HINDENBURG ANNIVERSARY

[digger]

May 6th was 70th anniversary of the 'demise' of the HINDENBURG,
The "concorde" of the sky became the Titanic of the sky...

interesting article.. (american)

70 years on, Hindenburg horror remains - US news - Life - msnbc.com

[JDNSW]

To a significant extent the disaster can be laid at the feet of the Nazis - it seems likely that it would not have happened if they had not forced Dr Eckener out of the company management, and it certainly would not have happened if the USA had not refused to supply the helium for which it was designed. The ban on the supply was because of the Nazi government of Germany.

It is interesting to speculate what would have been the future of airships without the disaster.

John

[drivesafe]

Hi John and while have not read digger’s link, I’m not sure that the disaster would not have happened if helium had been available.

The primary cause of the fire was the coating applied to the outside covers of the air ship.

Aluminium power was used to reflect sunlight off the gas bags so reducing the amount of change that occurred when the hydrogen is heated or cooled.

If those designing the Hindenburg had had access to those working on Germany’s rocket engines, they would have been aware that aluminium makes a great basis for rocket propulsion fuel.

[p38arover]

It is interesting to speculate what would have been the future of airships without the disaster.

But there was also the disaster of the British R101

from Wikipedia

The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development, and was one of the worst airship accidents of the 1930s. The loss of life was greater than in the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 and was second only to that of the USS Akron crash in 1933.

[d@rk51d3]

But helium doesn't burn, does it? Or would the aluminium act as a catalyst and change it somehow into a flammable?

[JDNSW]

The fire in the Hindenburg was almost certainly started by a spark from a breaking wire stay igniting hydrogen that had accumulated in a ship designed for helium and without the ventilation system that was installed in the Graf Zeppelin. The aluminium filled doped skin, plus the diesel fuel, were what gave the visibility and smoke to the flames, and contributed most of the thermal energy - a hydrogen flame is almost colourless. Aluminium filled dope (celluloid dissolved in acetone as a solvent plus filler) had been used on fixed wing aircraft since about 1914, and its flammability was well known - no rocket scientists were needed. It continues to be used to this day on fabric covered aircraft, and, as far as I know, has never been suggested as a source of ignition (I recall a replica Vickers Vimy being destroyed by a spontaneous fire starting in the covering - but that was not aluminium filled dope, but was unfilled, making the covering translucent - may have been planned to add extra coats of filled dope). But it does burn well once ignited - but then, so does any hydrocarbon fuel!.

As Ron comments, the crash of the R101 was a far greater disaster than the Hindenburg, and effectively ended British airship development. However, it was a far less public disaster - it happened at night, in heavy rain. The cause was also well known, and not applicable to airships in general, or hydrogen inflation in particular. The R101 flew into rising terrain in bad weather, having run out of negative bouyancy due to weight gain from the rain. However, it was overweight, untested, and was issued with a certificate of airworthiness by the political head of the air ministry after the technical head refused to do so and offered his resignation.

The R101 disaster needs to be compared with the successful two way Atlantic crossing of the R100, developed at the same time to meet the same requirement. Similarly, the Hindenburg disaster should be compared to the success of the Graf Zeppelin, but none of this mattered after the very public disaster of the Hindenburg!

John

[langy]

I wasn't going to say anything about Mr D's post but now there have been some replies (Including by those who may appear to be a little pedantic about grammar ) may I point out something obvious:

The article linked to the post was written in 2007.

It's 75 years since the Hindenburg went down.

[VladTepes]

Irrespective of R101 or Hindenberg the development of, and future of, big airships like the Hindenberg was always limited and finite.

Much like the great Ocean Liners competitng for the Blue Riband (shortest time to cross the Atlantic to New York) once heavier-than-air craft were developed sufficiently to carry passengers, those older slower (albeit more romantic) means of transport became largely irrelevant.

There is, it is true, a huge recreational cruising market in shipping these days howver the same would not apply to airships. Only a real enthusiast would want to "cruise" the Atlantic by air ship and it would be VERY expensive. It would never draw the crowds to fly on them as you cant go to a casino, giant smorgasboard, show, swimming pool etc)

[p38arover]

The R100 disaster needs to be compared with the successful two way Atlantic crossing of the R100, developed at the same time to meet the same requirement. Similarly, the Hindenburg disaster should be compared to the success of the Graf Zeppelin, but none of this mattered after the very public disaster of the Hindenburg!

