WI: No Hindenburg Disaster. How does this affect the airship industry?

[JCC the Alt Historian]

We all know the story of the Hindenburg disaster, on May 6, 1937, the German rigid airship named the Hindenburg caught fire as a result of a gas leak while it was trying to land and crashed in Manchester Township, New Jersey on May 6, 1937 and resulted in 36 deaths. This in turn would cause the popularity of the airship to plummet and soon afterwards lead to the demise of airship travel, with all the remaining one being scrapped in the following years.

Let's say that in an alternate timeline that the Hindenburg disaster never happens. Would airships still be around? Could they have possibly serve during World War II, much like they had in World War I? Could they remain a popular mode of transport for upper-class people like cruise ships are today?



And yes, I know this topic was talk about quite a few times already, but I can't comment on inactive threads that haven't had activity for months or even years or else I might get kicked

 

[Anarchomando]

I don't know I mean even göring dislike those things

Then again he thought they blew up to easily and that tiny planes were much better

 

[Resurgam]

I have trouble seeing the airship surviving even without the Hindenburg crashing. Jet aircraft will make them obsolete as they did the ocean liner.

 

[Driftless]

I love airships, but there was a series of high profile disasters apart from the Hindenburg. (Akron, Macon, Shenandoah, R101). While they could provide timely, elegant and if carefully routed - safe passenger service over oceans into the 1940s (if no WW2); metal monoplanes were rapidly surpassing them in every way except range and elegance. By the mid to late 40s, even the range advantage would have disappeared.

 

[WanderingProfessor]

Even if the Hindenburg disaster never happens, airplanes were already being built as sleeker and modern alternatives to the airship. At best, the airship may exist a little longer but it will be overtaken by the airplane.

 

[BELFAST]

Airships were a dead end and would have been scrapped at the start of ww2 by the Germans.

 

[JCC the Alt Historian]

Airships were a dead end and would have been scrapped at the start of ww2 by the Germans.

The US and the Soviet Union had built their own airships, too. So they are not all going going to be scrapped by the Germans.

 

[BELFAST]

The US and the Soviet Union had built their own airships, too. So they are not all going going to be scrapped by the Germans.

They would be scrapped as they would not survive long against ww2 fighter aircraft or aa guns.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Maybe LZ 131 gets finished, but anything after that gets their construction stopped and existing ships would be scrapped to make planes out of during WWII. By the time WWII ends planes with transoceanic range are on the horizon, maybe some airship schemes get started, but these are unlikely to finish

Maybe the US builds a couple rigid airships to complement/replace the M and N class blimps in the long range ASW and AEW roles, possibly a research airship

Maybe the soviet airship program stretches longer than 1950, but they have planes that can replace them in the transport role by that point, so maybe a handful of research airships

Maybe late in the century you get airship tours at a few places instead of helicopter tours, maybe

 

[Smokey2018]

Even if the Hindenburg had not crashed or if the Germans after the crash had obtained Helium from the United States to fill the LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin 2 to operate passenger flights starting in the spring of 1938 there was not going to be a happy ending for the airships. The beginning of WW 2 in September 1939 was not going to be stopped and the ships would first have been grounded as it would have been too dangerous to fly them. There were facilities in Eastern Germany that the ships could have been placed and there was talk of flying the ships over Russia during the Non-Aggression Pact to transport minerals and such. Another proposal was to use the Graf Zeppelin 2 on a one way trip to Narvik to transport troops to help but the ship was in the process at the time of being dismantled. In any case even if the ships had been spared the hangars at Frankfort were a legitimate military target as they were also storing ME-109 aircraft. The ships would have been eventually destroyed during the war as were their hangars in Friedrichshafen. One can also think that they could have been attempted to be used on the Russian Front as a transport but as they would have been very vulnerable to Soviet fighters the odds were low

 

[BELFAST]

Maybe LZ 131 gets finished, but anything after that gets their construction stopped and existing ships would be scrapped to make planes out of during WWII. By the time WWII ends planes with transoceanic range are on the horizon, maybe some airship schemes get started, but these are unlikely to finish

Maybe the US builds a couple rigid airships to complement/replace the M and N class blimps in the long range ASW and AEW roles, possibly a research airship

Maybe the soviet airship program stretches longer than 1950, but they have planes that can replace them in the transport role by that point, so maybe a handful of research airships

Maybe late in the century you get airship tours at a few places instead of helicopter tours, maybe

Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor did the Berlin New york run non-stop in August 1938 in 24 hours and 56 minutes.

Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Driftless]

How about a different twist? Have a different WW1 ending with the Germans maintaining both a lead in dirigible technology AND having access to US Helium. Perhaps then you get a somewhat earlier appearance of trans-oceanic airships in the early '20s where they become the gold standard for luxury travel for a longer time.

Conversely, with a different WW2, you get some early development of radar usable for civilian weather forecasting - plotting storm fronts. That would benefit both lighter and heavier-than-air aircraft from a safety standpoint. I can see it now : Great radar masts in Iceland, The Azores, Bermuda, Newfoundland, Madiera, West Indies, Ceylon, etc - OK, I'll stop now.....

 

[iani]

I did enjoy reading this:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/zephyr-brigade-the-royal-airship-service-1962.418966/

 

[JCC the Alt Historian]

They would be scrapped as they would not survive long against ww2 fighter aircraft or aa guns.

Who says that all known American and Soviet zeppelins would be going over to the European front in the first place? Some would probably stay in their native countries and some surely would've been grounded from flying.

 

[BELFAST]

Who says that all known American and Soviet zeppelins would be going over to the European front in the first place? Some would probably stay in their native countries and some surely would've been grounded from flying.

I was thinking of the German ones not surviving allied fighters and AA guns.

 

[Smokey2018]

Another potential thread could be what if the Hindenburg had still crashed but not at Lakehurst in front of all the newsreels. Lets say there had been an accident while the ship was landing at Frankfort or even Rio at the end of one of its South American flights. Without the images of the fire the German's could still have had the option of resuming passenger flights using hydrogen as they had corrected the doping on the cover of the LZ-130 to better protect it from static electrical discharge and changed the landing procedures with no more attempts at a high landing especially during an electrical storm. The images of the fire really hurt the German attempt at a passenger comeback and if they had decided to go back to hydrogen flying with passengers if the United States had prevented the shipping of Helium to fill the ships than the older Graf Zeppelin LZ-127 could have been also brought back into service while construction of the LZ-131 and LZ-132 was constructed during 1938. Again though there would not have been no butterflying away the outbreak of WW2 in Sept 1939 and the same results of the eventual loss of all the ships would have happened

 

[DougM]

If we avoid all the major crashes of airships between WW1 and WW2. Then we may see a minor change but overall the Airships time was ending. And ut was all but over as far as Warfare is concerned. The exceptions to this being (perhaps) the US using them as flying Air raft carriers fgor scouting missions.
The other option for use during the war would be searching for subs in the “gap” . The only thing else they may be of use for is cargo shipments to non active war zones. So say England itself once the allies had more or less. control of the sky over england.

But the only thing they had going for them was range. They were very delicate and very slow. Thus they are sitting ducks.
They probably would have had a few good years before the war running long distance passenger routes on routes with a lot of wealthy folks wanting to travel them.
But overall very little will change

The “dream” of a steam punk ish world with the sky full of Airships is fun to think about but alas it just is not going to happen