So, to use Ken Hite’s rule of thumb, we are now officially in an alternate history.
The result of a joint operation between Goodyear and ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, three new zeppelins, called Goodyear Blimp NTs (“new technology”), will slowly replace the company’s current model blimp, the GZ20-A. Crews are now working side by side to construct the first of three Goodyear Blimp NTs. The companies announced the project in May 2011, almost 75 years after the dissolution of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. It’s also why many of the current mechanics and riggers refer to this partnership as Project Full Circle.
Via Instapundit. What this means is that Goodyear will be using airships with a rigid internal framework (zeppelins) instead of airships without ones (blimps). It does not mean that we’re going to see another Hindenburg disaster, given that… :click click click: Huh. There’s apparently a somewhat large, and slightly bitter, academic debate over what caused the Hindenburg fire. Isn’t that a thing?
Anyway, they’re switching types. I’d give a subjective opinion, but the aforementioned debate gives me pause. Airship design is apparently one of those things that, if you care about it, you care about it a lot*…
Moe Lane
*I am hardly one to judge.
“NT”? Why not just “Goodyear Vista” or, “Goodyear XP”?
Hm. I can only hope this means my next set of tires will be more steampunky. Brass sidewalls and gear-shaped hubcaps, perhaps.
Read Larry Correia’s alternative history urban fantasy Grimnoir Chronicles trilogy where he gave you a very good reason for using giant (WWII aircraft carrier size) zeppelin in ’30s.
Mythbusters did a segment about the Hindenburg, including making multiple scale models and torching them. They didn’t dare fill one entirely with hydrogen, but they did fill one with a hydrogen-air mixture and torched that.
I was in an auditorium once where a balloon maybe six inches across filled with hydrogen was detonated. It was the loudest noise generated inside a building that I’ve ever personally heard.