Today in 1937, the Hindenberg caught fire and burnt at Lakehurst Naval Station. Along with it’s 36 passengers and crew died any hopes of a commercial airship industry. As a result today blimps and dirigibles are hard to see. Most famous is probably one of the Goodyear Blimps. Those lucky enough to live in the San Francisco area also get to see Airship Venture’s Eureka, a Zeppelin NT. And if you live in Germany, you can always visit the Zeppelin Museum (Wikipedia article), which has a partial full-scale mockup of the Graf Zeppelin.
Here’s hoping we will see a revival of the airship industry in the near future. Aside from being neat, airships are also fairly environmentally friendly, something that can’t be said for most other forms of aerial transport.
Hat-tip to Making Light for reminding us all of this day.
