German Zeppelin Hindenburg, Queen of the Skies!
Hello, friends! 3rd May 1937, around 8 PM. A Hindenburg aircraft takes off from Frankfurt, Germany. This aircraft was headed to New Jersey, America, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It carried about 97 passengers, 36 passengers and 61 crew members. And when I use the word ‘aircraft’ here, I don’t mean an aeroplane. ”Airship”
Instead, the word aircraft means an Airship. Hindenburg was an airship. The world’s most giant airship. 245 meters long. Compare its size with today’s Boeing 747 aircraft, and you will realize how big it was. Titanic, once the world’s largest ship, Hindenburg, was only 24 meters shorter than it. This is why Hindenburg was called the Queen of the Skies and was the pride of Nazi Germany.
The view inside the Hindenburg airship was terrific. People would see such luxuries while flying in the sky, which perhaps is lost today. People had separate rooms to sleep in, a dining room where everyone could eat together, and a lounge with a grand piano. There was also a reading and writing room, and a ticket price was $700 then, which is more than $7,000 today.
Only the rich could afford to travel in this. On 6th May 1937, after a 3-day long journey, Hindenburg reaches America thousands of miles away. It has to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. It starts descending slowly. It was 7 PM. While landing, people on the ground hold on to its ropes. It had a different way of landing. Many people gathered to see it land because it was a historic ship. Some cameramen were also present there.
That day, this landing of Hindenburg was being filmed on camera. The weather conditions weren’t favourable. The sky was overcast with clouds and strong winds. The captain took a sharp turn to align the aircraft with the winds. The crew on the ground rushed to secure the ropes. The plane was about to land when a loud bang was suddenly heard. Within the blink of an eye, the airship was engulfed in flames. The aircraft crashed in just 34 seconds, and the whole plane was destroyed in the fire.
“The actual crash of the Hindenburg, an airship destroyed in less than half a minute, seared in the skeleton of what was once a mighty airship.” The Hindenburg disaster shook the world. What was the reason behind this disaster? Experts and investigators try to find the answers. Three main theories were presented.
The first theory was that this airship was targeted for sabotage. It was part of a dangerous plan to destroy the pride of Nazi Germany. Some people believed that some anti-Nazi activist or some other country had hidden a bomb in the Hindenburg airship. That’s why the explosion occurred. Some people thought that Adolf Hitler himself had blown up the Hindenburg airship. Hitler’s people planted a bomb on it to blow up their own country’s airship. Why would they do that?
The owner of the company that manufactured these airships was Hugo Eckener. He was among the few people who openly spoke against Hitler and the Nazis during Hitler’s rule. It was not easy to raise your voice against Hitler publicly at that time. This is the reason why in 1933, when the Nazi party came to power, Hitler tried to arrest Hugo Eckener. However, at that time, his arrest was blocked by the German President Paul von Hindenburg.
You heard it right: the name of the German President at that time was Hindenburg. You can already guess the origin of the name of this airship. Three years later, in 1936, when the world’s giant airship was ready, Hitler’s propaganda minister, Goebbels, requested Eckener to name the airship after Hitler. But Hugo Eckener didn’t give in.
And he named this airship Hindenburg. Some people believed that Hitler had blown up this airship with a bomb in jealousy and to destroy Eckener’s reputation. Even before this, when the Hindenburg airship was on its first flight, Hitler’s government tried to use it to spread its Nazi propaganda. You will see that in many photos of this airship, Nazi party flags are drawn on the tail of this airship. It is said that Hugo Eckener was very strict about safety standards.
But when Nazi Party took control of these airships, they put anyone they wanted in charge. However, their followers were not qualified enough. Often, they ignored safety standards. That’s why it almost crashed when the Hindenburg airship took its first flight. But the airship was severely damaged. There was a big argument following the incident between the Nazi propaganda ministry and Eckener.
