Navy from dependence on a single private monopoly. Naval nuclear expertise provides a later comparison, since military requirements can diverge sharply from civilian equipment and remain expensive to support. Moffett's efforts to attract civilian participation addressed the cost of sustaining the industry as well as building the airships.
Notable Point · 1:37:45-1:40:44
Why a naval airship fleet needed a civilian industry
Moffett sought civilian rigid-airship demand because the Navy could not afford the factories, suppliers, skills, and infrastructure of a thirty-airship force by itself.