Hindenburg ... Titanic of the Sky

To this day (December 2011) it is still the largest airship ever built; it was over eight-hundred feet long from the tip of its nose to its gigantic tail fins. It was considered the height of luxury travel and carried a total of 2,656 people across the Atlantic from Germany to New York and Rio de Janeiro combined. It was the called Hindenburg. Within a period of 37 seconds the mighty zeppelin was destroyed in a fire that killed a third of its crew and passengers and left spectators and radio listeners alike weeping in dismay.

The first successful airships / blimps were built in France in 1852. Although several other countries built these types of airships, the Germans became the most advanced in this form of lighter-than-air technology in the early 1900’s. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who was a German businessman, formed a manufacturing company which in turn built an entire fleet of these airships that were considered experimental at the time. He became so well-known for this type of aircraft that his name (Zeppelin) became synonymous with that style of airship.

Starting in 1914, near the beginning of WWI, the Count's blimps were used to drop bombs on cities in a number of European countries, including London. They made over fifty raids on the British capitol alone, dropping nearly 200 tons of high explosives. But as the war progressed, most of Germanys’ Zeppelin fleet was destroyed by British guns or aircraft. The gas that gave them their lift, hydrogen, was very flammable, and even a small bomb hitting a zeppelin could reduce it to ashes in no more than a few seconds.

In 1928 the Zeppelin Company built what was to become the most successful passenger airship of all time, it was known as the Graf Zeppelin.

She was a hundred feet longer than any other airship to have ever been built at 776 feet from nose to tail fins. The Graf was designed as a passenger liner to compete with the ocean liners of the day that were crossing the Atlantic. She had a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour, thus cutting the time it took to make the trip across the big pond by more than two-thirds. The passenger cabin was equipped with drapes and plush carpeting. Dinner was made by top chefs and was complimented by using silverware, crystal and fine china. A Time Magazine article confirmed the thoughts of the day reporting that, “Certainly for trans-oceanic trips, the airship is the thing.”

The Graf Zeppelin was so triumphant that the Zeppelin Company built a new airship. But this one was bigger, faster, could carry more passengers and had even more luxurious amenities. It was named after a national hero who had been elected Germany's president in 1925. It was called the Hindenburg.

The Hindenburg wasn’t just longer than the Graf Zeppelin; it was a full 35 feet wider.

This meant it required almost twice the volume  of 'lifting gas' than that required for the Graf Zeppelin. The Hindenburg's designers had originally decided to fill the new airship with helium gas, instead of hydrogen. This change was recommended because Helium, unlike hydrogen, does not burn; therefore this would make the blimp a lot safer.

Unfortunately, the poor Hindenburg never got her helium, as her designer’s had planned. You see, at that time helium was somewhat difficult to produce and the United States had a monopoly on the manufacture of the product. It’s probable that the Americans saw Hitler as some what of a German tyrant, and they feared he would use the helium gas for military purposes; therefore they would not sell the Germans the gas that was necessary to fill Hindenburg’s tanks.  Regardless, in the long run this decision resulted in the loss of a lot of innocent lives.

So as to give you a better understanding of just how big the Hindenburg was, keep in mind that it remains the largest aircraft ever flown. Some of the smaller, modern advertising blimps, such as Goodyear’s, have a total length only slightly larger than the circumference of the Hindenburg. If the Hindenburg were to be stood on its end it would dwarf the Washington Monument by comparison. Perhaps by viewing the image below, you’ll get a better idea, wherein the Hindenburg is compared to the Titanic who suffered a similar fate when she met up with that ice berg.

Anyway, it must have been a remarkable experience for her passengers; they enjoyed staterooms with private showers, a dining room which served the finest food on blue and gold porcelain place settings, spectacular views along its windowed 200-foot-long promenade deck, but there was one restriction, the ship had a no smoking rule because of the hydrogen, however, smoking was permitted in a special fireproof room.

The cost for a one-way trip across the Atlantic cost $400 in 1936 and took only two days. Not bad in today’s Dollars; but keep in mind though that $400.00 in 1936 had the same buying power as $6,353.01 has in 2011, if you consider an annual inflation rate of only 3.76%.

On May 3rd, 1937, the Zeppelin left Frankfurt, Germany for North America carrying a total of 97 people. The trip started out smoothly and by 11:40 A.M. on May 6th the airship was passing over Boston. But the planned landing at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey was deferred due to bad weather, so the ship's captain decided to fly over New York City, giving his passengers spectacular views of the Empire State Building, Central Park, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and among other things to view was a baseball game, during this added adventure, which was being played between the Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

By 4 P.M. the Hindenburg had returned to Lakehurst, but the weather was still to worrisome to dock / moor. Finally, at 7:00 P.M., she started her landing. When within 700 feet of the mooring mast, the engines were reversed, slowing the ship to a complete stop so ropes could be dropped from the ship so as to allow the ground crew to manually pull the ship into the proper position. At this point the Zeppelin was floating less than 300 feet above the ground. The time was 7:25 P.M.

Within approximately 37 seconds after the first flames were spotted by spectators, the skeleton of the airship’s framework lay upon the ground, it being the only thing visible through the fire. Most of the passengers jumped through the broken windows and ran for safety. Of the 97 people on board, incredibly 62 escaped the inferno with their lives, including the captain of the ship. Although both the German and the American governments investigated the tragedy afterwards, the cause was never conclusively determined.

There was only one other airship constructed by the Zeppelin Company. She was called Graf Zeppelin II. At the start of WW II she was drafted into military service by the Nazi Government for a short time, but she was soon dismantled and the parts were used for the war effort. The zeppelin, once thought to be the wave of the future, was suddenly a thing of the past, not because of the disaster I’ve described above, but because of the advent of jet passenger planes following WW II.

Sources ...                                                                               http://wn.com/Hindenburg_1937                                                    http://www.unmuseum.org/hindenburg.htm                         http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm