This Date in Planelopnik History: 1936

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 03/04/2015 at 10:30 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history

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March 4, 1936 marks the first flight of a true leviathan of the air. Hindenburg and its sister ship Graf Zeppelin were the largest aircraft ever to take to the skies. Unfortunately, Hindenburg is better known for its spectacular demise just over a year later.

Top : Hindenburg photographed in March, 1936. The name had not yet been applied to the zeppelin's skin Above : Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey, 1937

The Hindenburg , German dirigible LZ-129 ( Luftschiff Zeppelin #129, registration D-LZ129) was a rigid airship, and the lead ship of the Hindenburg class. Designed and built by the Zeppelin Company (Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH), and named after the late Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, the President of Germany from 1925-1934, Hindenburg was constructed of a duralumin frame and fitted with 16 cotton gas bags. The outer skin of the dirigible was made of cotton and covered with a reflective coating that was meant to protect the gas bags from ultraviolet and infrared radiation. Hindenburg was powered by four Daimler-Benz DB 602 diesel engines which produced 1200 hp each, giving it a top speed of 85 mph (135 km/h). Its first crossing of the Atlantic was completed in a record time of 64 hours, 40 minutes on May 6, 1936. Eastward transatlantic flights averaged around 55 hours.

Top : Hindenburg under construction in 1931; Above : Size of Hindenburg compared to some of the world's largest aircraft

Originally intended to be filled with helium, Hindenburg was instead filled with flammable hydrogen. At that time, helium was rare and came at an exorbitant cost. Even though the designers knew they would have trouble obtaining helium from the US, where it was a byproduct of natural gas mining, they went ahead with their plans to use it. When the US refused to lift the export ban on helium, the designers made the decision to switch to hydrogen. They were confident this wouldn't be a problem, as they had many years of safe, hydrogen-filled dirigible operations under their belt.

Hindenburg over Lakehurst, New Jersey in May, 1936. A Douglas RD-4 Spica of the US Coast Guard flies alongside, and the US Navy airship USS Los Angeles is moored in the background.

Hindenburg's final flight took place on May 6-7, 1937, a transatlantic crossing from Frankfurt to Lakehurst, New Jersey. It's arrival was initially delayed by a line of thunderstorms, but Hindenburg was finally cleared to land at about 7:00 pm. At 7:21 pm, shortly after dropping mooring lines to the ground crew, Hindenburg suddenly burst into flames and crashed. Within thirty seconds, Hindenburg had been reduced to a smoldering wreck of twisted, charred metal. Thirteen of the thirty-six passengers died, twenty-two of the crew of sixty-one perished, and one man on the ground was killed. The total cost was thirty-six lives.

The cause of the crash has been the topic of much conjecture, and no exact cause has ever been determined. Some suspect sabotage, other suggest atmospheric conditions. One of the more plausible theories is that hydrogen gas leaking from one of the cells was ignited by static electricity. In the British Pathé report below, the narrator points out how much water ballast Hindenburg is dumping. This may indicate a significant leak of hydrogen causing the airship to descend more rapidly than normal. After the crash, the duralumin hulk was returned to Germany and recycled for use in the construction of Luftwaffe aircraft. Graf Zeppelin was scrapped in 1940, its duralumin frame also going to support the war effort.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 10:35

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It's worth noting that as ornate as the trusswork is, it wasn't the most advanced thing going. That would be Barnes Wallis' geodetic dirigible frame design system, which was then repurposed for Vickers bombers.

Hahayoustupidludditeshutupandgohandcrankyourmodeltalready > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 12:08

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" Above : Size of Hindenburg compared to large modern aircraft"

I'm not quite sure I'd call the Spruce Goose "modern". :)

ttyymmnn > Hahayoustupidludditeshutupandgohandcrankyourmodeltalready 03/04/2015 at 12:12

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Well, you're right. That needs to be changed. Thanks.

