The Hindenburg

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The Hindenburg

The Hindenburg was a huge gamble in a long line of gambles for the Zeppelin Company. It was three football fields long, and it was held aloft by 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen and could fly at 84 miles an hour. It was luxurious, with a dining salon, lounges, and staterooms. She still holds the record as the largest aircraft ever to fly but, Its mostly metal frame was filled with hydrogen. For years builders of dirigibles, including the Zeppelin Company, had simply stretched the hulls of their airships to accommodate more lifting gas.
The Hindenburg would carry a gas volume of 7,062,000 cubic feet. This volume, when filled with hydrogen, would produce 242.2 tons of gross lift. The useful lift was still 112.1 tons. Airplanes could fly only short distances with constant refueling and as little weight as possible. Although the Hindenburg is most famous for her fiery death, she was not initially meant to be filled with hydrogen at all. Dr. Hugo Eckner, then still the chairman of Zeppelin, had decided that it would be the wisest course to inflate his new ship with the nonflammable gas helium. The flaw in this plan started to unravel the idea at once. In order to keep the Zeppelin Company afloat during the hard times of the depression, large sums of money had been accepted by the Nazis. The Hindenburg had the swastika on their vertical fins and had already been flown on many propaganda flights over Germany dropping pamphlets and generally showing of the power of the Nazi movement. The United States, having the only natural deposits of helium in the world, was getting more and more suspicious of Hitler. Government officials wondered if the Zeppelin could be used for military purposes such as they were in World War One and favor in giving Dr. Eckner the helium was waning. This was frustrating to Dr. Eckner who was critical of the Nazi government. He had been forced to seek help form a government that he did...