info of airships
The history of the airship starts with Mont Golfiler brothers. Their airship was a hot-air baloon. It was basically made of paper. It manage to fly for a few miles. It flew in the year 177... something. I don't remember. The next airships that were made were filled with hydrogen. They mostly crashed either from leaks, tears, or the airships burst into flames.
In 1900, an ex military man named graf [count] Ferdinand von zeppelin flew airship LZ1. It didn't work very well and was scraped. A few years later he made a few more ships and established a relyable passenger service until wwi.It was then employed as a bomber. After wwi Zeppelin co. made two passenger airships which were scraped to prevent them from being taken by Britian and France as war reperations.
Italy made two airships for arctic exploration. They were both semi-ridged airships and both crashed. Britian had a competition between two companies, a private co. vs a government co., for a better design for an imperial airship service. The private, or "capitalist", airship R100 went from britian to canada and back without a hitch. The government, or "socialist", ship R101 was heading for India from England and crash not long after it crossed the English channal. PATHETIC!!! R101 caused the end of the entire british airship program. America had only build three giant airships. One was torn apart over Ohio. The other two were special airships. They were very strong and could carry airplanes. ZRS-4 USS AKRON crashed into the sea off the east coast. ZRS-5 USS MACON broke apart in-flight off the California coast.
Airship passenger service was ruined by LZ-129 HINDENBURG. It ruined the airships reputation faster than Howard Dean ruined his run for the presidency. Newsreel film showed the ships destruction through out America. Radio news talked about it around the world. The last people to learn about the disaster were the last passengers of the LZ-127 GRAF ZEPPELIN. They were travaling to Germany from South America when it happened and were not told about it until the ship landed. In wwii, blimps were used for convoy escorts, to protect against u-boat attack, and of the thousands of ships escorted, only one ship was sunk by a u-boat.
In the cold war, blimbs were used for anti-submarine warfare and flying billboards. Hot-air baloons were brought back for recreational use. New passenger ships are being made and stato-spheric blimps are being designed for cheaper replacements to satalites. Airships are making a comeback.
