Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Beginning in the 1700s, men had begun to break the restraints of gravity and soar into the air using lighter-than-air craft, namely balloons lifted by heated air. At first the heat came from earth bound fires and then means of carrying the heat source along for the ride extended the time of flight. This method of getting aloft, while thrilling for an age unused to manned flight, was not very practical. Balloons were dependent on prevailing winds for their directional push and one never knew where a flight would end when the fuel ran out. Therefore balloon flights were restricted to joy riding for the daring, and occasional military purposes. During the American Civil War commanders would send tethered balloons high behind their own lines to check the progress of troop movements, spy on the enemy, and direct artillery fire. The success of the Wright Brothers proved the value of heavier-than-air-craft, but it was not until World War I that airplanes demonstrated their importance in a practical way. They were smaller, faster, and more maneuverable than balloons but could not carry heavy loads. In the meantime, the German military had begun to combine the lifting power of balloons with the forward motion of airplanes. By the twentieth century industrialization had changed the way balloon craft were sent aloft. Chemical gases like hydrogen had replaced heat as a lifting agent. Giant sealed bags of gas were placed inside a rigid, usually cigar-shaped metal frame, aircraft engines were attached, and fairly large loads could be carried over long distances. Among the first uses of the new Zeppelins was to drop bombs on southern England during World War I. Dirigibles would leave Germany, groan across the North Sea, and if they weren't shot down, slowly return home. These raids were largely ineffective but proved that airships could carry large loads.

Next time: the Zeppelins go commercial. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. A Moment in Time is produced by Steve Clark.

Resources

Dick, Harold G. The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships, Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.

Hoehling, Adolph A. Who Destroyed the Hindenburg? Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1962.

Meyer, Henry Cord. Airshipmen Businessmen, and Politics, 1890-1940. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.

Mooney, Michael Macdonald. The Hindenburg. New York: Dodd, Mead Publishing, 1972.

Vaeth, Joseph. Graf Zeppelin: The Adventures of an Aerial Globetrotter. New York: Harper Publishing Company, 1959.