And no, it doesn't necessarily explode :) although maybe a psycho or revolutionary on board is threatening something like that? Maybe there's a murder on board, but how do you avoid the cliches?
Images are from the Graf Zeppelin, which went around the world in 1929
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Quote from: Trond;1123261And no, it doesn't necessarily explode :)
Damn it! That's what I was gonna say happened! :(
Ok...what if the ship gets captured by Nazis who are looking for an escaped scientist they had working on something, and now the scientist is hiding among the passengers. So the scientist sets off this sleeping gas device in a desperate attempt to get away from one of the groups of Nazis, but the gas reached the pilot compartment so the pilots feel asleep as well. And you come out of the bathroom to find the zeppelin unmanned and heading strait for a large mountain, with everyone at the front of the ship asleep. Meanwhile another group of Nazis that were on the back of the ship are heading up front to check out what's going on and you have to avoid the Nazis, find the scientist and try to redirect the Zeppelin somehow before it crashes. *bigthink emoji*
Well, short of explosions (phooey)... secret Nazis? Or is that too cliche too?
Monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday zeppelin? :D
The somewhat unique elements about it are the isolation/self-containment. It's kind of like a cruise ship or an airplane in that way. Though I guess you could possibly more viably escape from a zeppelin since it's fairly low speed -- but maybe too low to the ground to parachute?
The more unique elements are the flammability and volatility, I guess. And that it's a relatively slow moving form of air transport. I guess that might be what I'd leverage -- the PCs are in a zeppelin and some kind of hell breaks loose down on the ground. Unlike, say, ships of that era, the zeppelin can easily maintain active, detailed radio contact with the ground, so bits and pieces of information can come in. Maybe delay landing for a while, then inevitably have to deal with it. Now what?
Or snakes. Snakes are always an option. :D
Quote from: VisionStorm;1123262Damn it! That's what I was gonna say happened! :(
Ok...what if the ship gets captured by Nazis who are looking for an escaped scientist they had working on something, and now the scientist is hiding among the passengers. So the scientist sets off this sleeping gas device in a desperate attempt to get away from one of the groups of Nazis, but the gas reached the pilot compartment so the pilots feel asleep as well. And you come out of the bathroom to find the zeppelin unmanned and heading strait for a large mountain, with everyone at the front of the ship asleep. Meanwhile another group of Nazis that were on the back of the ship are heading up front to check out what's going on and you have to avoid the Nazis, find the scientist and try to redirect the Zeppelin somehow before it crashes. *bigthink emoji*
Hey, that's actually pretty cool! I imagine that in good weather the zeppelins could keep going for quite some time with the pilots knocked out.
Some more interesting info that could be used (that I did not know until recently): the crew were able to reach virtually every part of the zeppelin. There was a passage within the hull that went back to the fins in the rear, and from there there were ladder to the engines that you can see on the outside (and there were almost always people on watch near the engine making sure it ran properly). They could also climb on top of the whole thing during flight for repairs etc. It's excellent for some action sequences :)
(https://imgc.allpostersimages.com/img/posters/alfred-eisenstaedt-maintenance-crewmen-on-top-of-graf-zeppelin-repair-damage-caused-atlantic-ocean-storm-during-flight_u-L-P43VCH0.jpg?src=gp&w=300&h=375)
Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1123263Well, short of explosions (phooey)... secret Nazis? Or is that too cliche too?
Monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday zeppelin? :D
The somewhat unique elements about it are the isolation/self-containment. It's kind of like a cruise ship or an airplane in that way. Though I guess you could possibly more viably escape from a zeppelin since it's fairly low speed -- but maybe too low to the ground to parachute?
The more unique elements are the flammability and volatility, I guess. And that it's a relatively slow moving form of air transport. I guess that might be what I'd leverage -- the PCs are in a zeppelin and some kind of hell breaks loose down on the ground. Unlike, say, ships of that era, the zeppelin can easily maintain active, detailed radio contact with the ground, so bits and pieces of information can come in. Maybe delay landing for a while, then inevitably have to deal with it. Now what?
Or snakes. Snakes are always an option. :D
New German blockbuster movie: Schlangen auf einem Luftschiff
Quote from: Trond;1123265New German blockbuster movie: Schlangen auf einem Luftschiff
Tamino saves the day, and Papageno takes the credit. :D
Quote from: Trondyou're on a journey in a luxurious Zeppelin, what happens?
It gets lost. With no visible ground or references like the stars, sun or moon, the passengers begin to question if they're even on Earth anymore.
