Saturday, May 28, 2011

Hindenburg over Manhattan

The giant German airship Hindenburg over Manhattan, NY, in 1936, possibly on its first trip there. It was 245 metres or 803.8 feet long and the largest class of flying machines of any kind, and the largest airship by envelope volume (200,000 cubic metres or 7,062,000 cubic feet). Designed and built by the Zeppelin Company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH on the shores of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) in Friedrichshafen, the airship flew from March 1936 until infamously destroyed by fire while docking at Lakehurst, New Jersey, 14 months later on 6 May 1937.  The hydrogen gas combined (some say) with the coating on the hull made it a brief but spectacular incident of just 37 seconds. Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew on board, 13 passengers and 22 crew died, as well as one member of the ground crew, making a total of 36 lives lost in the disaster.
In this view the swastikas on the tail fins seem to have been surgically removed from the photo.

No comments: