Abstract
THE announcement that the Secretary for the U.S. Navy will oppose any further construction of airships to replace the wrecked Macon presages the end of large rigid airship activities in that country. Germany is now the only country, so far as is known, to continue experiments with these craft in increasing sizes, the new larger Zeppelin, to be called the Hindenburg, being now near completion. It is significant that Dr. Eckener of the Zeppelin Company has succeeded where others have failed, probably because with faith and perseverance he has acquired that kind of knowledge and experience in design, and assembled a staff skilled in the technique of construction, maintenance and handling, which can only result from practical experience. Germany has now been building large airships continuously since 1910, and even up to 1914 claimed to have flown 80,000 miles and carried more than 37,000 passengers. The present Graf Zeppelin, launched in 1928, has crossed the Atlantic 62 times without serious mishap. The only large airship in the United States that is still in an airworthy condition, the Los Angeles, is a Zeppelin type built at Friedrichshafen.
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Future of Lighter-than-Air Craft. Nature 135, 336 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135336a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135336a0