Long time since I strafed and quite frankly, it's overdue. What better subject than the conflagration of the Hindenburg, thereby killing two birds with one stone - the strafing aspect and an air disaster which I'm sorry I haven't posted on for over a week now, in deference to Ruthie Zaftig.
It's a fascinating tale when you get into it and I admit that this is virtually a Wiki-summary but it's a good article:
Named after Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), it was a visually striking "ship of the air", at 245 m (804 ft) long and 41 m (135 ft) in diameter, longer than three Boeing 747s placed end-to-end and only 24 m (78 ft) shorter than the Titanic. It was originally equipped with cabins for 50 passengers and a crew complement of 40.
It was originally intended to be filled with helium but the United States, the main world supplier, had imposed a military embargo on helium. Dr. Eckener, the chief designer, expected this ban to be lifted but it wasn't, leading to the modification of the design to use flammable hydrogen - 200,000 m³ of the gas in 16 bags or cells.
It wasn't as dangerous as it sounds. Germany had extensive experience with hydrogen and accidents had never occurred on civil zeppelins.
Summarized story of the disaster is continued here.
It still seems odd that no one thought a huge bag filled with on of the most flammable of gases was a particularly safe idea.
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I lived in Zeppelinallee in Frankfurt for a while,where they tested these things. Grunenburg Park as it is now was the Airstrip for the Zeppelins... I used to go there with my children and ride a little steam train...or go swimming.
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ReplyDeletespeaking of the Hindinburg...GET OVER TO MY BLOG and PICK UP YOUR AWARD, and stop crying on Welshcakes shoulder over at her blog you big poop head!
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