History of Flight — A Three-Part Series

• Part 1: The Invention of the Hot Air Balloon
• Part 2: The Age of Airships (current)
• Part 3: The Invention of the Airplane

History of Flight Part 2: The Age of Airships — The Giant Ships That Once Ruled the Sky

At 7:25 p.m. on May 6, 1937, at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, dozens of journalists and spectators were waiting to watch a massive airship from Germany come in to land. In that moment, radio announcer Herbert Morrison’s voice broke over the microphone.

“It’s burst into flames! … Oh, the humanity!”^[1]

In less than 60 seconds, the Hindenburg was ash. Of the 97 people on board, 36 lost their lives. And in that instant, an era ended.

But to understand this story, we must travel back 85 years — to a time when the steam locomotive was still the fastest vehicle on earth — when an engineer in Paris first built a machine that could fly in a straight line across the sky under its own power.

The Steerable Ship of the Sky: Henri Giffard’s Dream

For 70 years after the invention of the hot air balloon, humanity was still at the mercy of the wind. Balloons could fly, but their direction could not be controlled. The person who first overcame that fundamental limitation was French engineer Henri Giffard (1825–1882).

On September 24, 1852, Giffard successfully flew from Paris to Trappe, roughly 27 kilometers away.^[2] His aircraft was a 44-meter spindle-shaped hydrogen envelope fitted with a steam engine. The engine produced just 3 horsepower, and top speed was approximately 9 kilometers per hour. By modern standards the performance was unimpressive — but it was the first aircraft in history capable of changing direction under its own power in the air.^[2]

This type of aircraft is called a “dirigible,” from the French word dirigeable, meaning “steerable.” Giffard’s design only worked in light winds and was helpless against strong gusts. But the principle had been proven. The next challenge was a more powerful engine.

In 1872, German engineer Paul Haenlein became the first to apply an internal combustion engine to an airship, and in 1883, the French Tissandier brothers demonstrated an electrically powered airship.^[3] During the 1890s, Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont dazzled the public above Paris by constructing 14 different gasoline-powered airship models in succession.^[3] Yet all of these aircraft shared one critical weakness: the envelope had no internal framework, so its shape was prone to deforming. The true breakthrough came from a different direction entirely.

Ferdinand von Zeppelin and the Rigid Airship

In 1861, a German military officer visited Minnesota to observe the American Civil War. He took careful note of the observation balloons used by Union forces on the battlefield. His name was Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838–1917), and that experience would eventually make him one of the most important figures in aviation history.^[4]

Zeppelin threw himself into airship development only after retiring from the German Army. His central idea was a single innovation: construct a “rigid airship” that maintained its shape through an internal aluminum skeleton. Aluminum at the time was lighter than iron yet strong enough to serve as a structural material for an aircraft.

On July 2, 1900, Zeppelin’s first airship, LZ 1, lifted off from a floating hangar on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.^[5] Inside a massive cylindrical frame 128 meters long and 11.6 meters in diameter, multiple hydrogen gas cells were individually divided, with two 16-horsepower engines mounted on either side. Top speed was approximately 32 kilometers per hour.

The maiden flight lasted about 17 minutes before mechanical failure brought it to an early end. Yet this was enough. The rigid airship structure had been proven capable of flight.^[5] Zeppelin continued development through several financial crises. When LZ 4 burned in a gust of wind during flight in 1908, spontaneous donations poured in from across Germany — the public rallying behind Zeppelin’s dream. The Zeppelin Foundation established with these funds became the financial backbone of all subsequent development.^[6]

The Golden Age of Airships: DELAG and Crossing the Atlantic

In 1910, Zeppelin founded the world’s first commercial airline: the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft, abbreviated as DELAG.^[7] This was only seven years after the Wright Brothers had first achieved powered flight. Decades before commercial air travel would exist, airships had already launched regular passenger services.

DELAG’s airships operated scheduled routes between multiple German cities. The flights were comfortable. Passengers looked down on the European landscape from cabins equipped with a dining room and a promenade. By the time World War I broke out in 1914, DELAG had flown more than 100,000 kilometers without a single accident, carrying thousands of passengers.^[7]

But the true potential of the airship was demonstrated by two vessels built after the war. LZ 126 (known in the United States as the USS Los Angeles) crossed the Atlantic from Germany to the United States in 1924.^[8] And LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, completed in 1928, became the symbol of the airship’s golden age.

In command of the Graf Zeppelin was Captain Hugo Eckener. In 1929, he piloted the airship on a round-the-world voyage, circumnavigating the globe in 21 days, 7 hours, and 34 minutes, covering approximately 34,600 kilometers.^[9] The route departed from Friedrichshafen, passed through Tokyo and Los Angeles, stopped at Lakehurst, and returned to Germany. Splashed across front pages worldwide, the voyage made the Zeppelin the defining symbol of the early twentieth century — the space capsule of its age.

The Graf Zeppelin flew 590 times before retiring in 1937, completing 144 ocean crossings and accumulating more than 1.6 million kilometers of total flight distance.^[9] All without a single passenger fatality.

Bombs in the Sky: The Zeppelin in World War I

The history of airships is not only one of a passenger golden age. When war broke out in 1914, the German military deployed the Zeppelin as a strategic weapon.

