alternatehistory.com

Okay, this might be a dumb suggestion, but that's never stopped me before.

So I like zeppelins, quite a lot. But frankly, there was only a very brief span of time when they might've had any significant utility at all, before being absolutely eclipsed by airplanes. I wonder if we might expand that span of viability.

Heavier-than-air craft were quite impracticable until internal combustion engines of a certain power-to-weight ratio became available.

Rigid airships aren't quite so weight-limited.

If we see somewhat earlier, more assiduous development of lighter-weight, "flash" boilers, couldn't rigid airships use these for motive power, even though they'd still be impractical for heavier-than-air craft?

With an earlier practical (for rigid airships only!) power source, and perhaps some earlier articulation of the rigid airship design concept, could we see "zeppelins" being used fairly widely by the later 1880's?

Sure, I know -- even if this is plausible, rigid airships are still touchy and accident-prone beasts. But if we have thirty or so years in which they are the only viable means of air travel... well, we could have a lot of fun with that!
Top