Quickly! To The Dirigible!
The BBC has a report up fro one of their reporters raving about a ride he took in a "zeppelin". (It is not clear whether the reporter was on a blimp or one of the new airships that do bear the name Zeppelin, but are semi-rigid, not fully framed as the original zeppelins were. The location of the flight, however, favors the latter.) The reporter sees the airship as a viable - and attractive - alternative to being crammed like a sardine into coach-class seating on today's airliners.
We just cruised for 40 minutes, but could open the windows, speak without effort, enjoy watching the world go by 1,000 ft (300m) below, and tell ourselves what it must have been like when far bigger airships were having their heyday. Such as the Graf Zeppelin which went around the world in 1929 in four hops, starting from the US, touching down in Germany, then in Japan, and then in California.
What a flight, with meals in the dining room, cabins to sleep in, and our beautiful planet not six miles down and invisible but usually a mere 1,500 ft (450m) below.
Think of all such trips.
Perhaps down to Rio in one hop, dancing if you felt like it, walking about, and not just to a doll's-house loo.
And then stopping above your destination, watching the sun come up, shouting at the locals and then disembarking without the used-rag feeling which modern aircraft induce but refreshed, invigorated, well-fed, well-slept and delighted to be alive, instead of merely grateful that the long-haul, as they call it, has finally been concluded.
The one thing everyone knows about airships is that the Hindenburg spectacularly caught fire in May 1937 when landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey after a flight from Germany.
Well, it would be considerably slower than jet travel, but there is no real reason it could not be a viable technology in today's world, either. The technology has improved a lot since the first generation. There is a new company, considered a successor to the original zeppelin manufacturing company that is turning out the semi-rigid designs. Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH (ZLT) is producing the new airships in Friedrichshafen, right where the first zeppelins flew. There still is the question of payload as well. The new zeppelins only carry a very small number of passengers (around 14 so far). They are not properly lighter than air craft, either. They have slight negative buoyancy and require engine power to lift. One other minor quibble with the article. The reporter says that the one disaster of the Hindenburg should not deter us. There were actually more disasters than just the one:
The first successful airship crossing of the Atlantic was made in 1919 by the British R-34. In 1921, however, a wave of airship disasters began. The R-34 was wrecked at its departure. The Roma, built in 1922 by Italy for the United States, exploded over Hampton Roads, Va. A French Zeppelin obtained from Germany, the Dixmude, was lost in the Mediterranean in 1923. In 1925 the United States Shenandoah was destroyed by violent winds. The United States Navy built two more airships after the Shenandoah disaster. These were the Akron, destroyed in 1933, and the Macon, which crashed in 1935.
They just found the wreck of the Macon off the California coast last year. She still had her fighter planes - yes, the airship carried four fighters - and a crew of 100. The new generation has a ways to go before it will be able to carry the same kind of payloads.
World news | Gaius Saturday, 13 October , 2007
By NortonPete, Sunday, 14 October , 2007 @ 7:14 am
I’m looking at a chart in one of my books on airships. “Giants of the Sky” by Douglas Robinson.
There were 161 ridgid airships built and flown between 1897-1940.
A quick glance at the remarks column shows most of them were wreaked in a storm or involved in a landing accident. Although a few were shot down ( LZ22 & LZ23 in 1914).
Although with better engines they would have a better chance with surface weather, ridgid airships would still be at the mercy of local weather conditions.
Fascinating aircraft.
By Gaius, Sunday, 14 October , 2007 @ 7:26 am
Yeah, that was my recollection, too, but I wasn’t able to find a citation for it. (I seem to recall a really bad crash of a British dirigible.) The Hindenburg wasn’t the only one - it was more like the last straw.
By NortonPete, Sunday, 14 October , 2007 @ 7:51 am
The British built and flew 16 by this table. The first 7 were dismantled about the time of the end of WW1. One burned in a shed, 4 were broken up in accidents. The largest one R38, 700 ft long with 2100 hp from 6 engines broke up over Hull and burned on 8/24/21 44 dead. The Hindeburg’s death toll was only 35, most passengers (61) survived as the pilot actually flew the burning Zepplein under some control to the ground.
By NortonPete, Sunday, 14 October , 2007 @ 8:01 am
The destruction of the R38 was during a trial which was supposed to simulate rough weather. It collapsed due to design issues. So there is an open question as to how many of these break ups in bad weather were due to bad designs. I do not think there was a design flaw with the Shenandoah just freak weather.