Graf Zeppelin & Hindenburg
The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships
Dick, Harold G. - Robinson, Douglas H.
"The time is March 26, 1936. The place is Friedrichshafen in southern Germany. For slightly more than three years, Adolf Hitler has been the Führer. ..." So begins the author's introduction to this story of the two great passenger Zeppelins that in the 1930s provided the only regular nonstop commercial trans-atlantic air service, crossing the ocean in two and a half days.
But whereas German writing about the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg was selective Propaganda for the Nazi state, this book is based on the extensive photographs, notes, diaries, reports, recorded data, and manuals (some reproduced in original form) collected by Harold G. Dick during his five years at the Zeppelin Company in Germany, from 1934 through 1938. An engineer from Goodyear-Zeppelin in Akron, and a shrewd observer of people and events, he had access to every department of the Company and was accepted by airship officers and crewmen as one of themselves. Against the background of German secretiveness, especially during the Nazi period, Dick's accumulation of material and pictures is extraordinary. His original photographs and detailed observations on the handling and flying of the big rigids constitute the essential data on this phase of aviation history, presented here by Douglas H. Robinson, world authority and author of several books on rigid airships. The story includes a description of the disastrous explosion at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937 - and gives an expert's opinion on what caused the Hindenburg to burn that day and how the airship's chances for development as a major commercial vehicle were thereby destroyed. Appendixes include a glossary of airship terms and verbatim reproduction of a German airship crew manual.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on the Photographs
Introduction: The Nazis and Dr. Eckener
1 How I Got Started with Airships
2 The Dream of the Transatlantic Passenger Airship
3 The Graf Zeppelin
4 My Life in Friedrichshafen
5 Knut Eckener and His Father
6 South American Flights in the Graf Zeppelin
7 On-board Routine on Ocean Flights
8 Airship Flight Procedures as Taught by Dr. Eckener
9 Mountain Climbing in the Alps
10 The Design and Construction of the Hindenburg
11 The Hindenburg Completion and Trials
12 Transatlantic Flights in the Hindenburg
13 Plans to Expand the Transatlantic Airship Service
14 Hook-on Experiments in the Spring of 1937
15 The Disaster at Lakehurst
16 Helium Questions and the Graf Zeppelin II
17 Increasing Restrictions as Hitler Prepares for War
18 "If Only Nothing Happens to the Macon"
19 A Last Look at Friedrichshafen
Appendix A Glossary of Airship Terms and Technology Appendix B Airship Numbering System
Appendix C Crew Manual of the German Zeppelin Reederei
Appendix D The Speyer Airship Project
Notes
Index
Hardcover with dust jacket, large format
226 Seiten / pages
many rare photos
very good condition
Washington D.C. - London - 1987 - Smithsonian Institution Press
Art.Nr. 20924