The Zeppelin is the last flight out from a country going through serious internal upheaval, as a successfully-executed coup is clamping down on the people. (For a simple morally straightforward game, they're Nazis or the equivalent; for an ambiguous intrigue game, maybe neither old government nor new usurpers are any great shakes, though they both have points.) The crew have gone to great pains to verify none of the passengers are particular political persons of interest, and have just been granted permission to leave....
... except one of the crew turns up a stowaway: a young woman, pregnant and dying in labour. She doesn't survive; her baby does. And it doesn't take much covert inquiring before it's realized this newborn infant is the last heir to the throne of the toppled government. To make matters worse, the craft is a good distance away from its home realm and has to pass through several nations of varying political alignment; the only way to get protection from their pursuers is to call for help, but anybody they call for help is going to have their own distinct ideas about what to do with this heir, some of which your people may not agree with.
What Do You Do?!
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1123273What Do You Do?!
Fly it toward the North Pole and then into the
Hollow Earth.
Could go the weird west approach like in Gunbus. An obscure movie about a pair of cowboys who end up in a ragtag airforce battling a super fortress zepplin. Pretty weird and well done movie.
Or a page from histories mysteries. An airship ascended and far as any one knows... never came down.
There are one or two old stories along those lines too. One dont recall the name of involved some balloonists or aeronauts who ascend really high and encouter some sort of high altitude predator.
Air pirates attack! After the zeppelin is taken, the party clandestinely (because they are massively outgunned) must take back the airship and disable the escorting zeppelins.
or...
The zep is hijacked by extremists who want to take refugee passengers to a country they deem safe. No real bad guys in this one. The hijackers just want to keep their people safe. The crew wants to retake the airship. They players are sympathetic to the hijackers goals but not their methods, but they have a clandestine mission that will be ruined if the zeppelin is diverted.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1123277Fly it toward the North Pole and then into the Hollow Earth.
Some airships did go on polar expeditions. The crew of the Graf Zeppelin discovered that some islands had previously been mapped incorrectly (or maybe the islands had changed....duh duh duh!). You could potentially have all sorts of weird situations.
I love how this huge thing is hovering right at the water surface in the arctic in this photo.
(https://3iz4pu1r2cxqxc3i63gnhpmh-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/lz-127-arctic-web-sepia-550x315.jpg)
Quote from: Trond;1123438Some airships did go on polar expeditions. The crew of the Graf Zeppelin discovered that some islands had previously been mapped incorrectly (or maybe the islands had changed....duh duh duh!). You could potentially have all sorts of weird situations.
I love how this huge thing is hovering right at the water surface in the arctic in this photo.
There is an old novel called Circumpolar which has Red Baron, his brother Lothar and the Princess Irina Lvova racing against Howard Hughes, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart to be the first to fly through the hole in the center of the doughnut shaped Earth to see ehats on the other side.
Nobody made a reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Wow :)
OK, in seriousness, I'd want to do this with a -super-sized- zeppelin -- think one of those ginormous flying malls from L. Neil Smith's Probability Broach. And have some kind of scenario to send people racing through it. Die Hard, eat your heart out.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1123466Nobody made a reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Wow :)
OK, in seriousness, I'd want to do this with a -super-sized- zeppelin -- think one of those ginormous flying malls from L. Neil Smith's Probability Broach. And have some kind of scenario to send people racing through it. Die Hard, eat your heart out.
Check out the big battle with the fortress airship in Gunbus.
[video=youtube;gnmI5btQSd8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnmI5btQSd8[/youtube]
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1123466Nobody made a reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Wow :)
.
No ticket! :D
Having run a convention Call of Cthulhu scenario called "Zeppelins over Atlantis", I feel particularly able to say what happens!
A mid-air auction of occult memorabilia, hosted by the nazis to gain them international kudos (and possibly money) is interrupted as the zeppelin heads over Bermuda. An anti-nazi terrorist sets off a bomb which fizzles, but sets off an ancient Atlantean artifact and traps the zeppelin half way between the past and the present. The PCs must head down to the island of Atlantis as it suffers it death throes, locating an ancient artifact (the twin of the one on the zeppelin), convincing the locals to help them (or overpowering them), all whilst avoiding rampaging dinosaurs, volcanic eruptions, things from beyond sanity and irate/desperate Atlanteans.
I tried to fit pirates in somewhere, but the scenario only lasts 4 hours!
This happens..