However, the second theory points to static electricity generated in the atmosphere by the airship. You must have read about static electricity in school. The static charge was said to have built up on Hindenburg’s metal frame. When it sparked, the hydrogen gas in the airship suddenly ignited. It is said that the pilot took a sharp turn, which caused the explosion.
Then comes the third theory, which focuses on lightning strikes. As I told you, the weather was terrible that day. It is theorized that lightning might have struck, which caused the hydrogen to catch fire. Which theory fits the most here? Before we understand this, we need to understand the history of airships.
Today, flying has become very commonplace due to aeroplanes. But if we go back 500 years, people could only dream of flying. In the 1500s, people used to see birds flying in the sky and felt very jealous. People used to wish that they could also fly. And many people tried to do the same. In 1507, a man named John Damien covered his hands with chicken feathers and jumped from the roof of a castle in Scotland.
He started waving his hands like a bird, hoping also to start flying. But unfortunately, he fell from the roof. He broke his bones. And when he was asked later, he claimed that had he used an eagle’s feathers instead, he would have flown. He was not the only one. Many people have tried to jump from a tower or a high wall throughout history.
Sometimes they stuck feathers on themselves, sometimes kites, sometimes balloons. Eventually, people realized that there are only two ways to fly. First, we need to make ourselves lighter than air, like through a balloon. Second, we must generate enough power to take off in the sky. For the second way, we needn’t be lighter than air. All the aeroplanes and helicopters you see flying today use this second method.
They generate enough power to fly in the air. But the story of airships and friends is the first method. They were flying in the air by making themselves lighter. In the 1770s, two brothers in France, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. These brothers were brilliant and creative. One day, they saw someone drying clothes over a fire. Joseph observes that the heat produced by the fire causes the clothes to start flying upwards.
This gave him the idea of doing the same thing on a bigger scale. He started by making a small box of thin wood and covering it with a lightweight cloth. He put a crumpled piece of paper inside the box and set it on fire. He saw that the box started flying once the fire was lit. Immediately, he started making a bigger model of the box with his brother.
On 14th December 1782, the first test flight was conducted with a full-size model. They set fire to wool and hay. The lifting force produced was so strong that they lost control of their box, and it kept flying for 2 km. The following year, in 1783, they held a public demonstration in the presence of the king of France, King Louis, in his palace in Versailles.
In this demonstration, they put a duck and a hen in the box to demonstrate that animals could fly safely. When the king saw this, he was pleased. Thus, they got permission to test it with humans inside the box. And this, friends, is how the hot air balloon was invented. Jacques-Étienne became the first man to fly in a balloon.
Moving on with our story, in the 1850s, a young boy named Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin lived in a small town in Germany. It was indeed a long name with a lot of gravitas. This boy went to America, and during the American Civil War, he saw how the Union Army was using balloons in the army. His interest in balloons increased, and as he kept rising through the ranks in the military by 1874, this boy penned down the idea of an airship in his diary.
By this point in time, balloons had become quite advanced. Engines were being installed on balloons so that they could be steered toward the desired direction. Some balloons used steam engines, and some used electric-powered engines. In 1891, Zeppelin resigned from the army at 52 and focused entirely on developing airships. The base idea was that only one gas bag was in a balloon.
But if we were to use multiple gas bags and somehow make the whole structure more rigid, a big, sturdy aircraft could be built. Zeppelin worked with a team of engineers to refine his idea. An aluminium framework was made. In 1898, he received some investment, which led to the development of the first airship. It was called LZ-1.
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And friends, this is why we still call airships Zeppelins, because the name of the man who invented them was Ferdinand von Zeppelin. But, there are many problems and hurdles in the story after this. Zeppelins used to use hydrogen power. But in America, helium was used. The difference between the two gases is unsurmountable. Hydrogen gas can easily catch fire. But helium is an inert gas. It doesn’t catch fire easily. The concept is the same. Both gases are lighter than air. They help the airship fly in the air. On 2nd July 1900, LZ-1 completed its first flight. It stayed in the air for 20 minutes but suffered damages during the landing.
