An airship is a lighter than air flying machine with its own propulsion and steering systems. The Hindenburg (LZ-129) was the largest of these airships to ever be designed. The airship Hindenburg was named after Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg of Germany. He was the last elected president before Hitler became dictator of the country. When Hitler came to power in 1933 with his nazi party, he ordered that all aircraft and ships be fitted with the nazi symbol. “The Hindenburg was the pride of modern Germany, so the swastika was strikingly displayed.”(Botting 45) The airship started construction in 1931 in the city of Friedrichshafen and was finally finished in March of 1936. Its first flight was March 4, 1936. The mighty airship was 803.8 feet long and 135.1 feet long. To give an individual an idea of how enormous the gigantic airship was that the Titanic was 882 feet long, only 78 feet longer than the Hindenburg was. The Hindenburg carried more than ninety-seven people, thirty-six passengers, and sixty-one crewmembers.
The total gas capacity for the Hindenburg was 7,062,100 cubic feet. There were a total of 16 hydrogen gas cells that would be coated in order to protect them fr
om sparks or static electricity. Even though helium was safer than hydrogen, there were only five known natural gas fields that contained it, all of which were located in the United States. The United States denied Germany the helium due to the fact that these airships were used in the bombing raids over Britain during the First World War. The Helium Control Act of 1927 did not permit the export of helium to the outside world. (Botting15-16)
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