[video=youtube_share;te7wDMGgnjw]https://youtu.be/te7wDMGgnjw[/youtube]
oooh anyone remember the sadly short lived FASA game Crimson Skies? One of my players had a console game based on the setting. Got to play it and was alot of fun. Though lacked the wargame element of the board game. Apparently there is also a PC version what is very different than the console one.
Interesting side note, I just noticed that the Justice Inc background info timeline actually mentions the Graf Zeppelin twice (it was big news in the 20s). It is of absolutely no consequence, but I may take it as a sign that I should try the system :D
The HQ for HERO games was in the same town where I went to high school so our RPG club did lots of playtesting for them (my first playtest was Autoduel Champions) and we played lots of Justice Inc back in the day. It's a fine game. Not really a "pulp RPG" as much as 1920s low point Champions which is cool if you enjoy running HERO (a very lite - and better - version of HERO compared to the current version). Among the ancient pulp RPGs, I'd rate Justice Inc higher than TSR's Indy Jones or MSPE.
If I did a Zeppelin scenario, I would have no hero types, just wanker normals (and I might run it as a LARP). After a fine moonlight dinner, a semi-famous socialite / fortune teller would be holding court with a seance. She goes into her trance and begins shrieking that the Zeppelin will crash at dawn, then falls into a coma. Now what? The captain assures everyone all is fine. Some passengers says she's a charlatan, but some say she's never been wrong.
Then I'd step back and let the madness commence. I would also try to slip in references to Led Zeppelin albums and songs.
And damn straight that balloon is going down at dawn!!!! Muhahaha!!! Or not?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1123905The HQ for HERO games was in the same town where I went to high school so our RPG club did lots of playtesting for them (my first playtest was Autoduel Champions) and we played lots of Justice Inc back in the day. It's a fine game. Not really a "pulp RPG" as much as 1920s low point Champions which is cool if you enjoy running HERO (a very lite - and better - version of HERO compared to the current version). Among the ancient pulp RPGs, I'd rate Justice Inc higher than TSR's Indy Jones or MSPE.
If I did a Zeppelin scenario, I would have no hero types, just wanker normals (and I might run it as a LARP). After a fine moonlight dinner, a semi-famous socialite / fortune teller would be holding court with a seance. She goes into her trance and begins shrieking that the Zeppelin will crash at dawn, then falls into a coma. Now what? The captain assures everyone all is fine. Some passengers says she's a charlatan, but some say she's never been wrong.
Then I'd step back and let the madness commence. I would also try to slip in references to Led Zeppelin albums and songs.
And damn straight that balloon is going down at dawn!!!! Muhahaha!!! Or not?
I have to admit that I am warming up to Justice Inc. I think I'll use it if I ever run this. Did you play the "Gold Spike" and "Land of Mystery" modules?
Quote from: Trond;1123981I have to admit that I am warming up to Justice Inc. I think I'll use it if I ever run this. Did you play the "Gold Spike" and "Land of Mystery" modules?
I liked Justice Inc. I adapted the Gold Spike to Call of Cthulhu. It was a fun change of pace. I also used the Coates Shambler adventure included in the Boxed Set of Justice Incorporated. It was a fun mystery and easily adaptable to CoC. I have Land of Mystery, but never ran it. It needs a group of players who would enjoy the lost world tropes in tales like Doyle's Lost Continent and Burroughs' Pellucidar stories.
Quote from: Trond;1123981I have to admit that I am warming up to Justice Inc. I think I'll use it if I ever run this. Did you play the "Gold Spike" and "Land of Mystery" modules?
I've played and run the Trail of the Gold Spike! I never played Land of Mystery, but I was a huge fan of the Hollow World D&D setting by the same author. I could see HERO being good for the whole Lost World genre, but I'd probably use D6 instead. Although that's just personal bias because even though I ran Justice Inc, Danger International, Robot Warriors and Fantasy Hero, I never felt as comfortable using HERO except for Champions. Though Robot Warriors was our favorite mecha RPG by far back in the day.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1123273The Zeppelin is the last flight out from a country going through serious internal upheaval, as a successfully-executed coup is clamping down on the people. (For a simple morally straightforward game, they're Nazis or the equivalent; for an ambiguous intrigue game, maybe neither old government nor new usurpers are any great shakes, though they both have points.) The crew have gone to great pains to verify none of the passengers are particular political persons of interest, and have just been granted permission to leave....
