Strato-loon Carrier Ops
Some 65 years ago.
The Essex-class training carrier USS Antietam (CVS-36) was in the Gulf of Mexico during Project Strato-lab V, in which the first manned balloon carrier landing was made. The 10 million cubic foot balloon shown below was manned by pilot CDR Malcolm D. Ross, USNR, and flight surgeon LCDR Victor A. Prather, USN.
Note the odd combination of Cold War angled deck and WWII Long Hull bow, the latter complete with AAA tubs. The first U.S. carrier with an angled deck conversion, Antietam never received the latter SCB-125 enclosed Hurricane Bow, making her something of an aberration. USN 1054270
USS Antietam (CVS-36) showing the manned balloon just before take off during project Strato-Lab, April 1961. The low altitude flight was manned by Commander Malcolm D. Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather, MC USN. USN 1054272
Ross and Pranther were using the Navy’s new Mark IV full-pressure suit, which was the basis for NASA’s Project Mercury suits, with the flight a proving ground for the gear.
On 4 May 1965, Ross and Prather ascended to a record altitude of 113,739.9 feet in their 411-foot open-air gondola balloon launched from the deck of Antietam.
They reached their maximum altitude two hours and 36 minutes after takeoff. Tragedy marred their achievement, however, when Prather fell from the sling of the recovery helicopter and died on board the carrier after being pulled from the water. Furthermore, the mission was consigned to obscurity when Commander Alan Shepard flew into space the very next day.
Commissioned on 28 January 1945 at Philadelphia, after shake downs and transit to the Pacific, when just three days out of Oahu on her way to the front lines, Antietam received word of the Japanese capitulation and the consequent cessation of hostilities.
She went on to earn two battle stars for service in the Korean War. She was used almost exclusively from April 1957 until her decommissioning in 1963 as a training carrier, first off the East Coast and then off Pensacola. After ten years in mothballs, she was scrapped in 1973 as part of the post-Vietnam wind-down, with many of her parts used to keep sister Lexington in operation another two decades.