planeandpilotmag.com 37A NEW FUTURE FOR AIRSHIPS?
Since the demise of the category as a mover of people
in the mid-1930s, airships have struggled to maintain
relevance. They haven’t disappeared. They have, rather,
become tethered to a couple of common roles, serving
as giant floating billboards advertising everything from
tires to life insurance, while they simultaneously serve as
camera platforms at big sporting events, like tennis and
golf tournaments. When the action down on the court
or course gets a bit slow, which is often, that bird’s-eye-
view camera shot can really liven up the broadcast. Or
at least that’s the theory.
One of the reasons for airships’ lack of popularity is
not, we might add, their propensity to catch fire. Airship
makers have had the up-in-flames thing worked out for
many decades. Today, almost every airship is filled with
helium, which is about as light as hydrogen and a lot less
flammable. It is, unfortunately, a lot more expensive, but
the investment seems worth it given hydrogen’s extreme
flammability. With that, some observers point out that Jet
A and 100LL, the fuels that power nearly every conven-
tional fixed-wing aircraft, are both extremely flammable,
like hydrogen. And for the record, there is an ongoing,
lively debate about why the Hindenburg caught fire. Its
hydrogen filling has long been fingered as the culprit—a
single spark was said to have set it aflame—but many
believe that the craft’s chemically treated fabric covering
was a deadlier factor.
So, no, it’s not fear of fire that has kept airships from
regaining the spotlight; it’s that they’re painfully slow.
After all, who wants to whoosh from New York to L.A. in
six hours or so when you could instead bounce around
from coast to coast over a week’s time? Well, everyone...?
Airships worked as a form of transport back in the
1930s only because there weren’t any decent airliners
yet, so a trans-Atlantic trip across The Pond in a Zeppelin
made sense. The Zeppelins could get you from Germany
to the New York area in around five days, about the same
length of time as a steamer, though at a much higher
price. They were like Concorde for their day, but without
the sonic boom, and passengers paid a hefty fee to fly on
them. Regardless, by the 1950s, intercontinental jets had
put both airship and passenger ship companies out of
business, or very nearly so.HISTORICAL ARTIFACTS OR
HIGH-TECH MARVELS?
Technologically, airships are nothing short of awesome,
though that’s not obvious to outside observers. Martha
and John King, from King Schools, have ratings in every
kind of aircraft under the sun, and yet they rave about
their time getting their lighter-than-air certifications
as among their most rewarding. I had the chance to fly
on the old Goodyear (actual) Blimp a few years ago at
Oshkosh. It was fun to ride in—the views were spectacu-
lar, but even more, it was clearly an incredible challengeThe Hybrid Air Vehicles Airlander 10 is currently the largest aircraft in the world, though it's certainly not the heaviest. The aircraft maker refers to
the craft as a hybrid, owing to its use of additional aerodynamic surfaces to provide up to 40% of the lift, according to the company.