this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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[–] carrylex@lemmy.world 31 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents

Apart from the 80% of the entries that are basically "Crashed during bad weather" - my personal highlights:

... breaks loose from its mooring during a storm and is blown over the English Channel; after sightings in Wales and Ireland and a brief touchdown in Belfast, the airship was blown out over the Atlantic Ocean and is never seen again.

Zeppelin LZ 8 Deutschland II (brand new) is caught by a wind gust while being walked out of its hangar and damaged beyond repair after it smashes on the roof of the hangar.

... the airship, weighed down with gold and burgundy paint, reached 600 feet altitude before beginning an unplanned right descending turn, making a "controlled descent" into a garbage dump, impaling the blimp on a pine tree, coming down just a quarter-mile from the site of the Hindenburg's 1937 demise.

... suffers an intentional mid-air collision with a radio-controlled airplane.

[–] twice_hatch@midwest.social 6 points 6 days ago

the airship was blown out over the Atlantic Ocean and is never seen again.

Hastily stuffing "Ghost zeppelin" into my horror idea bag

[–] mmddmm@lemm.ee 7 points 6 days ago

Yes, those things are really hard to park.

[–] Stamau123@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

lol, the gilded blimp crashing into a junkyard

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

the airship was blown out over the Atlantic Ocean and is never seen again.

zeppelins are always just Phineas and Ferb plots

suffers an intentional mid-air collision with a radio-controlled airplane.

like you cannot tell me that this isn't just the platypus controlling the evil guys "overly complicated bomb holding RC plane" after stealing the remote from him

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 61 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Let's put a billion birthday balloons worth of MRI gas in a terminally slow aircraft and inexplicably fly it over sports stadiums.

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There are other gasses to use.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

And that don’t readily explode when exposed to an ignition source?

(I actually think hydrogen party balloons would be fun).

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

lol, I worked in one (dangerous) shop where a common prank would be to wait for someone to be in thier hood, upend a large styrofoam coffee cup from the break room on the edge of someone's bench, fill it with aceteline from a torch and spark it.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago

I’ve seen that prank too. Feels like an old fabricators’ rite of passage. Also probably where a lot of cases of tinnitus originate.

100% hydrogen isn't explosive. It's only when about 30% of oxygen is mixed does it become dangerous.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Modern airship designs can go hundreds of km per hour.

With modern technology we also can contain fire into pockets.

This isn’t much different than criticising a plane because petrol is flammable.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago

Yeah, no. I'm back at a real computer and thought about this so I went and looked.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-speed-for-an-airship

Guinness World Record is 115 km/h, a blistering 72 miles per hour.

That's a stripped down machine made for "speed". Anything made for "work" is going to be considerably slower. Don't get me wrong, airships were an important stepping stone for aviation but none of them can compete with an airplane for utility.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Wait, what? I'm in my phone at work so searching sucks, can you link one of those fast airships?

[–] lemmyartistforhire@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The Hindenburg with 90 year old tech had a cruising speed of 122 km/h.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago

woah! Everyone hold on to your hats!

[–] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 35 points 1 week ago (4 children)

they were abandoned because commercial airliners were faster, safer, more durable, and could carry more people.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago

Also hard to maneuver, hard to park, and not very good in even moderately bad weather.

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

...and they don't fuck up our limited helium reserves en masse.

EDIT: they might fuck up other things, but it would be some serious waste, because there are much more important applications to our limited helium.

[–] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 3 points 6 days ago

forgot about helium

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[–] cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)
[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (23 children)

Every 100 years, I guess. We gotta go through all the shit every 100 years.

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[–] Headofthebored@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

Well, the Nazis were stupid and used hydrogen instead of helium. The Hindenburg, pride of Nazi Germany, was full of rich people when it blew up in New Jersey, so who really cares anyway?

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It's also worth noting that it wasn't the hydrogen that caused the fire. The Hindenburg had an aluminium skin. It began having degradation issues, so they painted it. The paint was iron oxide based. Aluminium and iron oxide are the 2 main ingredients in thermite.

Analysis of the video shows that it was the skin burning off. It would have gone up almost as badly, even if filled with helium.

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 8 points 6 days ago

Thermite is known for being freaking hard to ignite, even torching it is not enough sometimes. So I doubt that had anything to do with the fire.

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Not according to myth busters. Although some thermite reactions likely accured the blimp would have gone up without it

[–] Redredme@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago

The Nazis had to use hydrogen because that other gas was hoarded as a strategic reserve by another nation.

But still Nazis. So...

Anyway big flying things are cool. Still would be.

its just that planes are faster, cheaper to build, less of a hassle to land and take off...

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Far from the only fuckup they made.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 2 points 6 days ago

Yeah, but how were they to know the central reservation on the autobahns would need a barrier as well as earthworks?

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 1 points 6 days ago

Hydrogen is awesome, for it is cheap. Just make it more expensive is not a good strategy.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Helium is very finite and very leaky. If you want flying ships you need something else.

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[–] Skua@kbin.earth 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There's some research done on aerogel airships. There's still hope

Oh that's fucking cool.

[–] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

We shouldn't have made them from led.

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