What Happened To Giant Airships? – The Biggest Objects That Ever Flew Have An Interesting Story

Where’s The Humanity?

Every now and then you will see a blimp flying in the skies touting some advertisement on its massive frame. But back in the early days of aviation giant airships ruled the skies and then suddenly disappeared. So what caused the biggest aircraft that ever roamed the skies to vanish?

The blimp, airship, Zeppelins or whatever you may call them can trace their origins back to the turn of the century after hot air balloons began utilizing engines for movement. There were many failed attempts but the true breakthrough was the Zeppelin LZ1 which became the standard of luxury air travel all over the world.

Sadly, the glory days blimps of the ended in 1937 with the destruction of the most famous airship, the Hindenburg. It wasn’t the first airship disaster or even the worst loss of life, but the difference was that the Hindenburg was captured on film. Suddenly the public grew untrustworthy of travel by airship and that caused a major decline in the market.

However, it wasn’t simply the Hindenburg’s very public destruction that pushed the blimps out of favor, it was the introduction of the airplane. Travel times that took days in blimps now took mere hours in while riding in an airplane. Passengers sacrificed luxury for speed and airships became a relic of the past.