Around the world on a Dream Machine — 77 years ago, the giant German airship LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin left Lakehurst, NJ on an aerial world tour sponsored by American media mogul William Randolph Hearst. The airship's gondola carried 20 passengers in high-tech style, including: U.S. Navy observer Charles Rosendahl; English pilot, Zeppelin frequent flyer, and Hearst reporter Lady Grace Drummond-Hay; and Japanese naval aviator Ryunosuke Kusaka. The 41 crewmen were captained by Dr. Hugo Eckener, Zeppelin champion and the world's best airship pilot. The hydrogen-filled LZ-127 flew over the Atlantic to Germany, Siberia, Japan, over the Pacific to California, across the United States, and back to Lakehurst. The 20,500 mile, 21-day flight—with 12 flying days at ~80 mph top speed—defined airship travel's golden age. [More inside]
posted by cenoxo on Aug 8, 2006 - 24 comments

For the first time in over 60 years, airships along the design principles of Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin are being built. You can now fly in a genuine Zeppelin. They aren't the same thing as blimps, which look very similar to the untrained eye. Zeppelin's have a great history, both astounding and at times tragic! Although the famous Hindenberg disaster wasn't all it seemed! Finally, the link that no Zeppelin thread would be complete without.
posted by DrDoberman on Oct 11, 2004 - 12 comments

The Death of a Dirigible - "The airship Shenandoah, nose to her high mooring mast, was floating gracefully with the variable breezes. Her twenty gas bags were about 91% full; her tanks loaded with 9,075 pounds of water and 16, 620 pounds of gasoline..." I was fascinated by this account of the disaster that befell the Navy airship 'Shenandoah', marking the beginning of the end of the era of rigid bodied airships. [ Via a comment on /. ]
posted by GriffX on Aug 6, 2002 - 14 comments

Gigantic airships to fight forest fires
An airship carrying just under one million litres (265,000 gallons) of water could release an artificial rainstorm over wildfires. It's a big project, but airships with that kind of lift capacity are already in the works.
posted by Irontom on Jun 24, 2002 - 7 comments