75 years ago today...

On March 4th, 1936, the LZ 129 Hindenburg made her first test flight. She had been under construction for four years, and was intended to be the first in what was to have eventually become a fleet of 50 or more airships linking all of the world's major cities as part of an international airship service. At 804 feet in length and a maximum diameter of 135 feet, she was the largest aircraft that had ever flown, and with a cruising speed of 77 mph she was, at the time, the fastest way to cross the ocean.

She was brought from her shed at the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen, Germany, at about 3:10 on the afternoon of March 4th, carrying 30 passengers and a crew of 55. It was the first time she had left her hangar, and a large crowd had gathered to see her. Originally, the flight had been scheduled for that morning, but inclement weather had forced the ship's commander, Dr. Hugo Eckener, to delay departure until conditions improved. Now, in mid-afternoon, the crowds finally got their first look at the new Zeppelin as it was walked stern-first out of its hangar.

The LZ 129 begins to emerge from her hangar, as seen from the hangar roof. Note the patchy look of the hull, which has not yet received its final coat of doping compound.

Onlookers, standing in fact hundreds of feet in front of the ship, from the watch as the LZ 129's is backed out of its hangar, its upper fin towering almost 150 feet above the ground crew.

Finally, the LZ 129's bow appears, also as seen from atop the hangar. The small black spot above the mooring cone is a small open hatch through which the navigators could take an old-fashioned sight with a sextant.

From the gigantic, swastika-emblazoned tail fins, towering at their highest point some 146 feet above the ground, to the large outrigger engine gondolas along the side of the ship, and on toward the bow, the LZ 129 emerged into the grey afternoon before large numbers of fascinated onlookers. Eventually some among them would note that there dull, patchy-looking spots on the hull that still needed another coat of aluminized doping compound, and moreover that the ship's name, already announced in the press as "Hindenburg", had not yet been painted above the control car. It was, therefore, probably appropriate at this point to call the ship by its official Luftschiffbau Zeppelin construction number, LZ 129.

The LZ 129 just prior to takeoff. Note the absence of the name "Hindenburg" alongside the ship's bow.

Once the ship was out on the airfield, about ten minutes after being brought out of the hangar, Eckener gave the command "Luftschiff hoch!", and the LZ 129 was pushed aloft by her ground crew. She rose silently as the ground crew, the engineers and construction workers who had built her, and the crowds of onlookers surrounding the airfield burst into a spontaneous cheer as "their" new airship took to the skies for the first time.

At a command from the ship's captain, the LZ 129 begins to drift upward over the crowd. Two members of the command crew can be seen leaning out of the control car windows.

The LZ 129 rises into the air for the first time.

The LZ 129 rose to a height of about 150 feet, and then her four diesel engines came to life one by one. Slowly at first, she began moving forward, and the cheers from the crowds below turned to gasps of concern. A long trail of what appeared to be smoke was trailing from the tail of the airship, and for a few moments the fact that the LZ 129 was filled with inflammable hydrogen gas was on the minds of everyone watching. But then the smoky trail faded, and it became clear that what had looked like smoke was actually just dust that had settled onto the top of the ship's hull during her years-long construction.

A trail of dust, looking disturbingly like smoke, streams off of the top of the ship.

Her engines now up to full speed, the LZ 129 circled the airfield and then flew out over Lake Constance where she cruised for the next couple of hours while crew got a feel for how she handled. Then they brought her back inland to circle Friedrichshafen and the airfield. At about 6:25 PM, about three hours after it took off, the LZ 129 landed and was then taken back to her hangar to await another test flight the next morning.

The people of Friedrichshafen gather by the edge of Lake Constance to watch the new Zeppelin.

After three days of test flights, the LZ 129 would spend about ten days in her construction hangar getting some last minute adjustments and finishing touches, including having her last coat of doping compound painted on her hull, along with the name "Hindenburg" in big red gothic script just aft of her bow. The LZ 129 Hindenburg would go on to make 62 successful flights in all, until her infamous final voyage in May of the following year. By then, she had carried about 2,000 passengers and logged approximately 3,000 flight hours


For more information on the Hindenburg and its brief but fascinating history, check out my buddy Dan Grossman's excellent site, http://www.airships.net/.

If you are interested in a closer look at the stories of the 97 passengers and crew who were on the Hindenburg's last flight, I have compiled them on a site of my own called Faces of the Hindenburg: http://facesofthehindenburg.blogspot.com/