>Well the maker of the Zeppelin NT is the original Eckener entity that created the Zeppelins, so to the extent that a "Zeppelin" is an airship built by Luftschi

>Well the maker of the Zeppelin NT is the original Eckener entity that created the Zeppelins, so to the extent that a "Zeppelin" is an airship built by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, the Zeppelin NT is a real Zeppelin. Well, yes. He said "this is a Zeppelin, not a blimp", which is a lot like saying "this is a Chevy, not a butterfly". A blimp built by Zeppelin would still be a Zeppelin, and Zeppelin builds all sorts of things that aren't related to airships. The reason I don't think it will scale well is, like a blimp, pressurization of the gas bag is what keeps a hybrid in the proper shape. This means as the size of the airship increases the envelop pressure must also increase to deal with greater external forces, making the lifting gas heavier and therefor less efficient. The US navy fielded blimps larger than the Hindenburg until the early '60s, but they were never able to get more than about half the Hindenburg's lift capability for this reason. With a hybrid you still get the benefit of placing engine pods more efficiently and you don't have to worry about the nose collapsing if you go too fast. However, if you were going to go through the trouble and expense of building an 800 ft airship there's no reason to sacrifice that much lift.