Originally published by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. as a promotional, The Story of the Airship chronicles the history and development of these great ¿silver cruisers of the sky.¿ Filled with photos and authoritative text, the book springs from an era when dirigibles, balloons and blimps competed against airplanes for public attention.

Here is the story of airshipsÑmanmade flying machines without wingsÑfrom their earliest beginnings to the modern era of blimps. In postcards and advertisements, the sleek, silver, cigar-shaped airships, or dirigibles, were the embodiment of futuristic visions of air travel. They immediately captivated the imaginations of people worldwide, but in less than fifty years dirigibleÊbecame a byword for doomed futurism, an Icarian figure of industrial hubris. Dirigible Dreams looks back on this bygone era, when the future of exploration, commercial travel, and warfare largely involved the prospect of wingless flight. In Dirigible Dreams, C. Michael Hiam celebrates the legendary figures of this promising technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesÑthe pioneering aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, the doomed polar explorers S. A. AndrŽe and Walter Wellman, and the great Prussian inventor and promoter Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, among otherÊpivotal figuresÑand recounts fascinating stories of exploration, transatlantic journeys, and floating armadas that rained death during World War I. While there were triumphs, such as the polar flight of the Norge, most of these tales are of disaster and woe, culminating in perhaps the most famous disaster of all time, the crash of the Hindenburg. This story of daring men and their flying machines, dreamers and adventurers who pushed modern technology toÑand often beyondÑits limitations, is an informative and exciting mix of history, technology, awe-inspiring exploits, and warfare that will captivate readers with its depiction of a lost golden age of air travel. Readable and authoritative, enlivened by colorful characters and nail-biting drama,ÊDirigible DreamsÊwill appeal to a new generation of general readers and scholars interested in the origins of modern aviation.

Contents: The structural airship (description and characteristics) The multipurpose capability of structural air ships. The airship in support of limited war Hypothetical movement problem.

My Airships : The Story of My Life Two young Brazilian boys strolled in the shade, conversing. They were simple youths of the interior, knowing only the plenty of the primitive plantation where, undisturbed by labour-saving devices, Nature yielded man her fruits at the price of the sweat of his brow. They were ignorant of machines to the extent that they had never seen a waggon or a wheelbarrow. Horses and oxen bore the burdens of plantation life on their backs, and placid Indian labourers wielded the spade and the hoe. Yet they were thoughtful boys. At this moment they discussed things beyond all that they had seen or heard. "Why not devise a better means of transport than the backs of horses and of oxen?" Luis argued. "Last summer I hitched horses to a barn door, loaded it with sacks of maize, and hauled in one load what ten horses could not have brought on their backs. True, it required seven horses to drag it, while five men had to sit around its edges and hold the load from falling off." "What would you have?" answered Pedro. "Nature demands compensations. You cannot get something from nothing or more from less!" "If we could put rollers under the drag, less pulling power would be needed." "Bah! the force saved would be used up in the labour of shifting the rollers." "The rollers might be attached to the drag at fixed points by means of holes running through their centres," mused Luis. "Or why should not circular blocks of wood be fixed at the four corners of the drag?... Look, Pedro, yonder along the road. What is coming? The very thing I imagined, only better! One horse is pulling it at a good trot!" The first waggon to appear in that region of the interior stopped, and its driver spoke with the boys.

Traces the evolution of airship design, the peaceful and wartime missions of dirigibles, and the history of such famous ships as the Graf Zepplin and the Hindenburg

The Zeppelin details the unique story of an invention that even today has the power to fascinate. Charting the first tentative steps at the end of the 19th century, through the golden age of airship travel in the 1920s and 1930s, this revealing book delves deep into the history and science of airship travel.

On July 2, 1900, Ferdinand Graf Zeppelin made the first ascent in an airship of his own design. The flight was initially viewed with skepticism, however public opinion changed after the destruction of his fourth airship at Echterdingen. Zeppelin received so many donations that not only was he able to found his own companies for the purpose of building airships, but also production facilities for the development and manufacture of engines, transmissions, shells, gas cells, airship hangars and even the construction of aircraft. All of these companies enjoyed a tremendous upswing during the First World War. After the war the Zeppelin airship company took some time to get back on its feet, but then produced its crowning achievements - the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and the LZ 129 Hindenburg - memories of which still remain alive and influence the present. Author Hans Knäusel describes the Zeppelin story with a critical look at the economic and political effects of the period, from the beginning until the destruction of the Hindenburg in 1937. He also discusses airships built in other countries using the Zeppelin system, as well as the hangars and landing masts vital to operation of the big airships.

Series about new possibilities of aerial navigation.

This volume covers rigid airships from their beginnings in 19th-century Germany until World War II and examines their role in both civil and military aviation. It gives the development histories of 163 different airships constructed during that period in Germany, Britain, France and the USA.