... except one of the crew turns up a stowaway: a young woman, pregnant and dying in labour. She doesn't survive; her baby does. And it doesn't take much covert inquiring before it's realized this newborn infant is the last heir to the throne of the toppled government. To make matters worse, the craft is a good distance away from its home realm and has to pass through several nations of varying political alignment; the only way to get protection from their pursuers is to call for help, but anybody they call for help is going to have their own distinct ideas about what to do with this heir, some of which your people may not agree with.
What Do You Do?!
Interesting idea. Communists and Anracho-Communists were also very anti-royalty, and frequently as nuts as the Nazis. Would be more drama if some of them were actually on board.
That reminds me: some inspiration could come from the game "The Last Express" which is excellent and had some bad guys like that (and set on a steam train, not an airship, but equally crammed situation)
Quote from: Trond;1124849Communists and Anracho-Communists were also very anti-royalty, and frequently as nuts as the Nazis. Would be more drama if some of them were actually on board.
Indeed, especially if there was internal conflict over what to do. Somebody who may have no problems lining up a bunch of old men to get shot may still be unable to think about hurting a child. (One of my favourite scenes in both book 1 and season 1 of GoT/ASoIaF is the debate between Ned and Robert about whether to try to kill Daenerys once they find out she's pregnant.)
My first impression is that an adventure on a real world Zeppelin is basically a cruise ship scenario with extra steps. But that's just me being no fun.
So how about we put the Zeppelins on a Barsoomian Mars, and use them instead of the goofy antigrav tech of the Barsoom books?
Heck, go full Space:1889 with it.
For the purposes of avoiding math, let's assume that the lighter gravity of Mars and the thinner air largely balance out, so that the Zeppelins look like Earth zeppelins.
Quote from: Lurkndog;1125000My first impression is that an adventure on a real world Zeppelin is basically a cruise ship scenario with extra steps. But that's just me being no fun.
No. That is exactly what riding a zeppelin was. An aerial cruise ship. Which happens to be a giant fireball if exactly the right conditions are met. And is at the mercy of mother nature should she so take notice. And we all know how Mother Nature is... And you are hundreds of feet over land or sea so a fall is practically guaranteed death. Not maybee death. Unlike a boat. You are trapped on board with no way off till it gets close land or sea.
These things looked leisurely and majestic. But they were floating death traps waiting to happen and alot of people did indeed die in the development of these things. By the time of the Hindenburg the science of making them had gotten pretty good really and if it had not been for various factors it might have continued to fly just fine.
Finally got around to continuing an old Minecraft project that relates to this subject. I've been building a to-scale recreation of the Hindenburg. And I have to say I was amazed at the sheer enormity of it when getting to see it in its actual scale. Its freaking huge! Only like 50% done with it so far. Its a sloooow process assembling it.
Quote from: Omega;1125135Finally got around to continuing an old Minecraft project that relates to this subject. I've been building a to-scale recreation of the Hindenburg. And I have to say I was amazed at the sheer enormity of it when getting to see it in its actual scale. Its freaking huge! Only like 50% done with it so far. Its a sloooow process assembling it.
Hey that's interesting. You mean it's a digital model?
Yup the zeppelins were enormous in general. Here's Los Angeles, a zeppelin built by the Germans for USA (WWI war reparations). This was smaller than both the Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin, but still....
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/ZR3_USS_Los_Angeles_an_Kriegsschiff.jpg)
Quote from: Omega;1125012These things looked leisurely and majestic. But they were floating death traps waiting to happen and alot of people did indeed die in the development of these things. By the time of the Hindenburg the science of making them had gotten pretty good really and if it had not been for various factors it might have continued to fly just fine.
Even without the issues of using hydrogen for lift, airships are very vulnerable to air conditions. You basically can't fly them in high winds or turbulence. If you get caught in a downdraft, it will smash the airship into the ground. That obviously limits when and where you can use them, but it also limits their practical range, because they need to be able to get back to a hangar before things start to get rough. Their hangars are also gigantic and expensive.
If we're talking way out there, though, there was a proposal by JP Aerospace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP_Aerospace) to use an unmanned airship as a space launch system. It would basically float up to max altitude, and then use rocket propulsion to achieve orbital velocity.
Quote from: Lurkndog;1125389Even without the issues of using hydrogen for lift, airships are very vulnerable to air conditions. You basically can't fly them in high winds or turbulence. If you get caught in a downdraft, it will smash the airship into the ground. That obviously limits when and where you can use them, but it also limits their practical range, because they need to be able to get back to a hangar before things start to get rough. Their hangars are also gigantic and expensive.