Zeppelin started repairing it but mortgaged his wife’s assets due to a shortage of funds to gather more money. He then completed LZ-2 in 1905. But a control part broke off before it could fly, so it never flew. It took another year to repair it. 1906, he ran it through testing once again, but another major flaw was revealed. Due to strong winds, the control of the airship was lost.
He used the remaining parts to build LZ-3. He wanted to prove to the military that he could successfully create an aircraft. The military demanded that it be durable for at least 24 hours. It would need to pass a durability test. But the airship failed. To pass this test, he made LZ-4. But one night, the LZ-4 was destroyed after a strong storm. “In high winds, the Zepplin breaks free from its moorings. And suddenly, the entire airship explodes.”
This story is a perfect example of this real-life quote. Try, try till you succeed. Those who never stop trying fail. Around the same time 1903, the famous Wright Brothers achieved their first victorious flight in an aeroplane. After so many attempts, Zeppelin finally started getting publicity. People started noticing how hard he was trying to build airships.
He made more investments and founded a company. He improved LZ-3, and finally, 1908 test flights were conducted. Despite bad weather, these test flights were successful. The government officially accepted LZ-3. And Zeppelin was highly celebrated. Over the next few years, Zeppelin made a lot of improvements, but he died in 1917.
After World War I ended in 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles was signed, it held that Germany was not allowed to keep military aircraft any longer. Till now, these airships were being used only for military purposes. Here, Dr Hugo Eckener enters our story.
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After Zeppelin’s death, he took over the company. He was the first to realize that Zeppelins could be used for commercial flights, not only during the military or war. After this, in 1924, LZ-126 took its first flight. It was flown by none other than
Hugo Eckener himself. A journey of more than 8000 km was completed in 80 hours. When this airship landed in America, people welcomed it with applause—calling it an Angel of Peace. A machine that was, until then, used only for fighting was being used for the public. Eckener developed the next model, LZ-127, in 1928. But they weren’t destined to last long.
As I told you, the Nazi Party came into power in 1933, and Eckener was one of the people who openly criticized Hitler. Now, if we get back to the time after the Hindenburg disaster, after an investigation ranging several decades, it was found that neither Hitler nor the Nazi Party played a role in the disaster. The biggest reason behind this accident, what is said to be the most probable theory, is hydrogen leakage and explosion due to static electricity.
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Unfortunately, this disaster ruins the reputation of all the airships. People realize how easily hydrogen catches fire. Travelling in airships could be very dangerous. However, helium gas was also being used at the time. However, the problem was that the helium gas supply was restricted to America. America had imposed a ban on the export of helium gas. By the 1940s, on the one hand, the reputation of airships was declining. People were scared to travel in them. On the other hand, aeroplanes started improving. The speed, reliability, and operating cost of passenger aeroplanes rapidly enhanced.
In comparison to aeroplanes, the speed of airships was plodding. The planes flew around 100 km per hour at 700, 800, or 1,000 km per hour. It was challenging to get Helium gas, and airships were more vulnerable in bad weather.
This is why people of our generation have never travelled in these airships or seen them.
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It wasn’t perfect because the experience of travelling with them was very different. Flying slowly at a low altitude and with such big windows, what a view it must’ve been! The good news is that these airships can be revived in the coming years. In 2017, a UK-based company, Hybrid Air Vehicles, ran a test flight for their giant airship, Airlander 10, known as the world’s largest aircraft.
It is not so difficult to get helium gas today, so it is much safer. Plus, due to climate change, the concern for carbon emissions is increasing. So, compared to aeroplanes, these airships release one-tenth of the carbon emissions. Fuel costs are also reduced. And they fly almost silently without much noise. So, it is estimated by this company that after 2030, they will start commercial flights in their airships. How will it be? Only time can tell.
Thank you very much!
