what is the AH writters obsesion with Blimps?

Michael

It's not an obsession, it's a perfectly healthy fixation, any reasonable aher would understand...
 

Adam Parsons

My two cents

That's a good question. While I don't know for certain, my guess would be that it stems from a fascination with technology from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. After all, notice how zepplins almost always show up in "steampunk" type AH with a Victorian-based POD, such as The Difference Engine, The Peshawar Lancers, and The Warlord of the Air.

Mind you, they were also fairly useful, and their widespread appeal was only cut short by the Hindenburg disaster.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Torqumada said:
AH writers are NOT obsessed with blimps. They are obsessed with Zepplins. There is a difference. ;) :p

Torqumada
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The most important difference being that zeppelins are cool while blimps are...meh...
 

wkwillis

Blimps work, dirigibles don't. But dirigibles are sexy. In movies, zeppelins have large interiors, so camera work is easier and cheaper, so that is another reason for the popularity of zeppelins in AH books, so that it is easier to shoot the scene if it is made into a movie.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Alasdair Czyrnyj said:
Mind you, they were also fairly useful, and their widespread appeal was only cut short by the Hindenburg disaster.
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That's probably it. You see, conventional wisdom holds that the disappearance of blimps from the sky is directly attributable to one event - the Hindenburg disaster (which my grandmother and great-grandmother witnessed, as it happened down the street from them in Lakehurst, New Jersey). This is just the sort of thing that sets up red flags in the minds of most AH-fans, and so it's only natural that we keep coming back to blimps, as opposed to, say, penny farthings:

Image64.jpg
 

zoomar

Leo, please, I would have expected better from you. The Hindenburg was not a blimp it - was a rigid airship. That's like calling the USS Missouri a sail frigate because they both float on the water.

As one of this board's most apopletic apologists for alternate aerostats and airships, here's my take on why so many of us like them;

(1) Alisdar's main points are right on. They are a truly alternate, truly feasible, and a truly gone mode of air travel which evokes fascinating turn of the century to 1930's technologies. They are not just big airplanes.

(2) There is the folk perception that they were cut short by a historical accident (the Hindenburg disaster) and were never given the opportunity to prove themselves. Actually, this is far too simplistic but it works for us apologists.

(3) They were made from tons of aluminim girders, were really, really, really big, and functioned as true ships in the air. In what else can you experience stately air travel with staterooms, promenade decks, fine wines, china, and grand pianos. God I get excited just writing this!

(4) They were long, hard, and (in the US Navy) filled with seamen. Never underestimate the lure of giant flying phallises.

I am going to the bathroom now. Be back in a few minutes.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
zoomar said:
Leo, please, I would have expected better from you. The Hindenburg was not a blimp it - was a rigid airship. That's like calling the USS Missouri a sail frigate because they both float on the water.
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Yes, yes, I know. I realized my mistake some time after I posted it (I should have said "zeppelin") but didn't think to edit it, as I figured nobody would catch it. :eek:

I have a poster in my living room from American Airlines announcing connecting service with the Hindenburg. I thought it was a pip, as my grandmother would say.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
At any rate, as you've said - there's lots of potential for airship ATLs, whereas I don't think anyone has ever suggested an ATL where penny-farthing gangs terrorize the streets of urban America.
 

zoomar

Leo Caesius said:
Yes, yes, I know. I realized my mistake some time after I posted it (I should have said "zeppelin") but didn't think to edit it, as I figured nobody would catch it. :eek:

I have a poster in my living room from American Airlines announcing connecting service with the Hindenburg. I thought it was a pip, as my grandmother would say.
Click to expand...

I have the same poster in my living room, which shares wall space with a 1910 German Zeppelin poster, a "Zeppelin bread" poster, a 1931 Goodyear poster with a Goodyear-Zeppelin airship on it, and 4-5 original and replica zeppelin pull toys from the 1930's. It's so bad we even refer to this living room (we sort of have two) as the "zeppelin room". And there's a lot more zeppelin stuff in my study. Sick.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
As a matter of curiousity, just how much could a Zeppelin lift? I mean, in proportion to its size and power. Zoomar makes it sound truly prodigious.
 

Michael

Aren't those new planes being built by boeing able to have a lot of extras put into them, they are almost like zepplins, but with more seats
 

wkwillis

There were only two truly civilized methods of travel. One was the Missippi riverboat and the other was the dirigible. On both you had so much space you could walk around and meet people, on both you were always comfortable, and on both you could look at the scenery from close up.
 

Yossarian

I predict a comeback of dirigibles, because now we can make them much safer, the insanely wealthy people who rule most of the world will enjoy them, and let's face it, most people don't really remember the Hindenburg.
 

Akiyama

There won't be a comeback, because one unfortunate feature of the modern world is our obsession with speed over quality of experience. AH writers, like most history buffs, are probably nostalgic for a more "human" past in which people cared about things other than shallow consumerism, which is why most other timelines have zeppelins and ideological struggles but there is very little evidence of fast food, celebrities or fashionable brands.

I have to admit, I don't know how zeppelins work. I mean, how do you embark and disembark? Do they land on the ground, like aeroplanes? Does the "balloon" deflate in order to land?
 

wkwillis

Akiyama said:
There won't be a comeback, because one unfortunate feature of the modern world is our obsession with speed over quality of experience. AH writers, like most history buffs, are probably nostalgic for a more "human" past in which people cared about things other than shallow consumerism, which is why most other timelines have zeppelins and ideological struggles but there is very little evidence of fast food, celebrities or fashionable brands.

I have to admit, I don't know how zeppelins work. I mean, how do you embark and disembark? Do they land on the ground, like aeroplanes? Does the "balloon" deflate in order to land?
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Blimps won't come back. They might make a resurgence as luxury touring machines, but that's all. Time is money, even for cargo haulers.
 

Count Dearborn

Because they are neat. I couldn't see them making a comeback, but I could see them becomming a toy for the rich. Just think, with today's technology, you could have a moving office/penthouse.
 
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