Flying the Atlanic

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I’m almost afraid to challenge Cecil on one of his facts, but this can’t be resisted. The Hindenburg, on her last flight, was not commanded by Dr. Eckener as stated in the column, but instead by a Captain Max Pruss. Dr. Eckener wasn’t on board - in fact I’m not sure how many times he did command the Hindenburg as he, having recognized what thugs the Nazis were, had gotten seriously cross-wise with Der Fuhrer. In fact, he probably excaped legalized murder by the Nazis only because he was such a hero to the entire German nation.

Several interesting things about the Hindenburg that don’t have any bearing at all on this thread, only about how closely the airship came to being the air transport system of the future.

  1. THe Hindenburg, with a full load of 70 paying passengers, and with freight and her crew, could cross the Atlantic on $300 ($Three Hundred) worth of diesel oil.

  2. The 37 passengers who died on that last flight were the only paying passengers ever killed on an airship. And the Germans had been flying regularly scheduled airship flights since before World War I. Killing that many now on an airliner hardly makes an inside page on a newspaper.

Oh well … what might have been…

2

It’s not Cecil who wrote the Staff Report, but bibliophage of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Staff.

And the link to the Staff Report is Did others fly across the Atlantic before Lindbergh?

3

Cecil is infallible. I, alas, am not. This crew and passenger list confirms that you are right and Eckener was not aboard.

On this point, I got my information from the Encyclopedia Americana

Like me, the Encyclopedia Americana is apparently fallible.

4

From what I have read in Graf Zeppelin & Hindenberg Dr Ecker may have only commanded the test flights of the Hindenburg (If he commanded any flights at all), although he often flew along as a “passenger.” At the time of the Hindenburg’s destruction he was not even a German Citizen (that having been yanked by the Nazis). This was the reward from the home country of one of the great pioneers of long distance flying.

5

One of the most remarkable things about Lindbergh’s flight was that his aircraft had no forward visibility at all. I’m basing this on the screenshots from Microsoft’s upcoming Flight Simulator 2004, which will aparently feature the Spirit of St. Louis as a flyable plane.

Chuck’s view apparently looked something like this. Not the way I’d like to fly the Atlantic.

6

I’d also question their quote “with heavy loss of life”.

About 2/3rds of the people on board the airship actually survived. That’s probably better than the chances on any modern airplane that starts on fire while landing.

I suppose whether you call that “heavy loss of life” depends on whether you are in the 2/3rds that survived, or the 1/3 that didn’t.

7

He did had forward visibility through the periscope, albeit not much.

8

I’d rather fly the Alannah (Myles). Or maybe the Alanis (Morrissette). But I think my favorite would be to fly the Avril (Lavigne).

What’s with those damn Canadians, anyway? :wink: