Editing USS Akron (section)

===Testing of the "spy basket"===
Soon after returning to Lakehurst to disembark her distinguished passengers, ''Akron'' took off again to conduct a test of the "[[spy basket]]"—something like a small airplane fuselage suspended beneath the airship that would enable an observer to serve as the ship's "eyes" below the clouds while the ship herself remained out of sight above them. The first time the basket was tried (with sandbags aboard instead of a man), it oscillated so violently that it put the whole ship in danger. The basket proved "frighteningly unstable", swooping from one side of the airship to the other before the startled gaze of ''Akron''{{'}}s officers and men, and reaching as high as the ship's equator.<ref name="Smith 1965. p 55"/> Though it was later improved by adding a ventral stabilizing fin, the spybasket was never used again.<ref>Smith (1965). pp. 133–135</ref>