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The Hindenburg’s Interior
- mannyv 2y agoIt’s interesting that the furnishings look, well, modern. They don’t look dated, or quaint, or from another era. The Bauhaus really did win.
- bobthepanda 2y agoEh, the current furniture trend is all about precisely cut woods. The Hindenburg furniture looks like something you would see in a diner or fast food restaurants. It’s worth noting that everything, including the furniture, was designed to be lightweight and not flammable, so it isn’t necessarily representative of what was in vogue then either.
- porphyra 2y agoOn the other hand, the heavy use of aluminum parts resembles modern airplane interiors to some extent. Truly a great material, lightweight and strong.
- bobthepanda 2y agoAirlines take great care to hide the metal in their cabins, particularly the lie flat seats of first and business.
- WalterBright 2y agoThere was an aluminum piano on board, too.
- schiffern 2y agoThey didn't say it looks like expensive modern furniture. They said it doesn't look quaint or dated. The fact that such design been made accessible and democratized isn't a disqualifier. If anything it makes it even more "of our time."
- bobthepanda 2y agoIt’s dated, just not its original dates. Diners have been dying for a long time and fast food chains are busy ripping out their dining rooms for more drive thru lanes in 2024.
- SoftTalker 2y agoEspecially post-COVID but even before then, the vast majority of their sales were coming from drive-thru. The people who came inside were retirees who would order from the dollar menu and get a free cup of coffee and sit there for an hour.
- ghaff 2y agoI HATE drive-through. And mostly have no interest in going to places like Starbucks unless maybe if I'm traveling.
- M95D 2y agoAnd then they'll add them back while people wait for their cars to recharge.
- Isamu 2y agoLiterally Modernist. There’s some details that might be Art Deco inspired but overall just clean lines, metal tube furniture, uncluttered. It fits with the need to keep weight down. The Modern architect Le Corbusier took inspiration from the clean lines and shapes of aircraft and such, you can read about it in Vers Une Architecture.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoI think part of it is the lagging effect of copycat manufacturing that keeps it up even longer. You can get a copycat 1950 eames chair at any big box store today. However it seems like those copycats only really emerged the last 10-20 years. So we are now in this period where you might see a 70 year old fiberglass chair someplace and think it to be a very modern design. It probably won’t last forever I expect, but it makes you wonder what would even qualify today to be the next eames chair. I’m not sure how many contemporary, truly seminal designers there are today akin to an eames. Many more players in the space today from around the world keeps the notoriety distributed.
- bithead 2y agoIsn't it true that at the time there wasn't anything like weather radar? What would have happened if a zeppelin got caught up in a strong storm?
- jodrellblank 2y agoSearch [1] for 'storm' and 'blown' and 'wind'... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents
- fiftyacorn 2y agoLike Indiana Jones and the last crusade then
- breckenedge 2y ago“No ticket”
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y agoBoth the movie and the adventure game. They were perfect for their time. It reminds me that I should play it again.
- BowBun 2y agoSergey Brin (and others, I'm sure) hopes to bring airships back with the technological advances since - https://spectrum.ieee.org/lta-airship-faa-clearance https://spectrum.ieee.org/lta-airship-faa-clearance
- mananaysiempre 2y agoThere’s also the, umm, Flying Bum[1] descended from a discarded project of the US military. (It’s not quite clear what they wanted to do with it—radio relay for ground troops in difficult terrain? mobile command post?) Filling it with helium (expensive and very limited on Earth) feels kind of barbaric, though, knowing what lengths even physics labs go to in order to avoid wasting it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_Airlander_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_Airlander_...