Some of you may have heard of the novelist, Nevil Shute, (I'm sure JDNSW has) and may have enjoyed his work in book or film form, e.g. A Town Like Alice, No Highway, On the Beach, etc. He was also an aeronautical engineer who worked on the R100.

He also formed the aircraft company, Airspeed [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspeed_Ltd"]Airspeed Ltd. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame].. You may know of the Ambassador and the Oxford, etc. I can recommend his autobiograhy, Slide Rule

He migrated to Oz (Langwarrin, Victoria) in 1948 (or thereabouts).

From Wiki:

Shute worked as Chief Calculator (stress engineer) on the R100 airship project for the subsidiary Airship Guarantee Company. In 1929, he was promoted to Deputy Chief Engineer of the R100 project under Sir Barnes Wallis.

The R100 was a prototype for passenger-carrying airships that would serve the needs of Britain's empire. The government-funded but privately-developed R100 was a success in that it made a successful return trip to and from Canada and also while in Canada local trips to Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls from Montreal. But the fatal 1930 crash in France of its government-developed counterpart R101 while flying to India ended Britain's interest in airships. The Secretary of State for Air, Lord Thomson, died in this crash. The R100 was grounded and scrapped. Shute gives a detailed account of the episode in his 1954 autobiographical work, Slide Rule. He strongly hinted in this autobiography that if there had been co-operation between the two teams the tragedy of R101 could well have been averted. But according to Shute there was virtually no contact between him and Sir Harold Roxbee Cox who was the Head of Development of R101 project until the very end.

[JDNSW]

Irrespective of R101 or Hindenberg the development of, and future of, big airships like the Hindenberg was always limited and finite.

Much like the great Ocean Liners competitng for the Blue Riband (shortest time to cross the Atlantic to New York) once heavier-than-air craft were developed sufficiently to carry passengers, those older slower (albeit more romantic) means of transport became largely irrelevant.

There is, it is true, a huge recreational cruising market in shipping these days howver the same would not apply to airships. Only a real enthusiast would want to "cruise" the Atlantic by air ship and it would be VERY expensive. It would never draw the crowds to fly on them as you cant go to a casino, giant smorgasboard, show, swimming pool etc)

In 1929 the Graf Zepelin flew nonstop across the Atlantic carrying 25 fare paying passengers plus mail and freight. To put fixed wing aircraft into perspective at the time, this was only two years after Lindbergh barely managed a non-stop crossing with pilot only and no payload. And no fixed wing aircraft carried paying passengers across the Atlantic before WW2, although there were test flights (with intermediate stops) in 1937.

Certainly by 1937 it was apparent that fixed wing aircraft had the promise of beating airships for long distance transport, but it was not until the introduction of the big flying boats right at the end of the thirties (Boeing Clipper and Shorts Empire) that fixed wing aircraft could compete on range - and even then, their range was nothing comparable to airships; the Graf Zeppelin for example, had a range of close to 10,000km, and carried twenty passengers, with a crew of forty. For comparison, the Boeing Clipper, ten years later, carried up to 74 passengers (but only 36 overnight), with a crew of 13, but only had a range of 6,000km, although admittedly it travelled at twice the speed. Nearer to the same era, in 1936, the Hindenberg had similar range to the Graf Zeppelin, but carried up to seventy passengers although still at about half the speed of the Boeing.

No, in 1937, fixed wing aircraft could not outperform airships for long range passenger travel. Of course, it needs to be borne in mind that only a tiny proportion of travellers used air at this time anyway - the DC-3 in 1936 introduced short haul air travel for business, and the era of mass long distance air travel did not arrive until the jets or even jumbos.

Not usually noted, the weak point of rigid airships was not so much the fact that they used hydrogen, but the fact that they were very vulnerable to weather. Given their size and relatively weak structure, and the fact that they cannot travel 'above the weather', they are very vulnerable, for example to thunderstorms and turbulence due to ground effects. This said, despite the fate of the Hindenberg, a larger proportion of airship accidents have probably been survivable.

John