in Europe in a giant 950 foot airship.

"Some day you can go in Europe in a giant 950 foot airship just like this.
You'll soar along quietly,smoothly at comfortable altitudes.
Your crossing will take about 40 hours,glorious hours,of entertainment,delightful cusine,luxurious relaxation".

How is possible the rise of great transatlantic airship in 30s,40s and 50s?
Maybe a timeline without WW-II?

airship1.jpg


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http://books.google.it/books?id=pks...&resnum=9&ved=0CEwQ6wEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
 

Markus

Banned
I´m sceptical. A/C were advancing very fast and IMO they would have done just as fast w/o a war. The driving force would have remained competition between the airlines. That already gave birth to the ground breaking Boeing 247, followed by the DC-2/3 and the four-engine DC-4 was already on the way when the war broke out. She had been designed to be an airliner.

I find it very strange to see this article printed in 1945. They shoud have known better by then.
 
I'm not an expert, but I don't find it particularly plausible. Perhaps it could happen short-time and on a small scale, but they will never be the dominant mode of transatlantic travel, airships are just so uneconomical.

IMO it is pretty much inevitable that jet airliners will come into being, and even if they didn't, ocean liners will remain the dominant mode of transatlantic travel as it is much more economical to transport 2000 people in 5 days than 200 people in 2 days.
 
If the ads are from 1945, I suspect that may be attributable to nostalgia: even then, airships would likely have been associated with the pre-war period in most people's imaginations. Airships could represent a simpler, better time before the horrors of the war, and the marketers behind the ads might be trying to exploit nostalgia for such a simpler, better time to get people to invest in airships.
 
If the ads are from 1945, I suspect that may be attributable to nostalgia: even then, airships would likely have been associated with the pre-war period in most people's imaginations. Airships could represent a simpler, better time before the horrors of the war, and the marketers behind the ads might be trying to exploit nostalgia for such a simpler, better time to get people to invest in airships.

I don't think that Goodyear pay an advertisment campaign for nostalgia.
 
*drool*

Where'd you find this stuff? I knew Goodyear had plans for transatlantic service, but I didn't know they'd developed ads and everything. Really cool find.
 
As others here point out, getting airships to compete with airliners after WWII is impractical, because the airliners get that much faster. I can only see an airship being used as a cruise ship, a way to take the trip and slower and enjoy it more. You could find a niche there, but it wouldn't be an easy go. Not impossible, though.
 
I don't think that Goodyear pay an advertisment campaign for nostalgia.

You're missing the point: nostalgia is not the end of the campaign, it is the means Goodyear uses to achieve the end, which is to get people to give them money to build airships. Advertisers use nostalgia and other emotions this way all the time.
 
Oh my God that is EPIC!! :eek:
I believe airships could have survived and gone on to become a successful mode of commercial transportation if the advancements in aeroplanes from the two world wars hadn't taken place. Dirigibles were safer than early airplanes and people viewed dirigibles, especially the German's prewar DELAG Zeppelin airline, as the surest means for safe and quick commercial flight and thus would have continued to put money and research into bettering what they considered a sure thing.
Without jet engines airliners could never truly take off, pardon the pun, and Zeppelines would be the surest way to fly. If the United States exported its helium and the Zeppelin company didn't use rocket fuel as dope airships could very well be an alternate world's main form of air travel.
The television show Fringe has a parallel universe where airships are still used which feature advanced designs and greater size.

Here's a screenshot of one:

Zepp.jpg
 

abc123

Banned
As others here point out, getting airships to compete with airliners after WWII is impractical, because the airliners get that much faster. I can only see an airship being used as a cruise ship, a way to take the trip and slower and enjoy it more. You could find a niche there, but it wouldn't be an easy go. Not impossible, though.

I agree.
I for example, would love to go on airship cruise, but for traveling somewhere over the ocean I would prefere Boeing 747.;)
 
I have some of my fathers old comic annuals from the early 30's; back then cartoons were only a part of a comic, they had a lot of written stories and articles. Interestingly the ones on 'future flying' - flying was the IN thing in the 30's - were about airships and how they would be developed and improved. Aircraft weren't seen as long-distance carriers except for flying boats, a niche market.

However the advances in WW2, particularly the development of planes capable of crossing the Atlantic with passengers (just!) killed the airship. If for some reason these arent developed, maybe airships would get the benefit...
 
WW-II developed greatly aviation (and Cold War, also more).
Remeber also that the more safe gas helium was not sold to German for political and security reasons
However, in the new political situation, Eckener had not obtained the helium to inflate it due to a military embargo; only the United States possessed the rare gas in usable quantities. So, in what ultimately proved a fatal decision, the Hindenburg was filled with flammable hydrogen
.
By the way is possible that in a timeline without nazism and WW-II great passengers airships are developed.

Here another Goodyear advertisment.
The year is 1940:

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Even without WWII and the Hindenburg disaster, the future of the dirigibles would have been doomed as soon, as passenger planes were able to cross the Atlantic without having to refuel and were equipped with pressurized cabins, thus being able to do something that an airship could not - fly above the weather. Dirigibles are very prone to bad weather, as shown by the loss of the Akron and Macon.

An even more important factor would have been, that the operation of diribles is very labor intensive and thus expensive, e.g. the Hindenburg had a crew of 60 with space for 70 passengers. The Douglas DC-4, introduced in 1938 had a cockpit crew of 4 (pilot, copilot, navigator and radio operator) and a cabin crew of 3 to 4 flight attendants while being able to accomodate an equal number of passengers as the Hindenburg.

The Douglas DC-4 did not have a pressurized cabin, but the Boeing 307, introduced in the same year already had one and the Lockheed Constellation, that was equipped with a pressurized cabin had been ordered by TWA as early as 1939. The only development, that might have been slighty delayed without WWII is jet propulsion.
 
There's The_Airship_President[/URL] and it's sequel The_Airship_Legacy[/URL]. Both are very good.


lounge60, great graphics. I know about Goodyear's plans for Deluxe and Economy airships, but haven't seen these before.

Desmond Hume said:
You're missing the point: nostalgia is not the end of the campaign, it is the means Goodyear uses to achieve the end, which is to get people to give them money to build airships. Advertisers use nostalgia and other emotions this way all the time.

During WWII the entire economy was turned over to the war effort, but lots of company still ran "ad campaigns" for products they'd hope to sell after the war was over so that customers would've forget them. These were clearly attended to drum up enough public interest that an airline would consider ordering Goodyear airships.
 
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