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Nazi gasbag by the Custom House
By adamg on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 10:35am
The BPL has posted a ton of zeppelin and blimp photos from its Leslie Jones collection, including this one of the Hindenburg floating past the Custom House - taken sometime in August, 1936, several months before its last ever flight (which also took it over Boston).
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Comments
Could be May 6
The Hindenburg did fly over Boston on its last flight.
I have . . .
. . . a framed photo of the Hindenburg flying by the Custom House Tower on my wall- I have a view of the Custom House Tower from my place so it's kinda cool- and Airships are one of my hobby/interests.
My Photo is nearly the same as this and it was taken at 11:30AM on May 6th 1937. Later that day- at 7:30PM the Hindenburg blew up upon it's approach to Lakehurst New Jersey.
Thanks, guys
I've updated the post to reflect the possibility this was from the last flight.
Airships are back . . .
. . . by the way. Sorta. An Airship, as opposed to a simple blimp- has a metal superstructure inside allowing multiple engines to be mounted upon the fuselage and not simply the Gondola as in a blimp- allowing for far greater speeds and mobility (blimps are largely at the mercy of winds).
Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei- the Zepplein company that made these way back then- still exists- and now produces a hybrid- the Zeppelin NT- which is a semi rigid airship.
I flew on the NT about 6 years ago in Germany over the Bondsee. Absolutely stunning way to travel- 5000 feet cruising at 30MPH with the windows open- and very quiet.
Now- you don't have to travel to Germany to fly on an NT. Airship Ventures out of San Francisco now operates one for tours and for private hire.
And Lockheed is reportedly working on a hybrid right now- that would capable of moving hundreds of tons of equipment and personal- called "the Walrus".
http://www.zeppelinflug.de/seiten/e/default.htm
http://www.airshipventures.com/
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4538/
The Zeppelin Musuem in Friedrichshafen, Germany
On the shores of Lake Constance (aka Bodensee) has a great exhibit on the Hindenburg, complete with a full scale mockup of about a quarter of the ship's cabin and frame. I spent a few hours there in October of 2006. Later that day, I saw a real zeppelin flying over the shores of the lake, just west of Friedrichshafen I took the train up towards Ulm.
Not sure it is the last flight
The flickr page says that the photo was taken in August 1936 (date created: 1936-08).
Oh, yeah, that makes sense
I saw that and thought it meant "1936-1938," because a fair number of the older BPL photos have some pretty vague dates on them, but that might just mean it's time for my next caffeine IV.
Time
If the time is correct on the tower it looks like 12:10. Maybe this was not the last flight assuming your time stamp is authentic.
No- it's the last flight.
My photo actually shows the time as 11:40AM on the Custom House Tower Clock. It did several circles around the city and then headed South- where it did passes around the New York City Skyline- and then . . . blew up in New Jersey later that evening upon trying to land.
NOT a timex
Some poking around on the web says the custom house clock was notoriously unreliable. Seems it had an underpowered motor and was often wrong. Very cool pic regardless, I guess we can't know on that version.
Would it really have spent 35
Would it really have spent 35 minutes flying around the custom house that day?
Edit: redundant, sorry.
Fringe moment
That's interesting that it passed over Boston on its last flight. When I initially saw this photo, I thought this was a mockup/PS photo from the TV show Fringe. They have a concept that in an alternate universe, the Hindenburg accident never occurred, thus in their version of the world, people still used blimps as a major transportation means.
Either case, good on you for posting this. Interesting Boston connection too!
The Hindenburg . . .
. . . blew up because it used Hydrogen as it's lift gas and not Helium. The US was the only country that produced industrial quantities of Helium at the time (and still has the largest Helium reserve in the world in Texas) and stopped selling the gas to Nazi Germany . . . so they used Hydrogen and the result was the horrible explosion at Lakehurst.
They tested this on Mythbusters too
True, the hydrogen did not help at all, but they discovered that the paint on the blimp itself that fueled the fire to its horrendous conclusion too. They found that the formula of aluminum paint on the Hiddenburg was unwise, and once a spark ignited it, the hydrogen and paint led to the horror people witnessed.
Using small pieces of the original Hindenburg fabric that
survived the fire, NASA researchers came to pretty much the same conclusions several years before the MythBusters episode, although their results weren't widely publicized at the time.
The prevailing theory about the start of the fire is that the outer skin was ignited by sparking caused by poor bonding of the rigid frame members. This sparking was initiated when a static discharge ran through the frame of the ship when the mooring lines touched the ground as they were preparing to land. The ship had just come through thunderstorms, hence the buildup of static electricity.
And the paint formulation for the Hindenburg was entirely new to the airship. Which explains one of the reasons the Hindenburg's predecessor ship, the Graf Zeppelin, flew in similar weather conditions for so many years without incident. Of course, after the Hindenburg fire, the Graf was immediately decommissioned and eventually scrapped.
OMG , it's the
OMG
, it's the 
Dave rules
Did you have those downloaded, or did you have to dig through the WGC to find them? Either way, you're a most awesome giant dork.
Direct links to the other
Direct links to the other side of the Gaffinsphere.
Wha...no one told me..
Rush Limbaugh was in town!!
the blimp the blimp The
the blimp the blimp
The mother ship the mother ship!
It's not a blimp.
It's an Airship- or a Dirigible. The Hindenburg was a passenger airship. 50 passengers was it's capacity (with a crew of 40). It had passenger cabins - ornately designed with individual shower and baths in each as well as a fully stocked and operational kitchen that served gourmet meals in a dining room that boasted a grand piano. It had an observation deck, a bar, and a well insulated smoking room. This thing was the size of 4 good year blimps placed end to end- and could travel up to 80 MPH through hurricane force winds. Largest flying machine ever built. Calling a dirigible a "blimp" is like calling a tricycle a car.
I'm hungry
Why aren't there any Blimpies around here?
A pop culture reference is a
A pop culture reference is a terrible thing to waste.
NotWhitey, consider yourself
NotWhitey, consider yourself Romeroed.
Oh, the humanity...
...19 comments and nobody made the obvious pun!
Nerd alert: when I hear "airship," I think of Final Fantasy games... I can't help it!
Because someone has to do it