The Hindenburg was a German passenger airship, referred to as a blimp. It was constructed in the mid 30’s and flew from March 1936 to May 1937. It ended its service when it crashed catastrophically in New Jersey on a transatlantic journey.The Hindenburg was built with a Duralumin structure which consisted of fifteen circular frames to make up the shape of the craft. It then had girders stretching between them to reinforce them. In the gaps between the large frames were 16 cotton bags to contain the gas. The skin on the craft was made of cotton which was painted with many reflective materials which were to protect the gas from ultraviolet and infrared lights.They were originally going to use helium as the gas to lift the airship because it was the safest gas but at the time it was very expensive. They decided to use hydrogen because it could be produced cheaply and it had a little more lift. Hydrogen also allowed them to vent the gas easily because it was cheaper and helium needed to be conserved because of its high cost. Another reason that hydrogen was used was because the US was the main supplier of helium and because of the wars they had a ban on exporting it. There was also no other readily available gas that could provide enough lift.One advantage to hydrogen was that they needed less of it to provide the same lift as helium. This allowed them to add more passenger cabins. The upper deck of the passenger area held the passenger rooms, a dining room, and a lounge. There was a large world map on the wall of the lounge and paintings that showed the trips of the Hindenburg. The lower deck held the washrooms, a crew mess hall, and a smoking lounge that had an air lock door. There were also large windows along both sides of the decks as the passengers were expected to spend most of the time in the public areas.The ship wasn’t used as a passenger transport right away in its life. At first Hitler used it as a propaganda ship. He used it to help him win the election for the Reich Chancellor as it flew throughout Germany for four days and nights dropping propaganda pamphlets. It also played music and slogans from huge loudspeakers on the blimp. It even broadcasted election speeches from the radio studio on board.In its first full year of service in 1936 it had made 17 round trips across the Atlantic with ten of these to the US and seven to Brazil. It also set a record for crossing the Atlantic twice in five days 19 hours and 51 minutes. It flew a total of 191,538 miles with 2,789 people and 160 tons of mail and freight. This highly successful season encouraged the Luftschiffbau Zepplin Company to plan to expand their airship fleet.The Hindenburg was said to be so stable in the air that they could set a pencil on a table and it would stay there for the duration of the flight. The cost of the tickets between Germany and Lakehurst, NJ was around $400 which was about $5,900 dollars today. This was a large sum for the Depression era so the passengers were usually wealthy and many leaders of industry took the trip.After the Hindenburg was finished with its first flight to South America in 1937, it left Frankfurt for New Jersey on May 3. Strong headwinds made it a three day flight when it arrived at about 7:00 on May 6. On approach to the Naval Air Station the blimp caught fire and burned completely in 37 seconds. On board were 36 passengers and 61 crewmen, 13 passengers and 22 of the crew were killed along with one of the ground crew.The cause of the fire was never officially determined or what was originally burning to start the hydrogen on fire. One theory was that the ship was struck by lightning. Once the gas started burning it quickly mixed with the air and set fire to the skin which was coated in highly flammable substances. As the skin was burning the compounds in the paint cause thermite reactions which created intense heat to speed the fire. Some people believe that the thermite reactions dripped down onto blocks of ice in the ship which would cause an explosion as seen in the Hindenburg disaster shortly after the fire broke out.Personally I think that the Germans had a good design of the craft and it would have had more success if they had used a different gas however hard it was to get. If they would have done this they might never have had these accident although the mythbusters episode on it was one of their best.Siteshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburghttp://www.infoplease.com/spot/hindenburg1.htmlHindenburg engine which shows part of the frame design
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