WI: Zepplins/Airships are never deveolped

mowque

Banned
Other then this forum having one less cliche...

Not sure, faster development of planes?
 
One less cliche, one less obsession, and thousands of people throughout history trying to figure out how to get balloons to steer.
 
One thing that I did learn in reading about airships, and is part of their continued fascination, is that their lift is virtually free compared with that of aircraft.
 
Alternate history nerds will obsess with something else. Steampunk will lose a major selling point.
 
Blasphemy aside :)p), this may have bigger effects than people think, at least in the short term. Zep travel in the 20's and 30's, due to the ships' low ceiling and susceptibility to weather and wind patterns (but without the early airplanes' dangerous vulnerabilities to them), proved a major OTL pathfinder for Transatlantic travel by being the first to detail the Atlantic air weather. This played a very important role in establishing viable Transatlantic air travel by the 30s. Without the Zep co. weather maps we may see Transatlantic flight delayed a decade or more as airplanes contend with establishing these in a much more risky manner. Transoceanic passenger air travel is definitely delayed, possibly even to the 50s.

There's some detail on the role of Zeps in weather mapping here in the Smithsonian Mag.
 
I'm pretty sure that violates the Second Law of Alternate History: history may only be changed if it results in an increase in zeppelins.

(What's the First Law? Your guess is as good as mine...)
 
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