In the 1920s and ’30s, airships seemed to encapsulate the future of passenger travel. Featuring luxurious accommodations that modern-day air travelers can only dream of, these lighter-than-air dirigibles were much faster than ocean liners. The massive vehicles promised relaxation and convenience, until the Hindenburg disaster shattered public confidence and abruptly ended the airship era.
Let’s explore a few key moments in the rise (and fall) of airship travel. But first: airship, dirigible, blimp, zeppelin… what do these terms mean?
Airship to Zeppelin
The words airship, dirigible, blimp, and zeppelin are often used interchangeably in everyday conversation, and most people would understand what they mean within the context of a story. But there are differences, as explained by aviation historian Dan Grossman.
“Airship” is the umbrella term for a powered and steerable lighter-than-air craft that uses a gas, usually helium or hydrogen, to float. All zeppelins are airships, but not all airships are zeppelins.
“Dirigible” is an equivalent word for airship but could be considered the more technical term. Both describe a powered, maneuverable, gas-filled aircraft.
A blimp is a non-rigid airship without any internal framework. A blimp’s form is maintained by the pressure of the gas inside, so it will lose its shape when deflated. It’s like a giant floating balloon with an engine and a gondola.
A zeppelin is a rigid airship, built with an internal metal framework and multiple gas cells inside. Developed by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin and originally manufactured by Luftschiffsbau-Zeppelin in Germany, “Zeppelin” is a brand name that became a generic term for similar rigid airships, similar to “Dumpster” or “Band-Aid.”
The first airship flew 51 years before the Wright Brothers
On September 24, 1852, French inventor Jules Henri Giffard took his steam-powered airship on its inaugural flight. In a 17-mile expedition from Paris to Elancourt, France, the dirigible traveled at a leisurely 6 miles per hour — not much faster than a common housefly.
Giffard’s 143-foot-long invention was driven by a 3-horsepower engine that weighed 250 lbs — too heavy to steer reliably in gusty conditions while carrying the necessary boiler and fuel. As such, he was unable to navigate the airship back to its starting point against the wind, but this one-way trip predated the Wright Brothers’ first successful flight by half a century.
Survivors outnumbered expectations in the Hindenburg crash
Some of us are familiar with the Hindenburg disaster primarily because of the shocking footage that exists of the 1937 tragedy. We see the airship rapidly devoured by flames as it falls to the earth and collapses, leaving behind a heap of charred and twisted metal wreckage.
In a famous sound bite from the news coverage, radio reporter Herbert Morrison cried out emotionally, “Oh, the humanity, and all the passengers screaming around here! …Listen, folks; I… I’m gonna have to stop for a minute because I’ve lost my voice. This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
Given the magnitude of the explosion and the airship’s total destruction, it’d be understandable to assume that most people aboard had perished. That’s what Morrison believed as he narrated the dreadful scene before his eyes, later recalling that he yelled “Oh, the humanity” when he thought all passengers had been killed.
However, 62 of the 97 passengers and crew survived the crash. As the explosion occurred during landing, the ship was relatively close to the ground. This allowed many passengers to leap out to safety, where Navy ground crew members helped move them away from the inferno and provided medical care.
Several prominent buildings were designed to moor airships
A famous doctored photograph shows a Navy dirigible moored atop the Empire State Building in New York City. Although the image is faked, designers did include an airship moor at the top of the skyscraper when it was built in the early 1930s.
In 1929, Alfred E. Smith, one of the building’s investors, said they were adding 200 feet to the top of the skyscraper. This would bring the Empire State Building’s total height to 1,250 feet — about 200 feet more than the Chrysler Building, then the world’s tallest. Smith claimed the added height was for a dirigible mooring mast, not to break the standing world record.
Regardless of intent, a mast was added, and the balconies at the top of the building were constructed to accommodate loading docks and ticket booths. Smith explained that passengers on ships like the luxurious Graf Zeppelin would be able to conveniently stroll down a gangplank straight into the heart of Manhattan.
However, it was questionable whether a dirigible could realistically dock at the top of the skyscraper. Graf Zeppelin’s commander, Dr. Hugo Eckener, said the plan was “not practical” due to the extensive equipment and manpower needed for a safe mooring. In an interview with WBEZ Chicago, airship historian Dan Grossman gave a more blunt assessment of the plan: “Docking a large rigid airship to the top of a building is one of the worst ideas anyone could ever come up with, which is why it was never done.”
A few other 1920s-30s era buildings in the U.S. included dirigible moors in their designs, including The Medinah Athletic Club (now the InterContinental Hotel) in Chicago and The Thomas Jefferson Tower in Birmingham, Alabama. All were publicity stunts, according to Grossman. “You build a new hotel, you put a Zeppelin mast on it. … You know, it got attention,” he said.
The USS Akron was the worst airship disaster in history
Four years prior to the Hindenburg tragedy, a U.S. Navy aircraft was destroyed in the deadliest airship disaster in history. The USS Akron was a helium-filled airborne aircraft carrier built to hold up to five fighter planes.
In the early morning hours of April 4, 1933, Akron embarked from New Jersey for a mission in New England and “sailed into a tempest, the most violent storm seen in the region for years,” as described by John Swinfield in Airship: Design, Development and Disaster. Although the airship’s commander tried to ride out the weather, he lost control and Akron plunged into the frigid Atlantic Ocean off the Jersey coast tail first.
There were no lifejackets aboard. Of USS Akron’s 76 crew and passengers, only three lived. Compounding the tragedy, a Navy blimp joining in the search for survivors also crashed, resulting in the deaths of two additional men.
So, how did Led Zeppelin get their name?
The influential English rock band Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut album features an image of the Hindenburg in flames on its cover. It’s probably the most recognizable depiction of the disaster in pop culture.
Why did they decide to name themselves Led Zeppelin and use imagery from such a horrible tragedy?
In a 2012 Rolling Stone interview, Zeppelin founding member Jimmy Page shared that he recorded a session for Jeff Beck’s band in 1966. The lineup included Moon on drums, John Paul Jones on bass, and Page and Beck on guitar. Page recalled the experience as “absolutely magnificent, like a force of nature.”
According to Page, Moon suggested they all form a new band. Potential singers were discussed, and Moon even proposed a name: “We can call it Led Zeppelin, because it can only go down, like a lead balloon,” or colossal failure. The zeppelin was “an even more spectacularly amusing image of self-immolation” than a balloon, wrote author Keith Shadwick in Led Zeppelin: The Story of a Band and Their Music.
Two years later, Page wanted to rename his band, then called The New Yardbirds, and thought of Moon’s quip. Page, along with John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards, John Bonham on drums, and Robert Plant on vocals, performed as Led Zeppelin for the first time at the University of Surrey in London on October 25, 1968, with a banner outside reading: “Tonight! The Ex-Yardbirds.”
Books Cited
Swinfield, J. (2013). Airship: Design, Development and Disaster. Conway.
Shadwick, K. (2005). Led Zeppelin: The Story of a Band and Their Music, 1968-80. Hal Leonard Corporation.