If we're talking way out there, though, there was a proposal by JP Aerospace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP_Aerospace) to use an unmanned airship as a space launch system. It would basically float up to max altitude, and then use rocket propulsion to achieve orbital velocity.
This actually isn't entirely correct, not when handled by experienced pilots. The Germans built up a lot of competence in airship flying, and Eckener would go from dreading storms, to using them to gain speed. The Graf Zeppelin not only went around the world, but it went through a massive hailstorm at one point, and the day after it was reported that an airplane that had been caught in the same storm had crashed with everyone on board lost.
Yep. They were getting increasingly safer. But when they go down it tended to be spectacular. But not allways fatal for all depending on how it went down.
Were it not for the Hindenburg disaster they would have probably over the next decade or so gotten safer as more solutions were discovered.
I think eventually though they would have been eclipsed by the advancements in aeroplanes and ships anyhow. Just not as fast or as near instantly.
I still bemoan the loss of Zeppelins. Of course they're inefficient compared to planes, but it would have been marvelous.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1126572I still bemoan the loss of Zeppelins. Of course they're inefficient compared to planes, but it would have been marvelous.
Depends. An airship can get alot done with less fuel use. Its the potential weather hassles that seem to keep stalling projects. That and the logistics of building and maintaining one large enough to be commercially viable.
Back in the 80s and 90s there were some tries. If I recall right a logging company used airships to haul product. Thats about the only one out of a dozen or more proposals that ever got off the drawing board. And even that was a blimp I believe rather than a zepplin.
Just finished watching the 1975 movie The Hindenburg, with George C Scott and many other familiar faces gaceing a really well done movie. The sets look great and from all accounts were very accurate, and the cast all plays off well.
Quote from: Omega;1128769Just finished watching the 1975 movie The Hindenburg, with George C Scott and many other familiar faces gaceing a really well done movie. The sets look great and from all accounts were very accurate, and the cast all plays off well.
I did a lot of research for a book I was working on for airships. The Hindenburg and the Graf Zepplin, and the other large German Zeppelins were a technological marvel. In the 1920's and 1930's aircraft had a limited range and needed airfields, with service and support facilities. The Zeppelins did not, so they could easily setup routes anywhere they liked. The maintenance crew lived onboard the airship, and the airship carried a complete set of spare parts and had machine shops on board so they could fabricate what they needed for service or repairs. They used helium which was plentiful back, and everyone was experimenting with them.
The Zeppelins travelled four or five times faster than the fastest steamships of the time, and didn't need airports for fuel, service, or landings. The Zeppelin routes from Berlin to Rio De Janeiro in 1936 ran from Europe, with stops in France, to Morocco, to the Canary Islands, the across the Atlantic to Recife in Brazil, Then down to Rio and Sao Paulo. The entire trip took about four days. The normal schedule was Frankfurt to Rio and flight time was 96 hours and 35 minutes, so just less than four days. The Zeppelins were very limited compared to aircraft and only had twenty passeger cabins, but for long distance flights in a short time, they couldn't be beat. Planes were faster, but they had to land to refuel much more often. Sailing from Frankfurt would be four weeks or more to Rio, and it would take two, maybe three weeks, by plane.
The Hindenburg went down because the Americans who owned a monopoly on the helium supply stopped selling helium to Germany, so the Germans were forced to use the highly flammable hydrogen gas instead, with the result of the Hindenburg bursting into flames over New Jersey in 1937. After that, Zeppelin flights were stopped entirely. The facilities were converted to producing aircraft for the Luftwaffe in WWII and were heavily bombed.
The German Zeppelins carried lots of packages and mail in addition to a few first class passengers every trip.
More on the flight schedules and flight times of Zeppelins here.
https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/flight-schedule/
Second largest Brazilian Airline (First Airline in Brazil), originally part of Lufthansa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servi%C3%A7os_A%C3%A9reos_Cruzeiro_do_Sul
Mail and other collectibles from Zeppelins fetches prime $$$ in collectors circles
https://www.dickkeiser.com/results.asp?searchtype=&category_1=Covers&category_2=Zeppelins&category_3=&category_4=&group=100&pagenum=1
Airships
https://www.airships.net/
Quote from: Lurkndog;1125389Even without the issues of using hydrogen for lift, airships are very vulnerable to air conditions. You basically can't fly them in high winds or turbulence. If you get caught in a downdraft, it will smash the airship into the ground. That obviously limits when and where you can use them, but it also limits their practical range, because they need to be able to get back to a hangar before things start to get rough. Their hangars are also gigantic and expensive.
