The Hindenburg:
The Hindenburgis the famous airship that met its fiery death in the year 1937. Surprisingly, more thanhalf of the people on board actually survived the crash. In this video, I want totake you on a detailed tour of the inside of the Hindenburg. We'll talk about airships in general and why they are mostly a thing of the past. The earliest airship that we know of was in the year 1783 in France. These primitive balloons were unstable, and steering was near impossible at first. A man by the name of Count Zeppelin created his own company and helped perfect the design of airships. At the time, passenger air travel was not commonplace yet, so this was the fastest wayto travel across the ocean. It was about twice asfast as an ocean liner. Construction of the Hindenburgwas completed in 1936. To this day, it's stillthe largest flying object ever to be built. It was built in Germanyand funded by the Nazis, which is why the swastika is on the plane.
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| The Hindenburg last pic. |
Inside the Hindenburg:
Most of the space inside the ship is taken up by 16 large gas cells. If we remove these, you cansee the frame of the ship. The passenger areas are down here. There are two decks. The top one is the A deck, and then below is the B deck. The B deck is where thepassengers board the airship. There's angled windowsto get a panoramic view of the scene below, bathrooms, areas for the crew, the kitchen, and the officers' mess. This room is the smoking room. It was pressurized sothat there was no chance of any hydrogen leakingne in. And yes, hydrogen is flammable. We'll talk more about thisgas later in the video. The stair here take us up to the A deck, which is where the passengersspent most of their time. There are more windows onboth sides of the ship. Here's the reading and writing room, and the lounge area, complete with a grand piano. Normally, grand pianos canweigh as much as 1,000 pounds, but that's a lot of weight to put in an airship. This piano is made out of aluminum, and it only weighs about 356 pounds. The passenger cabins have two bunks each, and the dining room was on the other side. So now we've seen all theareas where passengers can go. Let's see where the crew members could go. On the B deck, this hallway is called the keel corridor, which led to a walkway through the entire bottom of the ship. Towards the front of the ship is the mail room and the radio room. Right below here is the control car. This is the command center of the ship, which you can see from below. This is the rudder wheel, which helps move the ship to the left or right by controlling the rudders on the very back of the ship. This is the elevator wheel, which controls the pitch of the ship. Ideally, we want the ship as level as possible to keep the passengers comfortable. This is done by the elevators on the very back. The officers' quarters are here, so that they are close to the control car. Along the keel catwalk, you'll find plenty of these fuel and water tanks. Here's the crew quarters, cargo areas, and this is the electrical room. There's more cargo areas here, and a few more down here. And then crew quarters for those that work towards the back of the ship. Along the side of theship are four engine cars with propellers to helpmove the ship forward. There was always a crew member station at each engine car at all times of the journey.
This walkway is how the crew could get to the engine car. Along the keel corridor are several shafts with ladders so the crew members could climb up higher. These shafts were also used to ventilate gas. This walkway through the center of the ship is called the axial corridor. These 16 gas cells are what holds the ship up in the air. The cells were originally intended to be filled with helium, but instead were filled with hydrogen. If we look at the periodic table of elements, hydrogen is the lightest element, which means it will provide the most lift. Unfortunately, it's also highly flammable, so the intent with theHindenburg was to actually use helium, slightly heavier, but also much safer. At the time, the United States had the best supply of helium but would not sell it to other countries, which means that Germany was out of luck. So the Hindenburg had no other choice but to use hydrogen. Previous to the Hindenburg, there had been quite a-few airship accidents. Other countries had already decided that hydrogen-filled airships were just too dangerous. Germany, however, had a flawless record so far. No passengers had ever been killed in an airship accident. During the year 1936, the Hindenburg had many successful passenger flights, to the United States and to Brazil. The year 1937 didn't go so well. May 3rd, the Hindenburg begins its journey from Frankfurt, Germany. It was a three-day journey to get to Lakehurst, New Jersey. The ship was only halfway full at this time. Only 97 people were onboard. The landing was originally scheduled for the early morning ofMay 6th, but it was delayed because of strong head winds, rain, and thunderstorms.
The Crash:
This is the Lakehurst station. It has a hangar to park theairship when it's not flying. This is the mooring mast. For a normal landing, the nose of the ship will be attached herewhile it's on the ground. On the evening of May 6th,there were many people on the ground, includingspectators, news reporters, and crew member ready tohelp bring the ship in. At 7:00 p.m., the ship made a first pass over the landing siteand slowly circled around for the final landing. At this point, the ship was 12 hours late, so there was an urgency to land, as there were manypassengers waiting to board for the return trip back to Germany. For some reason, thetail of the ship was low, a possible hydrogen leak. At 7:21 p.m., the shipreleased the handling lines for the ground crew below. Four minutes later, theship bursts into flames at the top, in between gascells number four and five. (explosion) It took less than a minute for the ship to be completely destroyed and in ruins on the ground below. Of the 97 people on board, 62of them survived the crash. Let's take a look at the explosion again. Right after it happens,the tail begins to fall. The flames travel throughthe axial corridor and out the nose of the ship. Everyone on board is thrown off their feet with a sudden jolt. Since they're about toland, most passengers are already at the windows,and it's a good thing, too. As the ship gets closer to the ground, many were able to jump and runaway from the burning ship. Others were not so lucky. No one knows for sure whatcaused the ship to catch on fire. Unfortunately, most of theevidence was burned up. The likely cause is fromstatic electricity buildup right before the disaster. One small spark is all it would take. The Hindenburg wasn't theworst airship disaster. It was just the first to be caught on film and widely seen by the public. Because of this, airship travel as a means of transportationwas brought to an end. Any airships that are still in use today will definitely usehelium and not hydrogen.
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