Gibby
January 23rd, 2008, 11:18:04 AM
We rigged the inside of the ship with C4 same with the Hindenburg.
Actually, like so many things the Hindenburg exploded for a variety of reasons, but one of them was not sabatoge. It was a combination of structural failure, many trans Atlantic voyages in salty sea air eroded the girders; static electricity, the hemp ropes dropped to help the navy linesmen moor the ship to the mast combined with an electrified atmosphere of a stormy Lakehurst, NJ afternoon shot charges throughout the duraluminum structure; a new doping for the outer cover was more waterproof but also extremely explosivel; and most importantly of all was the fact that DLZ-129 carried a dangerous combination of blau gas and hydrogen. So you have an already electrically charged atmosphere and static electricity that gets ignited when a control cable to the horizontal or vertical fins snaps "keep in mind the ship was somewhat unresponsive to the helm shortly before exploding and the first flash in the great ship's downfall was just in front of the bottom vertical fin on the keel where the control cables were threaded. The cable caused a spark which ignited the skin first and then the hydrogen in rapid succession.
Hydrogen seems to be the most obvious choice for the destruction of the ship but consider that LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin (II) had a three year service life and also carried hydrogen while conducting espionage on British radar instillations and taking fire from Spitfires and Hurricanes. The difference between this ship and her ill fated sister ship was the lack of transatlantic sea air corroding her control surfaces and superstructure and the fact that Ernst Lehmann did not injure her lower tail fan in the same way he did the Hindenburg's. There was also the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin (I) which had the same fuel, but lacked the explosive skin coating of the Hindenburg. The original Graf flew around the world, made countless trans atlantic trips to Brazil and Lakehurst, flew over the Arctic Circle, a litany of shorter Mediterranean trips and had a ten year service life as she became the world's most successful zeppelin. Prior to WWI (1910-1913) zeppelins were part of the world's first commercial airline (DELAG) and all these ships were lifted by hydrogen and between 1911 and 1914 they made several hundred accident free trips. Only LZ-8 "Deutschland (oddly piloted by a young Hugo Eckener who would later take over Count Zeppelin's company and become an icon of lighter than air flight) suffered an accident and it was structural, but the ship did not explode. The British too built many airships and the R-100 flew to Montreal from the UK in 1930 lifted by hydrogen. The R-101 exploded because of structural failure (it was far too heavy and its skin was in tatters) and only ignited after impact with the ground. In WWI the first strategic bombers were German Airships of the Imperial German Navy which did very successfully until outmatched by fighters with incendiary bullets that shot them down and forced the Zeppelin company to build height climbers which were very weak in structure which was a sacrifice made to lift them to ever increasing heights and one (I believe L-55) reached 24,000 feet and made it back to base. One German airship (L-59) flew to withen 300 miles of Lettow-Vorbeck's troops in modern day Tanzania after flying from Bulgaria and it too was lifted by hydrogen. The Americans airships that exploded were ZR-II (R-38) a british copy of a captured height climber which split in two while making a sharp turn and exploded over Hull, UK. The other was the Roma which exploded after contacting high tension powerlines. The Italians of Umberto Nobile made two trips to the north pole in Norge for Roald Amudsen and Italia which crashed but did not explode. Hydrogen was not the main factor in the Hindenburg's demise, its skin, structural failure, and static electricity were far more important.
Actually, like so many things the Hindenburg exploded for a variety of reasons, but one of them was not sabatoge. It was a combination of structural failure, many trans Atlantic voyages in salty sea air eroded the girders; static electricity, the hemp ropes dropped to help the navy linesmen moor the ship to the mast combined with an electrified atmosphere of a stormy Lakehurst, NJ afternoon shot charges throughout the duraluminum structure; a new doping for the outer cover was more waterproof but also extremely explosivel; and most importantly of all was the fact that DLZ-129 carried a dangerous combination of blau gas and hydrogen. So you have an already electrically charged atmosphere and static electricity that gets ignited when a control cable to the horizontal or vertical fins snaps "keep in mind the ship was somewhat unresponsive to the helm shortly before exploding and the first flash in the great ship's downfall was just in front of the bottom vertical fin on the keel where the control cables were threaded. The cable caused a spark which ignited the skin first and then the hydrogen in rapid succession.
Hydrogen seems to be the most obvious choice for the destruction of the ship but consider that LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin (II) had a three year service life and also carried hydrogen while conducting espionage on British radar instillations and taking fire from Spitfires and Hurricanes. The difference between this ship and her ill fated sister ship was the lack of transatlantic sea air corroding her control surfaces and superstructure and the fact that Ernst Lehmann did not injure her lower tail fan in the same way he did the Hindenburg's. There was also the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin (I) which had the same fuel, but lacked the explosive skin coating of the Hindenburg. The original Graf flew around the world, made countless trans atlantic trips to Brazil and Lakehurst, flew over the Arctic Circle, a litany of shorter Mediterranean trips and had a ten year service life as she became the world's most successful zeppelin. Prior to WWI (1910-1913) zeppelins were part of the world's first commercial airline (DELAG) and all these ships were lifted by hydrogen and between 1911 and 1914 they made several hundred accident free trips. Only LZ-8 "Deutschland (oddly piloted by a young Hugo Eckener who would later take over Count Zeppelin's company and become an icon of lighter than air flight) suffered an accident and it was structural, but the ship did not explode. The British too built many airships and the R-100 flew to Montreal from the UK in 1930 lifted by hydrogen. The R-101 exploded because of structural failure (it was far too heavy and its skin was in tatters) and only ignited after impact with the ground. In WWI the first strategic bombers were German Airships of the Imperial German Navy which did very successfully until outmatched by fighters with incendiary bullets that shot them down and forced the Zeppelin company to build height climbers which were very weak in structure which was a sacrifice made to lift them to ever increasing heights and one (I believe L-55) reached 24,000 feet and made it back to base. One German airship (L-59) flew to withen 300 miles of Lettow-Vorbeck's troops in modern day Tanzania after flying from Bulgaria and it too was lifted by hydrogen. The Americans airships that exploded were ZR-II (R-38) a british copy of a captured height climber which split in two while making a sharp turn and exploded over Hull, UK. The other was the Roma which exploded after contacting high tension powerlines. The Italians of Umberto Nobile made two trips to the north pole in Norge for Roald Amudsen and Italia which crashed but did not explode. Hydrogen was not the main factor in the Hindenburg's demise, its skin, structural failure, and static electricity were far more important.