60 Fun Facts About Airships

What is a non-rigid airship that keeps its shape purely through internal gas pressure called?

Blimps have no internal framework at all; smaller air bags called ballonets are inflated or deflated inside the envelope to control lift.

Which lifting gas, used in most early airships, made them so prone to catastrophic fires?

It lifts slightly better than helium and was cheap and easy to make, which is why builders kept using it despite the danger.

The Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937 while trying to land at a naval air station in which US state?

The Lakehurst mooring mast was the American terminus of the Zeppelin company's transatlantic service, and the disaster unfolded in front of newsreel cameras.

Rigid airships are called 'zeppelins' after a company founded by a count from which country?

Luftschiffbau Zeppelin built the vast majority of the world's rigid airships, and its founder gave his name to the whole type.

Which tyre company operates a famous fleet of advertising airships?

The company built hundreds of airships in the 20th century, mostly for the US Navy, before its own commercial fleet made the brand a fixture over stadiums.

How many of the 97 people aboard the Hindenburg died in the disaster?

Thirteen passengers and 22 crew were killed, plus one member of the ground crew; more than 60 people on board survived the fire.

Herbert Morrison's eyewitness account of the Hindenburg fire was recorded for a radio station in which city?

Radio broadcasts were rarely recorded then; Morrison and an engineer had chosen the arrival to experiment with delayed broadcast, which is why his words survived.

The Hindenburg's namesake field marshal held which Weimar office from 1925 to 1934?

Paul von Hindenburg had commanded German forces in the First World War before becoming head of state of the Weimar Republic.

What activity had a pressurised, air-locked room aboard the flammable Hindenburg?

A bar steward checked departing passengers to make sure nobody carried a lit cigarette or pipe back into the rest of the ship.

What heavy aluminium luxury item was aboard the Hindenburg in 1936 and removed a year later to save weight?

The Blüthner instrument sat in the music salon during the airship's first year of service.

Henri Giffard's 1852 airship, the first powered and controlled flight, used an engine powered by what?

The wind was too strong for him to fly back, but he made turns and circles, proving a powered airship could be steered.

Which Brazilian aviator won 100,000 francs in 1901 by flying his airship around the Eiffel Tower?

He designed 18 balloons and dirigibles before turning to fixed-wing aircraft, and his small airships inspired a generation of inventors.

The French Army airship La France made the first fully controllable free flight in 1884 using what motor?

Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs covered 8 km in 23 minutes and landed where they took off, powered by an 8.5 hp motor and a 435 kg battery.

In what year did the first Zeppelin, LZ 1, make its maiden flight?

The flawed LZ 1 was followed by the more successful LZ 2 in 1906, launching the most successful line of airships ever built.

Count Zeppelin made his first balloon ascent in 1863 while visiting which country as a military observer?

After observing the Union army during the Civil War he travelled to Minnesota, where he went up with balloonist John Steiner in St. Paul.

During the First World War, in which year did German airship raids on England begin?

The raids peaked in 1916, and the last one came in August 1918; the material damage was small but they tied up British resources.

What British innovation of 1916 finally made the flammable Zeppelins vulnerable to fighter aircraft?

Ordinary bullets simply punched small holes in envelopes whose pressure was barely above ambient air.

Which ship launched the world's first successful carrier air strike, on the Zeppelin base at Tønder in 1918?

Seven Sopwith Camels flew off the ship and destroyed L 54 and L 60 in their sheds.

Which British airship made the first Atlantic crossing by a passenger aircraft in July 1919, landing on Long Island?

The return flight took 75 hours; despite the achievement, Britain's airship programme was rapidly wound down.

The Italian-built semi-rigid Norge, in May 1926, was the first aircraft to fly over which location?

Roald Amundsen, designer Umberto Nobile and American Lincoln Ellsworth crossed from Spitsbergen to Alaska on the flight.

Who designed and piloted the airship Norge on its 1926 polar flight?

The airship was originally the Italian N-1; it was renamed when the Norwegian Aviation Society bought it for the expedition.

USS Shenandoah (1923) was the first airship inflated with which then-scarce gas?

When the USS Los Angeles arrived, the two ships had to share the supply and alternated between flying and overhaul.

What aircraft did the flying aircraft carrier USS Akron launch and recover in flight?

The Curtiss F9C biplanes hooked onto a trapeze lowered from a hangar inside the hull.

Why did the 1933 loss of USS Akron kill 73 of the 76 people aboard?

Most died of drowning or hypothermia; life jackets and inflatable rafts were added to its sister ship Macon as a result.

USS Macon was lost in 1935 after a structural failure off the coast of which US state?

It went down near Point Sur Lighthouse; only two of its 83 crew died thanks to the safety gear added after the Akron disaster.

The USS Akron and Macon still hold the world record as the largest airships filled with which gas?

At 785 feet they were only about 18 feet shorter than the Hindenburg class, but the German ships were hydrogen-filled.

The 1930 crash of the British airship R101 on its maiden voyage to India happened near which French town?

Forty-eight of the 54 people aboard died, including the Air Minister who had championed the programme, and Britain gave up on airships.

Which government minister, who initiated the Imperial Airship Scheme, was killed on R101?

Almost all of the ship's designers from the Royal Airship Works died with him.

Which engineer, later famous for the bouncing bomb, headed the R100 airship's design team?

Novelist Nevil Shute Norway worked under him as senior stress engineer, and later wrote about the project.

R100 successfully flew to and from which country in 1930 before the whole scheme was scrapped?

After R101 crashed that October, the Imperial Airship Scheme ended and R100 was broken up for scrap.

What unusual fuel, with a density close to air, did the Graf Zeppelin burn to avoid venting lifting gas?

