In the May 1962 issue of Popular Science, we explored this luxurious trend of aviation and its possible end with the Hindenburg disaster.
to kickstart the big-bird market. Besides being greener than airplanes and freighters, airships don’t require runways or harbors, liberating them to come and go from remote or disaster-stricken regions. There’s also the luxury travel aspect: Beginning as soon as 2024,
On Thursday, May 6, 1937, the great gray bird droned over the eastern coast of the United States, inbound at the start of her second season of regular transatlantic service. The day was warm and stormy. She was already 10 hours late. And now she had to stooge over the Jersey beaches, waiting the forecasted clearing of the weather. This was the largest and most extravagant aircraft ever flown.
The sheer size made your jaw drop. This Zeppelin was enormous: 185 feet across the middle and 804 feet in length. From stern to bow she extended more than three city blocks. If stood on end, she would have reached the 67th floor of the Empire State Building, and towered over the Washington Monument.Kiellaufgang
This giant craft did not fly like a bird or an airplane. It floated in the air. The buoyancy came from 16 separate gas cells—tremendous bags that were shaped like gigantic pairs of pants. From below you saw only the floppy “pants legs.” These gas cells pushed up against the “ceiling” of the airship . You could even smoke aboard this airship. The bar was sealed off by double doors, which the steward unlocked when you rang the bell. Here the air pressure was maintained slightly above that in the rest of the ship so that no stray hydrogen could possibly leak inside. The smokers lit up with electric lighters .on B deck. It gave a trickle of water until an automatic shutoff unmistakably told you “time’s up.
The Hindenburg could make 84 knots top, and cruise at 77 knots—not too far behind commercial airplanes of the day. She also had something no airplane ever has—a spare engine stowed in a freight compartment. The victorious Allies, impressed by this record, took over the Luftschiffabteilung’s Zeppelins, and rushed to build more of their own. A decade and a half of disaster followed.
In the autumn of 1928 the Graf Zeppelin—the LZ-127, 774 feet long, weighing 66 tons, able to haul a payload of 20 passengers and 13 tons cargo—inaugurated commercial service. She followed a southern track to America, averaging not quite 60 miles an hour: 6,000 miles from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst in four days and 16 hours.The following year the Graf flew around the world. In 1980, service to South America began. By 1936, she had transported 13,000 passengers on 575 trouble-free flights.
At Lakehurst, Lt. Raymond F. Tyler and Chief “Bull” Tobin—both lighter than-air pros—directed the ground crew. They had rolled out the 75-foot tripod mast and deployed the line handlers.
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