History, with many photos and drawings.

A unique and indispensable guide to modern airship design and operation, for researchers and professionals working in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

A wealth of research has gone into collating the definitive photographic record of Zeppelin Hindenburg

By the author of Ashes Under Water (Lyons Press), here is one of the great untold stories of World War II. The Hidden Hindenburg at last reveals the cause of aviation’s most famous disaster and the duplicity that kept the truth from coming to light for three generations. It also finally catches up with a German legend who misled the world about the Hindenburg to bury his own Nazi connections. Drawing on previously unpublished documents from the National Archives in Washington, along with archival collections in Germany, this definitive account explores how the Hindenburg was connected to the Dachau concentration camp, a futuristic German rocket that terrified the Allies, and a classified project that imported Nazi scientists to America after the war. It took author Michael McCarthy four years to get to the bottom of this epic disaster, in which the largest object civilization has ever managed to fly burnt up in less than one minute. Along the way, he found a tale of international intrigue, revealing a whistleblower, a cover-up and corruption on two continents.

The LZ 129 took four years to build at a time when the world was suffering the impact of the Great Depression and it took the financial support of the National Socialists to bring the work to completion. Ownership of the airship passed from her builders, the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH to the 1935-established operating company, the Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei, whose objectives included showing the flag at home and abroad. The Hindenburg was involved in propaganda events of 1936, namely the Plebiscite Flight, the Olympic Games and Party celebrations at the Nurnberg Rally. Following successful service on the South and North Atlantic services, she crashed when coming in to land at Lakehurst in May 1937. Numerous theories as to the cause of the disaster are analysed, including the influence of commercial pressures, which caused a hurried landing to take place in dangerous conditions. A careful analysis of the financial performance of the North American service reveals that an increased number of flights in 1937 would have secured an operational profit. Route details for all flights, together with numerous photographs not published before, complete the story of the Hindenburg.

Almost everything you know about airships is wrong. Between 1917 and 1935, the US Navy poured tens of millions of dollars into their airship programme, building a series of dirigibles each one more enormous than the last. These flying behemoths were to be the future of long-distance transport, competing with trains and ocean liners to carry people, post and cargo from country to country, and even across the sea. But by 1936 all these ambitious plans had been scrapped. What happened? When Giants Ruled the Sky is the story of how the American rigid airship came within a hair's breadth of dominating long-distance transportation. It is also the story of four men whose courage and determination kept the programme going despite the obstacles thrown in their way – until the Navy deliberately ignored a fatal design flaw, bringing the programme crashing back to earth. The subsequent cover-up prevented the truth from being told for more than eighty years. Now, for the first time, what really happened can be revealed.

From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia, here is a suspenseful, heart-wrenching novel that brings the fateful voyage of the Hindenburg to life. On the evening of May 3rd, 1937, ninety-seven people board the Hindenburg for its final, doomed flight. Among them are a frightened stewardess who is not what she seems; the steadfast navigator determined to win her heart; a naive cabin boy eager to earn a permanent position; an impetuous journalist who has been blacklisted in her native Germany; and an enigmatic American businessman with a score to settle. Over the course of three champagne-soaked days, their lies, fears, agendas, and hopes for the future will be revealed—and one in their party will set a plot in motion that will have devastating consequences for them all.

A history of dirigible flight describes travel aboard the luxury German airship, the Hindenburg, and details its 1937 demise