page_title: Hindenburg-class airship
section_title: Design and development
hierarchical_section_title: Hindenburg-class airship / Design and development
context_page_description: The two Hindenburg-class airships were hydrogen-filled, passenger-carrying rigid airships built in Germany in the 1930s and named in honor of Paul von Hindenburg. They were the last such aircraft ever built, and in terms of their length and volume, the largest Zeppelins ever to fly. During the 1930s, airships like the Hindenburg class were widely considered the future of air travel, and the lead ship of the class, LZ 129 Hindenburg, established a regular transatlantic service. The destruction of this ship in a highly publicized accident was to prove the death knell for these expectations. The second ship, LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin, was never operated on a regular passenger service, and was scrapped in 1940 by order of Hermann Göring.
context_section_description: The Hindenburg class were built to an all-duralumin design. The leader of the design team was Dr. Ludwig Dürr, who had overseen the design of all Zeppelins except LZ-1 (on which he was a crew member), under the overall direction of Dr. Hugo Eckener, the head of the company.  They were 245 m (804 ft) long and 41 m (135 ft) in diameter, longer than three Boeing 747s placed end-to-end, longer than four Goodyear GZ-20 "blimps" end-to-end, and only 24 m (79 ft) shorter than the RMS Titanic. The previous largest civilian airship, with a length of 237 m (777 ft) and a width of 40 m (130 ft), was the British R101, which was completed in 1929. The US Navy's Akron and Macon were 239 m (785 ft) long  and 44 m (144 ft) wide.
  The design originally called for cabins for 50 passengers and a crew complement of 40.
  Construction of the first ship, LZ 129, later named Hindenburg, began in 1931, but was suddenly stopped when Luftschiffbau Zeppelin went bankrupt.  This led Eckener to make a deal with the Nazi Party which came to power in 1933.  He needed money to build the airship; in return he was forced to display the German flag on the fins.  Construction resumed in 1935. The keel of the second ship, LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin was laid on June 23, 1936, and the cells were inflated with hydrogen on August 15, 1938.  As the second Zeppelin to carry the name Graf Zeppelin (after the LZ 127), it is often referred to as Graf Zeppelin II.
  The duralumin frame was covered by cotton cloth varnished with iron oxide and cellulose acetate butyrate impregnated with aluminium powder.  The aluminium was added to reflect both ultraviolet, which damaged the fabric, and infrared light, which caused heating of the gas.  This was an innovation that was first used on the LZ 126 which was provided as war reparations to the US and served as the USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) from 1924 until decommissioned in 1933. 
  The rigid structure was held together by many large rings up to the size of a Ferris wheel, 15 of which were gas cell boundaries which formed bulkheads.  These bulkheads were braced by steel wires which connected up into the axial catwalk.  The longitudinal duralumin girders connected all the rings together and formed "panels".  The 16 gas cells were made of cotton and a gas-tight material.  On Graf Zeppelin, the cells were lightened and one was made of lightweight silk instead of cotton.
  Hydrogen was vented out through valves on the top of the ship. These valves could be controlled both manually and automatically. The axial catwalk was added across the center of the ship to provide access to the gas valves. A keel catwalk provided access to the crew quarters and the engines. Alongside the keel were water ballast and fuel tanks. The tail fins of the airship were over 30 m (100 ft) in length, and were held together with a cross-like structure. The lower tail fin also had an auxiliary control room in case the controls in the gondola malfunctioned.
  Hindenburg was powered by four reversible 890 kW (1,190 hp) Daimler-Benz diesel engines which gave the airship a maximum speed of 135 km/h (84 mph). Although the Graf Zeppelin had the same engine car design in its early stages of construction, the pods were later completely redesigned to power tractor propellers.  The engines had a water recovery system which captured the exhaust of the engines to minimize weight lost during flight.
  To reduce drag, the passenger rooms were contained entirely within the hull, rather than in the gondola as on the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, on two decks.  The upper deck, "A", contained the passenger quarters, public areas, a dining room, a lounge, and a writing room.  The lower deck, "B", contained washrooms, a mess hall for the crew, and a smoking lounge.  Long slanted windows ran the length of both decks.  The passenger decks were redesigned for Graf Zeppelin; the restaurant was moved to the middle of the quarters and the promenade windows were half a panel lower.
caption: Hindenburg (dark green) compared to large ships and buildings:
     The Pentagon, 1,414 feet, 431 m   RMS Queen Mary 2, 1,132 feet, 345 m   USS Enterprise, 1,123 feet, 342 m   Hindenburg, 804 feet, 245 m   Yamato, 863 feet, 263 m   Empire State Building, 1,454 feet, 443 m   Knock Nevis, ex-Seawise Giant, 1,503 feet, 458 m   Apple Park, 1,522 feet, 464 m