The propane-like gas was stored in large bags below the hydrogen cells, and it helped give the ship its remarkable range.

Which American newspaper magnate paid half the cost of the Graf Zeppelin's 1929 round-the-world flight?

He insisted the flight officially start and finish at Lakehurst and put four of his own staff on board, including Lady Hay Drummond-Hay.

The Graf Zeppelin's 1930s passenger service linked Frankfurt with which South American city?

The Brazilian run took 68 hours and came close to turning a profit even with such a small ship.

Roughly how many flights did the Graf Zeppelin make in its career?

It carried 24 passengers with a crew of 36 and its costs were partly covered by selling special postage stamps to collectors.

Who was the Zeppelin company chairman who conceived the Graf Zeppelin and commanded the USS Los Angeles delivery flight?

Eckener also flew LZ 126 across the Atlantic in 1924 to hand it to the US Navy as a war reparation.

Which country refused to sell Graf Zeppelin II the non-flammable helium it needed?

It flew test flights and electronic espionage missions until 1939, and both Graf Zeppelins were scrapped in April 1940.

Which New York skyscraper, completed in 1931, has an airship mooring mast no airship ever used?

The mast was built in anticipation of a passenger airship service that never arrived at its rooftop.

How many of the tens of thousands of ships escorted by US Navy blimps in WWII were sunk by submarines?

The tanker Persephone was the sole loss among roughly 89,000 escorted ships, while 532 unescorted ships went down near the US coast.

Blimp K-74, the only US airship shot down by a U-boat, was lost in 1943 near which state?

The crew landed in the water without loss of life, though one crewman later died in a shark attack before rescue.

A View to a Kill (1985) featured an airship in the livery of which villain's company?

The real aircraft was a Skyship 500, one of the British blimps built by Airship Industries.

A 1990s Zeppelin NT went to South Africa carrying diamond-detection gear for which company?

The very stable, low-vibration platform suited the survey work, and the ship was adapted for desert heat with its own mooring mast and truck.

What was the first of Goodyear's Zeppelin-built semi-rigid US airships, introduced in 2014, named?

It was christened at the Wingfoot Lake hangar near Goodyear's Akron headquarters, though the company still calls the new ships blimps.

The tyre company's first commercial blimp, launched in 1925, carried what name?

Goodyear built the last blimp of its own manufacture, Spirit of Innovation, which retired in 2017.

What was the most successful metal-clad airship, flown 1929–41, designated?

It was scrapped because it was considered too small for anti-submarine patrols, not because of any failure.

Which Jesuit, the 'Father of Aeronautics', designed a 1670 'Aerial Ship' held aloft by evacuated copper spheres?

The idea, now called a vacuum airship, is unbuildable because air pressure would crush any sphere light enough to float.

Engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo, whose 'auto-rigid' airship France's Astra mass-produced, came from which country?

He also proposed mooring an airship by its nose to a mast so it could weathervane with the wind, an idea still used today.

The Soviet airship SSSR-V6, holder of a 130-hour endurance record, was destroyed in 1938 when it hit what?

Thirteen of the 19 people aboard died, but the Soviets kept flying non-rigid airships until 1950.

The first thermal airship, lifted by heated air, was flown in 1973 by a company from which country?

Cameron Balloons built it, and the same maker later produced the giant AS-300 that carried a botanical raft over rainforest canopies.

1930s airships, with private cabins and dining rooms, were compared to which transport?

They were faster than liners too, but the crew often outnumbered the passengers and huge ground teams were needed for mooring.

The Hindenburg was built by its Friedrichshafen makers on the shores of which body of water?

Friedrichshafen on the Bodensee built the Hindenburg and still makes the modern Zeppelin NT.

What symbol was painted on the Hindenburg's hull during its 1936 trial flights, alongside its registration?

They promoted the Berlin Summer Games that August; the name Hindenburg itself had been chosen quietly by Hugo Eckener a year earlier.

The Hindenburg was shortened by 11 metres from its planned length so it would fit in a hangar where?

Its transatlantic flights from Frankfurt ended at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, where it burned in May 1937.

The German-built airship USS Los Angeles was delivered to the US Navy in 1924 as what?

It replaced Zeppelins assigned to the US after WWI that German crews had sabotaged in 1919, and was used to develop the parasite fighter programme.

What is the nickname of Britain's Airlander 10 hybrid airship?

Built for a US Army surveillance programme, it was written off in 2017 after breaking loose from its moorings at Cardington in high wind.

Which polar explorer vanished in 1928 en route to help rescue survivors of Nobile's airship Italia?

He had flown over the North Pole with Nobile aboard the Norge in 1926; his French Latham seaplane disappeared en route to Spitsbergen.

The WWI German naval airship L 59, 'The Africa Ship', was recalled in November 1917 over which country?

It was trying to resupply Lettow-Vorbeck's East African garrison and was 201 km west of Khartoum when the abort message came.

The giant hangar of bankrupt German airship firm CargoLifter became what in 2004?

The 360-metre-long dome near Berlin was built for a planned 160-tonne-payload airship that was never completed.

How is the modern NT-class airship, built in Friedrichshafen since the 1990s, classified?

Its helium envelope surrounds an internal frame, unlike a blimp; it can fly low-vibration for up to 24 hours for research and sightseeing.

Which captain commanded the Hindenburg's maiden flight in March 1936, launching despite gusty winds?

Lehmann wanted an on-time departure to impress Nazi officials and the press; Eckener was relegated to 'supervisor' with no operational control.

How many passengers were aboard the Hindenburg's first North Atlantic crossing in May 1936?

It left Frankfurt on 6 May and reached Lakehurst on 9 May, the first of ten round trips to North America that year.