Hindenberg Color Pics

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Very nice, Chris. These were released as a set of postcards "postkarten" at the time and a complete set is worth a small fortune now. In the picture below the image of the ship you can see the Promenade deck, where you could literally watch the world go by. I'm not sure about Hindenburg, but the British airship R.101 had a Smoker's Lounge, which had walls lined with asbestos!

Here's Hollywood's take on the same room, with our favourite bad guys chasing the Joneses in a classic scene.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4UADE9Jbm8
 
Very nice images.
The interior design was by Fritz August Breuhaus (de Groot). He is better known for the Hindengberg than the 400 buildings he designed before his death in 1960. Many of his designs were for rather up market, posh, mansions and country houses. He also worked on the interior of SS Bremen.

I used to drive past the old airship hangars, or sheds as they were known at the time, at Cardington on a regular basis and even worked inside one of them for a couple of weeks when it was used as a rehearsal studio. The hangars give an idea of just how huge these airships were. The two British ships stored in their respective "sheds" must have made an impressive sight. It's a shame they weren't quite up to the standard of the German equivalents

Cheers

Steve
 
Yes, the Hindenburg had a smoking lounge, just off the bar. there was an airlock and it had one electric lighter, on a chain.
 
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meatloaf109 said:
Yes, the Hindenberg had a smoking lounge, just off the bar. there was an airlock and it had one electric lighter, on a chain.
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That makes sense as one of the first things I noticed in the pictures was brandy (it looks like Courvoisier Cognac) and a box of cigars on one of the tables

Cheers

Steve
 
It's a shame they weren't quite up to the standard of the German equivalents
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I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. British airships were in fact very good designs and British designers, like Wallis were capable of producing excellent ships, which proved their worth. R.80 and R.100 were both superbly designed, as was R.101, but with that ship it was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Too many ill informed individuals making crucial decisions that should have been left to the engineers. R.100 however, benefitted from being built in the wilds of Yorkshire, where committee influence was minimal. It holds the speed record for a rigid airship, travelling at 81 mph in trials. Her trip to Canada was a considerable success, bar the fact that George Herbert Scott chose to have her fly through a rain storm rather than around it.

Part of the problem in Britain was that during WW1 the Admiralty controlled airship development and their policy was to emulate the Germans, which meant that the Brits were always behind, to the detriment of future designs. Designers like Wallis, Pratt etc were forced to copy German innovation; the most successful British ship in terms of hours flown and longevity was R.33, which was a copy of the Zeppelin L 33 and L 49, which had a simpler engine layout to the earlier ship. L 33 was brought down in 1916, but R.33 and her sister R.34 didn't fly until late 1918. By then the Germans had built bigger and better designs. Post war, Wallis proved that he could design a brilliant vessel that was not influenced by the Germans in anyway in the form of R.80, but it was too small to be of real benefit and was used for training after the British canned their military airship programme in 1921.
 
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That's the point really, we were always following the Germans in airship design and innovation.

The Navy didn't develop R.100 and R.101. They were financed by a department of the Air Ministry and looking at those in control and particularly those who actually operated the ships shows an awful lot of RAF personnel, albeit one or two ex-RNAS.

Cheers

Steve
 
The Navy didn't develop R.100 and R.101.
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I'm well aware of that, but the majority of personnel (almost all) at Cardington and working for The Airship Guarantee Company at Howden had carried out design and construction of airships under Admiralty orders; remember the Royal Airship Works at Cardington was built by the Short Brothers, the village next to the airship sheds is known as Shortstown to this day, who built airships for the Admiralty (The Cardington shed being the very first big shed built in Britain outside of the one at Barrow. Cardington's second shed came from RNAS Pulham St Mary in 1925 to house R.100 when it was finished), as did Vickers at Barrow, which was the controller of the Howden lot. Almost all of (a lot more than one or two) of RAF personnel that worked around the airships post war had formerly been employed within the RNAS and some prior to 1914 in the Army as part of the Royal Engineers at Farnborough. Brig Gen Edward Maitland was one who served with all three of Britain's armed forces when the RAF gained control of the airships.

For awhile, although the RAF had control of them, the Admiralty still owned them; it was a complicated set up. I've seen images of post war airship personnel wearing a combination of RFC, RNAS and RAF uniforms. Both R.100 and R.101's captains and senior personnel were all ex-RNAS; Bird Carmichael-Irwin flew non rigids out of RNAS stations in Scotland during WW1, George Herbert Scott was CO at Anglesey airship station and was R.34's captain on its trip to the States and the senior officer on board R.101 when it went to Canada.

Regardless of who their operators were, Britain's rigids were 'ships' and their crews practised naval tradition aboard, including the civil ones.
 
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I' don't dispute that at all. It's just a quick look at the crew of R.100, this for the flight to Canada, doesn't show much evidence of naval personnel.

1. Captain Squadron Leader R.S. Booth
2. 1st Officer Captain G.F. Meager
3. 2nd Officer Flying Officer M.H. Steff
4. Navigator Squadron Leader E.L. Johnston
5. Meteorologist M.A. Giblett
6. Supernumerary Officer Squadron Leader A.H. Wann
7. Chief Coxswain Flight Sergeant T.E. Greenstreet
8. Chief Engineer W.Y. Angus
9. Chief W/T Operator Flight Sergeant S.T. Keeley
10. Chief Steward A.H. Savidge
11. Captain's Clerk A. Eldridge

Only the First Officer holds a non Air Force rank. I assume he was a naval Captain, but he would out rank a Squadron Leader (considerably) whereas an army Captain would not. Somewhere in the mists of ancient history I remember a Squadron Leader being equivalent to an army Major and a naval Lieutenant Commander, but don't quote me

I guess as the Captain (undoubtedly a naval term, but also applied to aircraft) the Squadron Leader was in charge once aboard.

Cheers

Steve
 
Steve, I'm not disputing that at the time they were not naval personnel, remember that the RNAS ceased to exist on 1 April 1918, but all those chaps served in the RNAS during WW1. Booth flew non-rigids for the RNAS, George Meagher wrote a good account of his airship work called "My Airship Flights". Wann was R.38's captain when it broke up over the Humber Estuary - obviously surviving, Maurice Giblett was Chief Meteorologist at Cardington and was civil personnel at the time of the Canada flight; he was one of a mission sent to the Dominions to establish bases for the Empire Airship Scheme, visiting South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He sadly died on R.101. The most senior officer aboard, although not mentioned in your list was George Herbert Scott, who, while not captain, flew on the bridge since he had commanded R.34 across the Atlantic in 1919. He also died on R.101.

The airship community was very small and close knit and there was a pool of very talented engineers and crew who had all flown within the RNAS during the Great War.
 
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