Hahayoustupidludditeshutupandgohandcrankyourmodeltalready > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 12:16

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Technically the original description was correct, as it is indeed compared to large modern aircraft, it just happens to be compared to a single large decidedly un-modern aircraft also.

ttyymmnn > Hahayoustupidludditeshutupandgohandcrankyourmodeltalready 03/04/2015 at 12:24

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Well, it may be splitting hairs, but the Spruce Goose is contemporary to Hindenburg , while the other planes are decidedly more modern as it relates to our current era. What I find truly amazing is that there are only 63 years between the Spruce Goose and the 748.

Hahayoustupidludditeshutupandgohandcrankyourmodeltalready > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 12:34

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Purely hairsplitting, my second comment was to say that the original description of the graph (pun not entirely intended) was technically correct as regardless of when the Spruce Goose was made, the graph still compared it to truly modern aircraft also.

ttyymmnn > Hahayoustupidludditeshutupandgohandcrankyourmodeltalready 03/04/2015 at 12:41

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As somewhat of an academic, I like to get things right, and I think that accuracy is of utmost importance, especially when you're talking about history. One must make every effort to leave out hairs that might be split by others, give it a clean shave, if you will.

Hahayoustupidludditeshutupandgohandcrankyourmodeltalready > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 12:47

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Interesting philosophy.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 13:52

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This video shows why I'm among those who blame the rapid burning of the Hindenburg on the doped fabric covering and not the hydrogen. If it were simply a hydrogen leak that was burning the flame would have been nearly invisible, had barely any smoke and wouldn't have spread so rapidly.

I got totally side tracked by these videos. Here is cotton wool burning.

And cotton wool doped with nitrocellulose. This is relevant because nitrocellulose was commonly used for doping fabric aircraft and was likely used on the Hindenburg skin.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 03/04/2015 at 13:57

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Interesting. Perhaps the H got it going, but the dope was what caused it to accelerate so quickly. The H was just more fuel for the fire.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 15:03

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It is one of those things that will never have a definitive answer. I personally have a hard time thinking that the fabric didn't have a major part of the disaster. There is a major rabbit hole that you will fall in if you google it.

ranwhenparked > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 15:45

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There was also a third member of the Hindenburg class, the LZ-131, which never got far along in construction to receive a name. They basically stopped work on it following the Hindenburg crash and then cut up what little framing had been completed for scrap in 1940.
The Graf Zeppelin (II) was never used in revenue service, due to the overwhelming bad publicity following the Hindenburg disaster, and was just used for propaganda and good will flights with invited dignitaries on board before being grounded after the outbreak of war and then scrapped afterward.

Interestingly, the original plans were only to use helium in the outer cells, since those were the ones considered to be most susceptible to damage and leaking. They were always designed to use hydrogen exclusively in the interior cells, since hydrogen has superior lift than helium and using all helium throughout would have reduced the payload to an uneconomically low level.

ttyymmnn > ranwhenparked 03/04/2015 at 16:04

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Thanks for the extra info. When putting these things together, the challenge is always trying to get enough information to be interesting, without too much information that gets wordy. I always have to paint in broad strokes.

ranwhenparked > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 16:10

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It makes sense, give a good solid overview and anyone that really wants to nerd out and get into details can go and read more on their own time. Hopefully it's bringing topics to people that never really thought about them before.

ttyymmnn > ranwhenparked 03/04/2015 at 16:14

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That's my hope. I started this series as a one-off, one paragraph article. Now I'm about two weeks into it. We'll see how long I can manage. I try to write a day ahead so I can proof it about twenty times before posting. It takes more time than I really have, but it's a labor of love.

ranwhenparked > ttyymmnn 03/04/2015 at 16:31

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It's been quite enjoyable so far. Car people usually have overlapping interests in other forms of transportation, so there should be a decent audience here too.

ttyymmnn > ranwhenparked 03/04/2015 at 16:35

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Thanks. You can find all the older Planelopnik History posts here if you missed any. There are a few hardcore plane aviation people here. Not quite as many as before, but I'm trying to keep things going. Oppo should be called "The Big Place of Cars and Trucks and Things That Go." Really, anything fast or mechanical is usually a hit, and if I can find stuff that people don't know that helps. Ever since all the Kinja sub blogs started cropping up, it pulled many of the people with outlier interests away. Oppo is a lot less off-topic than it used to be.