Hindenburg BBC & Nat Geo

[Skyedriver]

Two separate programmes discussing the history of the Zeppelin and the disaster of 1937.
Only link between the two progs is one of the interviewees.

Quite a bit of history leading up to the disaster, hadn't realised the number of previous flights the ship had flown.
One prog seems to spend a lot of time on the sabotage theory before closing while the other investigates the "spark" theory.
Interesting history and modern day science investigations.

[Eric Mc]

Links?

[cuprabob]

I watched one on Saturday that was on Channel 5 and it was very good. Should be available on My5

[Scotty2]

In the 1936 season, the Hindenburg crossed the Atlantic 34 times with only minor issues. An often overlooked fact.

But you have one firey inferno caught live on camera played round the world and that's it...

I've been to the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshaven which is amazing and the reproduction of the section of the passenger lounge when you see the scale of the ship is astounding. I also have been on the Zeppelin NT on the Bodensee tourist trips.

https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/flight-schedul...

ETA List of all flights (63!) and map.

Edited by Scotty2 on Monday 1st April 13:24

[Eric Mc]

Airships were (and probably always will be) very fragile things. They are big and are very light (naturally).

Most of the large airships of the 20s and 30s met some sort of unfortunate end (there were some exceptions - such as the Graf Zeppelin).

[Nethybridge]

Some airships certainly had a blameless safety record, but the technology of the
day couldn't really save these huge beasts from being at the mercy
of the weather , either they cracked like an egg when the frame
was under crosswind stress due to skimping on bracing to save weight, or just bad design,
had trouble maintaining altitude, were a nightmare to manoeuvre and
the threat of fire for non-helium models was ever present.

[Blackpuddin]

Brilliant programme with some amazing content.

[Skyedriver]

My mistake, one might have been on Channel 5.

The experimentation on the Nat Geo prog proved how easy a spark might have happened, static on the covering, damp atmosphere and rain, flash to the aluminium frame and earthed via a tie down rope.