The part about using them in high winds, somewhat true, however they took advantage of prevailing winds, especially the trade winds, more often then not, and could fly away from storms faster than the storms move for the most part. Ther Germans didn't lose Zeppelins to bad weather, but the Americans did lose airships, quite often, because they designed round blimps instead of aerodynamic shaped cigars with large ailerons which allowed the German Zeppelins to fly smoothly directly into heavy winds.
While the German officers generally viewed Hindenburg as an all-weather ship, they were very sensitive to the danger of thunderstorms and generally kept their ship below the clouds so they could observe and assess threatening clouds before entering them. In Hugo Eckener’s 1919 instruction guide for zeppelin operations (the closest thing the crew of the Hindenburg had to a flight manual), Eckener stated: “The fundamental principle covering squalls and thunderstorms is: If possible, avoid such cloud formations!”
Thunderstorms presented two principal risks; the potential for structural damage, and the possible ignition of hydrogen by electrical activity. The Germans were very sensitive to the possibility of structural damage caused by the violent convective activity in and around thunderstorms (such as the structural failure which destroyed the USS Shenandoah). The Hindenburg’s officers were also aware of the danger posed by thunderstorms when operating with hydrogen as a lifting gas. Since the strong updrafts of a thunderstorm could cause the ship to rise above pressure height, resulting in the automatic release of flammable hydrogen in an electrically charged environment, Hindenburg’s officers generally went to great lengths to avoid operating in or near thunderstorms, and one of Hugo Eckener’s basic operating rules was that a zeppelin should never valve hydrogen in a thunderstorm.
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.
In short, The winds would have to exceed 70 Mph to force a Zeppelin off course. Also the Americans sucked ass at designing airships, the best Navy Airships the B Class Blimps built by Curtiss Aircraft for the U.S. After WWI but before WWII had these performance characteristics.
Curtiss Class B Blimp General characteristics Length: 163 ft 0 in (49.70 m)
Diameter: 31 ft 6 in (9.60 m)
Volume: 84,000 ft3 (2,380 m3)
Powerplant: 1 × Curtiss OXX V-8, 100 hp (37 kW)
Performance
Maximum speed: 47 mph (76 km/h)[/B]
Cruise speed: 35 mph (56 km/h)
Range: 927 miles (1,492 km)
Endurance: 26 hours 30 min
So only 1/4 of the cruising range, and less than half the speed of a German Zeppelin. Later right before WWII the Navy introduced a new class of Blimp the K Class (based on German designs, ...of course) That performed much better. Before and during World War II, 134 K-class blimps were built, configured for patrol and anti-submarine warfare operations and were extensively used in the Navy’s anti-submarine efforts in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean areas.
Curtiss K Class Blimp CharacteristicsGeneral characteristics
Crew: 9–10
Length: 251 ft 8 in (76.73 m)
Diameter: 57 ft 10 in (17.63 m)
Volume: 425,000 ft3 (12,043 m3)
Useful lift: 7,770 lb (3,524 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Pratt & Whitney R-1340-AN-2 radials, 425 hp (317 kW) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 78 mph (125 km/h)
Cruise speed: 58 mph (93 km/h)
Range: 2,205 miles (3,537 km)
Endurance: 38 hours 12 min
The US Navy's experiences with K-ships in tropical regions showed a need for a blimp with greater volume than the K-class to offset the loss of lift due to high ambient temperatures. Goodyear addressed these concerns with a follow-on design, the M-class blimp, which was 50% larger.
Goodyear M Class Blimp CharacteristicsSpecifications (M-2)
General characteristics
Crew: 10-14
Length: 302 ft 0 in (92.07 m)
Diameter: 69 ft 6 in (21.19 m)
Height: 92 ft 6 in (28.20 m)
Volume: 647,000 ft3 (18,320 m3)
Useful lift: 10,000 lb (4,356 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Pratt & Whitney R-1340-AN-2 radials, 550 hp (410 kW) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 80 mph (128 km/h)
Cruise speed: 58 mph (93 km/h)
Endurance: 50 hours 30 min
Armament
1 × .50 M2 machine gun
8 × 350 lb (159 kg) AN-Mk 47 depth charges
The Americans were always about twenty years behind the Germans in Zeppelin and Blimp design tech.
Performance Stats for the Hindenburg Specifications
Hindenburg-class airships were three times longer and twice as tall as a Boeing 747.