- jodrellblank 2y ago> "it can use nonflammable helium instead of explosive hydrogen as a lifting gas." Frustrating FUD that's held back Hydrogen lift airships for almost a century, because clickbait scaremongering sells newspapers. What about [1] and [2], Spectrum.IEEE reporting on Hydrogen fuel-cell electric aircraft, or [3] them reporting on a hydrogen fuel cell rescue truck, without mentioning explosions or the Hindenburg. You know how many people died in the Hindenburg disaster? 36. And how many survivors? 62. Yes that's too many. FOURTY TWO THOUSAND people killed by cars EVERY YEAR in the USA[7] held back car development or sales? When was the last time an aeroplane crash killed that many people? It was August 9th - only a month ago - a crash in Brazil killed 66 people[4]. Before that? January 2023 a crash in Nepal killed 72 people. In fact, look how many plane crashes there are[5] - that doesn't leave newspapers scaremongering about airplane travel and regulators banning it. OK, it does, "Horrific Oregon plane crash shows moment aircraft flies into home and EXPLODES as residents evacuate area" a week ago in the Daily Mail[8]. Jet fuel is explosive, explosions are how engines work! A Boeing 737 carries ~20,000 litres or ~5300 gallons of jet fuel, and nobody writes articles about how planes are bad because jet fuel burns. With today's technology, and all the improvements in airline safety generally - checklists, regulations, mandatory inspections and maintenance, why wouldn't Hydrogen lift airships be similarly safe to airplanes? Look at "List of airship accidents"[6] and ask yourself how many could be made unlikely with today's technology, weather forecasting, and careful design and maintenance procedures? The first 30 years are mostly: - crashed - fell apart - burnt - strong winds broke moorings / crashed it / tore it apart - exploded And if you think the fire risk is not safely manageable, have a think about Hydrogen refuelling pumps at every gas station on every town and city street, used by ordinary people not paying much attention, refuelled and maintained by the lowest bidder, into old, maybe poorly maintained, cars and trucks. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/hydrogen-powered-planes-fuel-cells https://spectrum.ieee.org/hydrogen-powered-planes-fuel-cells [2] https://spectrum.ieee.org/stealthy-startup-promises-cheap-carbonfree-flying-via-hydrogen https://spectrum.ieee.org/stealthy-startup-promises-cheap-ca... [3] https://spectrum.ieee.org/hydrogen-truck-emergency-rescue https://spectrum.ieee.org/hydrogen-truck-emergency-rescue [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voepass_Linhas_A%C3%A9reas_Flight_2283 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voepass_Linhas_A%C3%A9reas_Fli... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... [8] I'm not linking to the Daily Mail. If you're desperate to read it, you'll have to find it.
- ghaff 2y agoThere's plenty of comfortable travel available if you're not in a hurry. You just need to pay for it. I've done Atlantic crossings by ship. You just need the time and schedule around availability. (And pay the premium of course.)
- cagenut 2y agotwo days on either side of a two to three week vacation is viable ten days on either side is not
- ghaff 2y agoIt depends on your situation. And, given Starlink, there's a lot of flexibility these days for people who can work remote. ADDED: And if they can't work remote adding a few days on the sides probably isn't a great option either. Certainly it wasn't a good option when I was maximizing vacation days.
- Eumenes 2y agoStopping in the Azores wouldn't be a bad way to break things up
- porphyra 2y agoThere's plenty of comfortable travel even if you are in a hurry... If you can pay for it. Modern first class is pretty good and beyond that you could always fly private (I have only ever flown economy, though).
- ghaff 2y agoTrue. I usually don't but have flown business trans-Pacific. Taking an ocean liner when schedule permits is very comfortable but really is a different beast.
- Klaster_1 2y agoThat's some serious drillium on the photos.
- yieldcrv 2y ago> A one-way fare between Germany and the United States was US$400 (equivalent to $7,811 in 2021); Hindenburg passengers were affluent I feel like seeing such an affliction happen to so many of the richest people at once is what killed interest in the zeppelin I always felt that was too reductive, one crash killed public interest? No more like it killed that tiny market’s interest I think it could be done better, safer, and cheaper now
- jerezzprime 2y agoThis isn't too far off from the cost of a first-class trans-continental flight.
- yieldcrv 2y agoYeah, it would probably have been economically viable if zeppelins had a pleb and business class too
- throwup238 2y agoThe cabins were already tiny. Can you imagine sitting in the economy seats with 20" of legroom and airline quality food for a week?
- ghaff 2y agoYeah. It's hard to justify premium and much more time-consuming transatlantic travel even when I can afford it. I've done it for various reasons. But generally I'd prefer to spend my money and and time on other things.
- lallysingh 2y agoThey'd look different than airlines, Zepplins were primarily weight constrained instead of volume. Dumping the cabins can save a lot of weight.
- WalterBright 2y ago
- sillywalk 2y agoI can picture the rigid airship Excelsior from Archer.
- throwup238 2y agoFor the last time, the Excelsior is filled with non-flamable helium!
- Loughla 2y agoFor the longest time I had frisky dingo and Archer mixed up. I never understood how Archer was so mainstream when it was SO weird.
- WalterBright 2y agoFantastic pictures! I've seen books on the Hindenburg, and haven't seen these pix before. Love all the weight-saving construction of everything.
- kleiba 2y agoI'll make sure to remember these pictures next time I'll be crammed into my economy class seat for 9 hours flying over the Atlantic.
- kasey_junk 2y agoWill you also remember the price difference, the choice of flights and how common it is now vs then?
- trhway 2y agoMy favorites though not Zeppelin. Dining rooms, sleeping berths while faster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_377_Stratocruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_377_Stratocruiser
- spaceman_2020 2y agoWhy did we stop building crazy stuff like this? Everything seems to now be an exercise in somehow optimizing profits Even our billionaires are boring now Where are the wild eyed people dreaming up impossible megastructures and geoengineering projects? I can’t imagine anyone even attempting to build the Panama canal today
- neuralRiot 2y ago>Everything seems to now be an exercise in somehow optimizing profits It has always been, but now the idea is to maximize it as fast as possible and “tomorrow is not my problem”, same as school grades discussed in another post, the goal is to pass the metrics, the final result doesn’t really matter.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago"Smoking Room"?
