What if no airships?

As with many other (likely) over-obsessed AH-er's, I'm of the party that firmly believes in the eternal cool-ness of the airship.
However, in reading up a bit, I came across an interesting statement about the early days of the Zeppelin.
Evidently, the fourth ship to be built (the LZ4... not long on imaginative names :rolleyes:) crashed when making a demonstration flight for the German military on 5 Aug 1908.
As per Wiki:
Wiki on Zeppelin said:
This accident would have certainly knocked out the Zeppelin project economically had not one of the spectators in the crowd spontaneously initiated a collection of donations, yielding an impressive total of 6,096,555 Mark. This enabled the Count to found the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH (Airship Construction Zeppelin Ltd.) and a Zeppelin Foundation.

So, I was left thinking the opposite question to what a great many other threads have queried:
Let's say that spontaneous collection of donations never happened.
What if the idea of the airship had been killed off in its infancy, and had never developed into the monsters of WWI and the airliners of the interwar period?
 
HERESY!!!! :mad::mad::mad::p:D

Seriously, this affects transoceanic air travel. Assuming no one fills in Zep's shoes and we go straight to airplane this means there're no preestablished air routes to follow, no previously measured air currents, etc., that zeps found otl. Instead this will come slowly with tentative exploratory flights by individuals and governments. Could affect trans-oceanic communications and travel for decades, delaying these travels and affecting diplomatic and business relations. with the New World.
 
Zeppelin was mainly responsible for the development of the rigid airship, which eventually bore his name. Semirigids and 'blimps' were present before his and an to this day. The idea of the 'airship' is present, if not, it certainly would have been developed during the Great War to combat u-boats.

The concept of an airship is fairly simple so they will eventually be toyed with to a degree, probably in similar venues as the Goodyear Blimp.
 
Zeppelin was mainly responsible for the development of the rigid airship, which eventually bore his name. Semirigids and 'blimps' were present before his and an to this day. The idea of the 'airship' is present, if not, it certainly would have been developed during the Great War to combat u-boats.

The concept of an airship is fairly simple so they will eventually be toyed with to a degree, probably in similar venues as the Goodyear Blimp.

Ditto. While Zeppelin made them famous, the Zeppelin Airships weren't the only kids on the block, even in Germany. Schütte-Lanz also produced rigid airships for the German Empire during WWI as well.

It's an interesting idea though, since as you say (and my TL serves as proof), most ALTs focus on airships doing better than they did IOTL.
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
MUST SEE for Airship nuts. "Around the World by Zeppelin" a 90min documenary ( I am watching right now). Consist of comtemporary film of the 1929 Graf Zeppelin circumnavigation with the only commentary readings from the Diary and letters of the passengers, especially Lady Grace-Drummond-Hay and some contemporary radio bulletins. Fascinating stuff. It really shows what airships meant and what Zeppelin meant to the Germans.
 
It means that this is just a fantasy.

AirshipAeroscraft.jpg
 
It's hard to imagine a TL based in the history of western technology in which "airships" are never invented. It is almost inevitable that somebody would eventually decide to mate a bag o' hydrogen to an engine and a steering apparatus. Now, if you mean "zeppelins" that's another situation altogether. It is very possible that the rigid airship as it came to be would never have become significant without the unique combination of Ferdinand Zeppelin's particular drive and perserverance, the conversion of Hugo Eckener, and the somewhat strange Wilhelmenian fascination with giant flying sausages to to show Germany's teutonic greatness. With the exception of the metalclad type ships, and maybe the Speiss ship in France, all rigid airships probably owe their origin to the early popularity of zeppelins. Certainly that can be said of Schutte-Lanz and all the British rigid airships.

Now, what would the world be like if there had never been zeppelin airships? No fun, that's for sure. And probably just about like it is, with maybe a few more blimps. As much as I love the zeppelin airships they really probably were an unlikely technological dead end and something of an historical accident. If anything, zeppelins (with their huge size and impression of solidity and modernity) may have inhibited interest in smaller non-rigid and semi-rigid designs which history demonstrates actually were more useful in most military and civilian applications than rigids. Maybe, some of the skill and ingenuity that went into the design of rigid airships may have gone into non-rigids and created inproved envelopes, controls, etc for them.
 
When powered flight came along, they pretty much tried everything, so they would have tried airships sooner or later anyway. It wasn't a new idea. Someone designed a small airship in the Napoleonic era, using bicycle pedals for propulsion (can't remember the details, but it was reconstructed on TV a few years ago; the conclusion was that the materials of the time weren't up to it, but the idea was sound, although really tiring, so if they'd persisted, they might have got somewhere. Someone's back garden, probably!).

As zoomar says, they didn't really have that much impact on technological development that wouldn't have happened anyway(although they are beautiful to look at, and I would love to ride one). In warfare, Germany was using Gotha 4-engined fixed-wing bombers against targets in France and Britain well before the end of World War One.
 
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