General characteristics
Crew: ca. 40
Capacity: ca. 50 passengers for LZ-129 (later upgraded to 72), 40 passengers for LZ-130
Length: 245.3 m (803 ft 10 in)
Diameter: 41.2 m (135 ft 0 in)
Volume: 200,000 m3 (7,100,000 ft3)
Useful lift: 10,000 kg (22,046 lb)
Powerplant: 4 × Daimler-Benz DB 602 16-cylinder diesel engines, 735 kW (1100 hp) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 131 km/h (81 mph)
Range: 5,153 Nautical Miles
Quote from: RPGPundit;1126572I still bemoan the loss of Zeppelins. Of course they're inefficient compared to planes, but it would have been marvelous.
Not Really. They are not as fast, however Zeppelin and balloon flights are much much smoother, and they still have better flight range than most commercial aircraft. I always like a sleeping cabin anyway, and a voyage that takes a few days instead of a few hours. The Germans have started building and flying them again so you may get a chance to fly in one yet. I would definitely fly in one if they built long distance passenger versions with staterooms again.
Zeppelin NT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_NT
It is my understanding that, although originally designed to use Helium, the Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin were only ever flown using Hydrogen, as the Americans could not be convinced to ease their embargo on Helium. Also, they apparently bought Duralumin from the wreck of the R101 for tests during the design and construction of the Hindenburg. Not sure if they actually used any in the construction itself, but if they did that's some pretty unlucky metal! Hmmm, maybe a scenario Idea there.
Quote from: spon;1128986Also, they apparently bought Duralumin from the wreck of the R101 for tests during the design and construction of the Hindenburg. Not sure if they actually used any in the construction itself, but if they did that's some pretty unlucky metal! Hmmm, maybe a scenario Idea there.
According to notes Yes the Zeppelin Company did indeed buy as much as 5 tons of Duralumin from the company that salvaged the R101. But no idea if they used it for the Hindenburg.
Quote from: spon;1128986It is my understanding that, although originally designed to use Helium, the Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin were only ever flown using Hydrogen, as the Americans could not be convinced to ease their embargo on Helium. Also, they apparently bought Duralumin from the wreck of the R101 for tests during the design and construction of the Hindenburg. Not sure if they actually used any in the construction itself, but if they did that's some pretty unlucky metal! Hmmm, maybe a scenario Idea there.
The Graf Zeppelin was designed for hydrogen, but could have been converted to helium. The Hindenburg was the other way round; it was designed for helium, but had to be converted (made more fire proof) for the use of hydrogen because of the embargo. That's possibly part of the reason why it blew up, it might have been safer if it had been designed with hydrogen in mind from the start.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1128832I did a lot of research for a book I was working on for airships. The Hindenburg and the Graf Zepplin, and the other large German Zeppelins were a technological marvel. In the 1920's and 1930's aircraft had a limited range and needed airfields, with service and support facilities. The Zeppelins did not, so they could easily setup routes anywhere they liked. The maintenance crew lived onboard the airship, and the airship carried a complete set of spare parts and had machine shops on board so they could fabricate what they needed for service or repairs. They used helium which was plentiful back, and everyone was experimenting with them.
The Zeppelins travelled four or five times faster than the fastest steamships of the time, and didn't need airports for fuel, service, or landings. The Zeppelin routes from Berlin to Rio De Janeiro in 1936 ran from Europe, with stops in France, to Morocco, to the Canary Islands, the across the Atlantic to Recife in Brazil, Then down to Rio and Sao Paulo. The entire trip took about four days. The normal schedule was Frankfurt to Rio and flight time was 96 hours and 35 minutes, so just less than four days. The Zeppelins were very limited compared to aircraft and only had twenty passeger cabins, but for long distance flights in a short time, they couldn't be beat. Planes were faster, but they had to land to refuel much more often. Sailing from Frankfurt would be four weeks or more to Rio, and it would take two, maybe three weeks, by plane.
The Hindenburg went down because the Americans who owned a monopoly on the helium supply stopped selling helium to Germany, so the Germans were forced to use the highly flammable hydrogen gas instead, with the result of the Hindenburg bursting into flames over New Jersey in 1937. After that, Zeppelin flights were stopped entirely. The facilities were converted to producing aircraft for the Luftwaffe in WWII and were heavily bombed.
The German Zeppelins carried lots of packages and mail in addition to a few first class passengers every trip.
