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.
is kind of evocative of this, but less than I remember. It’s an… odd book. A bit of a caricature, and more than a bit offensive to those it’s caricaturing, but well-written for all that.