Airships aren't the only aircraft to use V tails. Early Beech Bonanzas[1] and the Robin ATL[2] both have "ruddervators" - a V tail which combines the function o

Airships aren't the only aircraft to use V tails. Early Beech Bonanzas[1] and the Robin ATL[2] both have "ruddervators" - a V tail which combines the function of elevator and rudder into two control surfaces. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Bonanza http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Bonanza [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_ATL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_ATL They also both use mechanical control mixers. This is a diagram of the Robin mixer - http://i.imgur.com/yVLQA.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yVLQA.jpg The Bonanza was first flown in the late forties. I'd imagine that the choice to use fly by wire on the Zeppelin NT was more to do with the logistics of routing control cables to the fins, rather than because of complexities in manual control. On that sort of scale, a fly by wire system is going to save you a fair amount of weight in control wiring and brackets, and makes the gondola system far more flexible.