More on the flight schedules and flight times of Zeppelins here.
https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/flight-schedule/
Second largest Brazilian Airline (First Airline in Brazil), originally part of Lufthansa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servi%C3%A7os_A%C3%A9reos_Cruzeiro_do_Sul
Mail and other collectibles from Zeppelins fetches prime $$$ in collectors circles
https://www.dickkeiser.com/results.asp?searchtype=&category_1=Covers&category_2=Zeppelins&category_3=&category_4=&group=100&pagenum=1
Airships
https://www.airships.net/
Zeppelins were way before my time and I never saw much of them other than some scenes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so they never made a big impression on me as a kid. But this is some interesting stuff that put some things in perspective, specially the stuff about maintenance crews living on the ship and the long journeys the would take. Transporting that into a fantasy (perhaps steampunk-ish) world I could almost see an entire culture or caste of people living in the skies, moving from realm to realm in their vast fleet of ships, docking for supplies in sky cities before setting off again--watching out for sky pirates along the way and things like that. Even in a non-fantasy world more grounded in reality the possibilities are pretty vast.
Pretty sure Crimson Skies played with that idea at least once.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1128843Not Really. They are not as fast, however Zeppelin and balloon flights are much much smoother, and they still have better flight range than most commercial aircraft. I always like a sleeping cabin anyway, and a voyage that takes a few days instead of a few hours. The Germans have started building and flying them again so you may get a chance to fly in one yet. I would definitely fly in one if they built long distance passenger versions with staterooms again.
Zeppelin NT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_NT
I've heard that claim many time over the decades. But it's never really panned out.
The scenario 'Silver Pictures Move So Slow' in the Mythras/Luther Arkwright supplement, 'Parallel Lines' is based exclusively onboard a zeppelin...
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The characters are investigating Disruptor activity that may involve the British and Ukrainian royal dynasties in an alt-history setting. It involves decadent film stars, drug addicted diplomats, psychic phenomena, an ambitious film director, and a dash of Bolshevism.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1129647I've heard that claim many time over the decades. But it's never really panned out.
Hell, this was tossed around way back in the 70s and 80s on an episode of Nova.
And wow! They really did build the Magnus? Or at least a functional prototype.
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Speaking of airships. As mentioned in the "Cthulhu Meets Real Life" thread... Some of the things I ended up with after my aunt's death was a packet of newspapers and clippings.
One of which being the front page article on the Hindenburg. Also in there was one on the Titanic and another about Dillinger being shot. Some going so far back they were still referring to China as Cathay.
It turns into Led. Suddenly thunderheads billow about you keeping it aloft, and you rock the fuck out as you invade other nations and pillage them.
Quote from: Loz;1129692The scenario 'Silver Pictures Move So Slow' in the Mythras/Luther Arkwright supplement, 'Parallel Lines' is based exclusively onboard a zeppelin...
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The characters are investigating Disruptor activity that may involve the British and Ukrainian royal dynasties in an alt-history setting. It involves decadent film stars, drug addicted diplomats, psychic phenomena, an ambitious film director, and a dash of Bolshevism.
Looks nice! Um...what's that creature on the lower left?
Probably a yeti at a guess.
Ever see the Archer episode where they are on an airship! haha Good for some ideas.
Edit: The white thing in picture above looks more like a Morlock to me.
oh. Could be a more traditional troll. They were sometimes depicted like that way back.
True. Could be a Dunsany type gnole too. These older creatures remind me of the bogymen in March of the Wooden Soldiers (Laurel and Hardy, Hal Roach film). ha
At one point in the past, gripped by Zeppelin lust, I came up with an idea for an airship using hot air instead of helium or hydrogen. It was basically an airborne nuclear reactor generating heat that was used to generate lift and propulsion, and run turbines for power.
I mean, what could go wrong? :)
"Terror from the Skies" is an official CoC campaign with a leg set aboard of the German LZ127 Graf Zeppelin at the beginning of 1929, during the round-the-world flight.
(https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-9zhx02uo/images/stencil/960w/products/1344/716/1568823673__71300.1403763645.jpg?c=2)
One of the gasbags has a small leak, it takes the crew a long time to find and you end up flying 10 feet above the ocean, desperately trying to lighten the ship enough to get a little higher to avoid the waves in the storm that's coming in.
Stephrn King's Twilight Zone-inspired story, "The Langoliers" could be the start of a good adventure. However, in the story they needed a big commercial airplane with enough speed to... do things (I won't spoil: the story is wonderful; look for it). With some twists the core idea could be used, toh. And I feel that being on a dirigible is more scary than being on a modern 737.