Such ships had exemplary safety records until the spectacular demise of this famous ship. Of the 97 persons on board 35 were killed. On the Hindenburg caught fire and burned in less that one minute while attempting to dock in Lakehurst, New Jersey. It was 803 feet long and 135 feet wide and contained 7 million cubic feet of gas. The most famous airship was the Hindenburg built in Germany in 1936. Many were made for military uses but others had luxurious cabins for seating passengers. These large ships became the first commercial airliners. It was 420 feet long and could travel 600 miles in 2 days. The Van Zeppelin was the first large airship built. They had engines with propellers as well as flaps to control the direction and speed of flight. Airships are cigar shaped balloons, some of which have a rigid frame to maintain their shape. They were inflated by hydrogen gas to keep them aloft. George Washington observed the launch.Īirships, often called blimps, began to be built in the early 1900’s. He ascended to about 5,800 feet and he made a successful landing in Gloucester County, in New Jersey. This flight ascended from a prison yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was a hydrogen gas balloon piloted by the same Frenchman who was the first to cross the English Channel, Jean-Pierre Blanchard. The first manned flight of a balloon in America occurred January 9, 1793. The balloon is shown at left flying over France after crossing the channel. The first successful crossing of the English Channel was accomplished later the same year by French balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries using a gas balloon. Unfortunately this volatile mixture of highly flammable hydrogen with fire caused the balloon to explode thirty minutes after lift off and both men were killed. In 1785 Pilatre de Rozier, one of the men from the first balloon flight, and a man named Romain attempted to cross the channel in a balloon which was an experimental system using both hydrogen and hot air compartments. In these early days of ballooning, crossing the English Channel was considered the first step to long distance flying. Hot air balloons, however, had no dependable heat source, so hot air ballooning was not very practical. However, it was expensive to and time consuming to inflate a gas balloon so flying was not something just anyone could afford. Gas balloons continued to be the primary mode of air travel until the invention of the fixed wing aircraft by the Wright brothers in America in 1903. Unlike hot air balloons, gas balloons did not depend upon fire to get them aloft and stay up and therefore they were able to stay up longer and their altitude could be controlled somewhat easier with the use of ballasts. The balloon shown at left is the Royal Vauxhall Balloon typical of gas balloons which were flown in the 1830’s and 1840’s. Gas balloons soon became the preferred mode of air travel. The gas used in the balloon was hydrogen, a lighter than air gas that had been developed by an Englishman, Henry Cavendish in 1776, by using a combination of sulphuric acid and iron filings. The flight lasted 2½ hours and covered a distance of 25 miles. This flight too started in Paris, France. On December 1, 1783, just ten days after the first hot air balloon ride, the first gas balloon was launched by physicist Jacques Alexander Charles and Nicholas Louis Robert. Legend says when they landed in the farming and vineyard area near Paris the pilots gave bottles of champagne to the startled farmers and peasants to calm their fears of demons appearing from the heavens, but that cannot be confirmed. The balloon reached an altitude of at least 500 feet and traveled about 5½ miles before landing safely 25 minutes later. They hand-fed the fire through openings on either side of the balloon’s skirt. They stood on a circular platform attached to the bottom of the balloon. The balloon carried two men, Francois Pilatrê de Rozier and Francois Laurent, Marquis of Arlanders. On Novemthe first free flight carrying a human occurred in Paris, France in a hot air balloon made of paper and silk made by the Montgolfier brothers.
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