The airship-aircraft system required crews who could operate a rigid airship, recover aircraft, maintain new equipment, and coordinate long-range reconnaissance. The interwar US Navy was developing several new branches of naval aviation and engineering at once, without the large personnel pool associated with its later wartime or modern image. Senior specialist posts were especially constrained because experience could only advance through the ranks over time. Every experimental programme therefore competed for the same technically skilled people. Manpower and institutional learning limited how quickly the airborne-carrier concept could mature alongside hardware and funding.
Notable Point · 36:15-37:49
The specialist bottleneck behind airborne carriers
Akron's ambitious doctrine depended on specialists the interwar Navy could not quickly train, creating competition for engineers and senior experts.