Travel In Airships , And The Hindenburg Crash

I have been looking at some pictures and videos of the old airships, and I find it fascinating. Mostly, we only hear about two of the airships, the Hindenburg, and the Goodyear Blimp. However, since back into the 1800’s when they first began using airships, there have been a lot of them, and they were actually widely used back in that time period.
According to this video about what happened with the Hindenburg, it was thought to be some kind of an electrical spark that started the fire (although the cause is actually unknown because there was no evidence left afterwards), and the Hindenburg was using hydrogen instead of helium.

Most of the airships had used helium, which is only a little heavier than hydrogen, but much, much safer. However, Germany was unable to get the helium, so they used hydrogen in the Hindenburg instead. The airship had been in use for over three years, with no problems, but the fire started just as the airship a=was landing and there were a lot of people and reporters there who witnessed the fiery crash , so it made headline news, even though it was not the first or only airship crash.

Over half of the people onboard survived the crash, which is more than can be said about any of the airplane crashes we have nowadays, which makes me think that it was no more dangerous than an airplane, but it did take a lot longer to get somewhere.

 

This is an extremely interesting video that shows many of the early airships, how they looked and what they were used for. We even had some that belonged to our military, which we really do not hear much about.
Since it seemed like they were mostly pretty safe (for the time period), it is interesting that we didn’t keep on using airships. They are a lot slower than an airplane, but as long as they are used with helium and not hydrogen, they seem to be pretty safe and would be an interesting way to travel.

This is a longer video, but has some amazing pictures of the earliest airships, as well as some of the lore and mystery that surrounded the first ones made.

 

Here is a screenshot from an interesting little Twitter video I watched this morning. it appears that Amazon is also looking into using airships/blimps along with the drone deliveries.
Aside from seeing the pictures of the Hindenburg crash inferno, we really do not learn a lot about airship travel, and how widespread it was at one time.
I am starting to explore this more, and if Amazon is considering using airships, then I think we must have found a way to make them safe, as least as much as other forms of air transportation.

 

I was gonna ask how doing this could possibly make financial sense. Now I know...it doesn't.

 

I love seeing the pictures of the old airships, just floating along through the sky, and it seems to me like it could be a technology that we could still use if people worked on it.
If they could do it back in the 1800’s, with the knowledge and technology they had back then, we certainly could build better ones now.
Probably the downside would be the time that it takes for the airship to get somewhere, because instead of hours to go from the US to Europe, it would take days, more like the old ocean liners did.
In any case, here are some neat pictures of the oldtime Zeppelins.

 

Here is a really neat video showing more of the Old World airships, how large they were, and how it actually was to travel in them, almost like one of the modern day cruise ships are, when you look at the pictures of the inside of these giant airships.
There were separate bedrooms, dining areas, and much more !
He also talks about the reason the Hindenburg crash happened, as well as pictures of other old world buildings where the airships docked.

 

Were the engines running, or was it dead silent?

 

I was thinking of how eerie it would have been for that massive ship to be silently looming overhead.