"It burst into flames! ... It's fire and it's crashing!"

[Cerridwen]

The Hindenburg - May 6, 1937 - "The Titanic of the Sky"

Hindenburg Statistics

Length
803.8 feet (245 m)

Height
146.7 feet

Diameter
135.2 feet (41 m)

Duraluminum girders
10 miles

Weight
430,850 pounds

Hydrogen gas capacity
7,602,100 cubic feet (200,000 cubic m)


Number of cells
16

Diesel engines
4 Daimler-Benz (4,320-lb and 1,050-hp each)

Top speed
82 mph (132 kmh)

Range
8,000 miles

Price
$3.75 million

Ticket price
$400 one-way
$720 return

Atlantic crossing time
Westbound = 60 hours
Eastbound = 50 hours

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Dining on Board

The delectable food served on board the Hindenburg included the following:

* Patés à la reine
* Carmen salad
* Indian swallow nest soup
* Beef broth with marrow dumplings
* Fresh Black Forest brook trout
* Cold Rhine salmon with spiced sauce and potato salad
* Roast gosling meunière
* Fattened duckling, Bavarian-style, with champagne cabbage
* Venison cutlets Beauval with Berny potatoes
* Tenderloin steak with goose liver sauce, Chateau potatoes and green beans à la princesse
* Iced California melon
* Pears condé with chocolate sauce
* Turkish coffee
* Cakes and liqueurs

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Provisions

The following provisions were required for a round trip:

* 440 pounds of fresh meat and poultry
* 220 pounds of fish
* 330 pounds of delicatessen items (including caviar)
* 800 eggs
* 220 pounds of butter
* 220 pounds of cheese and marmalade
* 55 gallons of mineral water
* 33 gallons of milk

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The Hindenburg was not only longer than the Graf Zeppelin, it was an extra 35 feet wide. This meant it had nearly twice the volume for lifting gas (7,062,000 cubic feet) than the Graf Zeppelin. There was a reason for this. The Hindenburg's designers had decided to fill the new dirigible with helium gas, not hydrogen. Helium, unlike hydrogen, does not burn, making it safer. However, it doesn't produce as much lift as hydrogen, so the extra volume the Hindenburg had for gas was an important feature.

The Hindenburg never got its helium, though. At that time helium was difficult to produce and the United States had a monopoly on the manufacture of it. When the Americans saw that Hitler was in power in Germany, they feared he would use the gas for military purposes and therefore would not sell the Germans the helium necessary to fill the Hindenburg. The Zeppelin Company was forced to redesign the ship for hydrogen and make changes to minimize the possibility of fire.

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Final Flight

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The trip went smoothly and by 11:40 A.M. on May 6th the airship was passing over Boston. Landing at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst was delayed due to bad weather, so the ship's captain, Commander Max Pruss, decided to linger over New York City, giving his passengers spectacular views of the Empire State Building, the Bronx, Harlem, Central Park, the Battery, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and Ebbets Field (where a game was being played between the Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates).

At 4 P.M. the Hindenburg arrived over Lakehurst, but the weather was still worrisome. Commander Pruss decided to take the ship southeast until he hit shore, then north to Asbury Park, then finally inland back to Lakehurst. At 6:12 Charles E. Rosendahl, Commanding Officer of the Lakehurst N.A.S., sent a message to the Hindenburg: "Conditions now considered suitable for landing." Eleven minutes later a stronger message followed: "Recommend landing now."

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