New Dirigible on Trial Flights 1933 Universal Newsreel

Courtesy: Universal Newsreels

Akron, Ohio: Striking views of the official tests of the USS Macon, the largest airship in the world, just completed for the U.S. Navy. She is a sister ship of the wrecked Akron." (some parts silent of this partial newsreel without narration)

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[mikepousti]

ur video uploads are all great…



[nikki191]

the graf zeppelin was easiely the most successful airship. and the first aircraft to travel around the world nonstop

[steamboy51]

@TheJamesMeister No mate, graf used hydrogen. Her blaugas fuel was contained in smaller cells, and had the same density as air. If they had tried lifting graf with blaugas, shed have been no more airworthy than a slab of concrete.

[oiseautempete]

@TheJamesMeister

You are false:

The Graf Zeppelin use hydrogen as lifting gas, the separate coal gas baloons (~same density as air) was only for the engines!

[TheJamesMeister]

@frellthat Umm... minor detail... the Graf Zeppelin did not use Hydrogen as a lifting gas, it used a coal gas which was also consumed by its engines as fuel. Hydrogen was only used in the Hindenburg.

[LibertyIsntForFree]

as airships were definitely way ahead of their time--talking about the "design problems" of early airships is pretty much a "duh."

And yet the Graf Zeppelin-filled with flammable gas and vulnerable to the same early issues- flew for its entire existence (virtually 20 years) without a problem..

Today's "operation certain death" -is tomorrow's "sunday drive," -petshopbouy...

[GerbilEssences]

@frellthat Ah, that makes sense now. I think the helium we get at work is mined in Poland.

[frellthat]

@GerbilEssences In fact, the reason genuine Zeppelins like the Hindenburg or Graf Zeppelin used hydrogen instead of helium was because, at the time, the United States controlled the world's only supply of helium, and sale of it to Germany was boycotted.

[GerbilEssences]

@frellthat Well someone was thinking when they made this ship. They always strike me as unwieldy, vulnerable to weather and hard to control. Though there is a lot of lifting power available, which still might be useful in civilian applications.

I was surprised to discover that helium is mined and hence there may be only a finite supply for future airships etc.

[frellthat]

@GerbilEssences

Macon wasn't flammable; her lifting gas was helium.

The Navy found that the crash was due to operator error. What happened is that the damage sustained to a support ring from her previous voyage (after 60 successful flights btw) was not yet repaired, and as a result, the ring failed during a storm.

Even with the damage, she could have made it back to base, except the captain ordered her driven above pressure height.