- JKCalhoun 2y agoBut at negative pressure as I recall?
- griffzhowl 2y agoHigher pressure, to prevent hydrogen leaks from elsewhere coming in
- JKCalhoun 2y agoThat sounds correct.
- SoftTalker 2y agoPeople smoked constantly in those days. Asking them to stop for a three day voyage would be untenable. It was probaby considered quite an imposition just to ask them to go to a special room.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nickdothutton 2y agoI'd love to see airships (and flying boats) come back. Would open up new routes and different destinations.
- SoftTalker 2y agoThey're just too slow for most people. Like trains. There's a certain charm to spending three days to get to LA on a train, eating in the dining car and watching the scenery go by, but for most people they'd rather get on an airliner and be there in 4 hours.
- fragmede 2y agoLike cruise ships? An airplane can also get you places way faster, but cruise ships are a some $50 billion industry, with some 30 million passengers each year. How much of that industry would an airship need to slice off to be profitable?
- SoftTalker 2y agoCruise ships are about the cruise though. They're not really to get anywhere. I think most of them start and end at the same port?
- spaceman_2020 2y agoSo an airship that runs over a picturesque coastline route would do the trick. Don’t have to fly over the Atlantic. Just fly around the caribbean islands
- NikkiA 2y agoWhile they were both still in service, there was a famous long-serving cruise package of QE2 from Southampton to NYC, then Concorde back (and another package of the opposite directions) But yes, mostly these days cruises are a circular trip. Some info: https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde--the-qe2 https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde--the-qe2
- dr_dshiv 2y agoThere is no way today to have the experience of looking down at the earth, silently, from a few thousand feet. I think an LA to Las Vegas route could be viable. You aren’t limited by volume— only weight. You could have huge vaulted ceilings and massive windows. Hell, bungee jumping while we’re at it. Here’s a vision deck for an aerostatic future: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6IyCS1dyiqFz_HsjH-evYiHg/edit https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6...
- bombcar 2y agoHot air balloons get you close and because they’re unpowered you are flowing in and with the wind, so there is absolutely no apparent movement.
- WalterBright 2y agoIt's funny when I see hollywood films of people in balloons with the wind ruffling their hair.
- jodrellblank 2y agoI wish the billionaires would drop a few dollars into making enormous airships come back, just because they are amazing and not for profit. Even for profit, they can lift more than anything else - build houses or appartments in a factory and float them accross the country to their destination. Then they can be bigger than road/bridge/tunnel limits. Because they are buoyant they don't need much energy for the effort of lifting (improves on airplane, helicopter, hovercraft, mag-lev). If not that, then just for tourism / novelty / showing off. Along the lines of the beautiful (but not very economical) buildings of old - train stations, libraries, opera houses - to show off doing something grand and impressive.
- WalterBright 2y ago> just because they are amazing and not for profit Why all this angst about somebody making a profit? Why does it have to lose money in order to be acceptable? If it's amazing, who cares if a profit is made?
- washadjeffmad 2y agoProfit ≠ revenue
- jodrellblank 2y ago> "If it's amazing, who cares if a profit is made?" That's what I said. Restated: billionaires already do things which are expected to be profitable; apparently Zeppelins are not in that case and I can't argue that I think they would be profitable and should be in that case, so that case doesn't need commenting on. The case where they do things as money losers, I would like it if that case included Zeppelins. (angst about somebody making a profit) and (it has to lose money in order to be acceptable) are not things I said.
- WalterBright 2y agoI wish they'd bring back Led Zeppelin.
- metadat 2y ago> The latest gas cells were made by a new method pioneered by Goodyear using multiple layers of gelatinized latex rather than the previous goldbeater’s skins. How much did Goodyear help Nazi causes (even inadvertently)? A company is like a machine automata in many ways. p.s. The amount of metal on the Hindenburg was truly insane. With today's technologies 3x, probably even more, paying passengers could be accommodated aboard such a contraption. Plastic is the worst, laziest scourge ever (97%+ of supermarket packaging) and occasionally incredible. p.p.s. the SuperGuppy (still flying, since 1965) is pretty remarkable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy
- djmips 2y agoJust avoid the ads and go to the source https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/ https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/
- knowald 2y agoHere in my city in Germany called Friedrichshafen there is the "Zeppelin Museum", as it's is the birthplace of the Zeppelins, and there is a walkable Partial reconstruction of the LZ 129 Hindenburg interior. You can have a walk around that from home, on Google Arts & Culture: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/explore-the-zeppelin-museum-from-home/nAWhb_NjVgd3sQ https://artsandculture.google.com/story/explore-the-zeppelin...
- qingcharles 2y agoThat's awesome, thank you. Perfect replica. Is there a replica of a cabin?