From 1915 onward, Germany used Zeppelins to bomb the British mainland.^[10] The method was to drop bombs from altitudes that fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft guns could barely reach. Cities across Britain, including London, experienced for the first time the terror of bombs falling from the night sky. The psychological impact was far greater than the actual physical damage. The implicit assumption of previous wars — that civilian cities behind the front lines were safe — had been shattered.^[10]

Yet the tactical effectiveness of the Zeppelin proved more limited than expected. Slow and enormous, airships became easy targets once defenses were properly established. As British forces deployed fighter planes equipped with tracer and incendiary ammunition, the hydrogen-filled Zeppelins became giant fireballs in the sky.^[10] Over the course of the war, the German Navy and Army operated more than 80 airships, but lost more than half of them to combat or accidents.

World War I demonstrated just how short-lived and fragile the military era of the airship would be. But once the war ended, airships returned to the civilian dream.

The Hindenburg: The Peak of the Dream and Its Destruction

In 1936, the Hindenburg (LZ 129) entered service. At 245 meters in length, it was the largest aircraft ever built at that time.^[11] It gained lift from 200,000 cubic meters of hydrogen and could reach 135 kilometers per hour on four diesel engines. Onboard were an observation lounge, a dining room, a smoking room, and even shower facilities for approximately 50 passengers.

The Hindenburg was the fastest and most comfortable way to cross the Atlantic.^[11] While ocean liners of the era took five days to make the crossing, the Hindenburg needed only two to three days to travel from Frankfurt, Germany, to Lakehurst, New Jersey. In 1936 alone, the ship made 10 round trips and carried 2,798 passengers.

But why did the Hindenburg use flammable hydrogen instead of safe helium? At the time, commercially meaningful quantities of helium were produced only in the United States. And the United States had designated helium a strategic resource and strictly limited its export.^[12] Germany had no alternative to hydrogen. The Zeppelin company was aware of the danger and sought to ensure safety by rigorously eliminating all sources of ignition. Even the smoking room was maintained at slightly elevated air pressure so that hydrogen could not seep in.

On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg was attempting to land at Lakehurst after completing its first transatlantic crossing of the year. At the moment the mooring lines were lowered, flames appeared at the rear of the envelope. The precise cause remains disputed to this day. Both German and American investigation teams identified the combination of a hydrogen leak and an electrostatic discharge as the cause.^[1] The fire consumed the entire airship in under 60 seconds. Of the 97 people on board, 36 died. The survival of the remaining 61 was nothing short of miraculous.

Herbert Morrison’s radio commentary was recorded and broadcast the following day, while newspapers around the world ran photographs of the burning Hindenburg on their front pages.^[1] The world was stunned. The German Zeppelin company had already completed the Hindenburg’s sister ship, LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II, but commercial operations were never resumed after the disaster.

The End of the Airship Era: Defeat of Technology, or Victory of Fear?

The Hindenburg disaster was the signal that ended the age of airships. Yet historians pose a persistent question: did airships disappear because of the Hindenburg, or were they already destined to disappear?

By 1937, civil aviation technology was already advancing rapidly. Airliners like the Douglas DC-3 were proving their practical worth on transcontinental routes.^[13] Aircraft were faster than airships, cheaper to build, and required no hydrogen. Even if the Hindenburg had continued flying safely, it is likely that airplanes would have displaced it within a decade.

But history chose dramatic rupture over gradual transition. Allied bombing during World War II destroyed most of Germany’s airship hangar infrastructure, and the surviving airships were dismantled by the victorious powers after the war.^[14] Half a century of accumulated Zeppelin engineering knowledge was buried in the rubble of war.

Attempts at Revival: The Modern Airship

Decades after the airship era ended, airships began reappearing in the sky. Their purpose was different from the past.

In 1997, the Zeppelin NT (Neue Technologie) first took to the air.^[15] Less than a quarter the size of the Hindenburg at 75 meters in length, this semi-rigid airship uses a carbon fiber and aluminum frame filled with helium and operates safely. Today it is employed for tourist flights, advertising, environmental monitoring, and broadcast coverage. In the United States, the Zeppelin NT has replaced some of Goodyear’s traditional advertising blimps.^[15]

More ambitious efforts are also underway. Since the early 21st century, multiple startups and aviation companies have been developing large cargo-carrying airships. The idea of transporting heavy freight to remote locations without roads or runways, or serving as a long-distance carrier with low carbon emissions, has led to a reassessment of the airship’s potential.^[15] In certain environments where slowly moving heavy cargo is precisely the advantage needed, airships remain competitive.

Conclusion

Herbert Morrison’s cry of “Oh, the humanity!” on the night the Hindenburg burned was not a simple exclamation. It was a eulogy for 85 years of a single dream — from the moment Giffard crossed the sky on a steam engine to the day the Graf Zeppelin circled the globe. Airships were flying ships, flying hotels, and in wartime, flying bombs.

All of it was reduced to ash in 60 seconds.

The airships are gone, but what they proved has not disappeared. The Atlantic could be crossed. It was possible to eat, sleep, and travel in the sky. The world was smaller than anyone had thought. On the foundation of that proof, faster and safer machines rose to take their place.

As the age of airships faded, a winged machine became the new ruler of the sky. The story continues in Part 3: The Invention of the Airplane.