Lighter Than Air Aircraft
Docking on the Empire State Building
Despite plans for a mooring station, only one airship ever docked at the Empire State Building.
April 01, 2013 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Rescue, James Bond Style
Some of 007's imaginative toys were based on actual inventions.
March 01, 2013 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Kings of the Air
Two showmen, one dirigible, and the flight that changed aviation.
February 2013 |
By Paul Glenshaw
Stratomouse!
In the 1950s, balloons carried live mice to near-space to study how the trip might affect astronauts.
January 11, 2013 |
By Heather Goss
Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut
An 1880 balloon jaunt ends with our heroine up a tree.
August 16, 2012 |
By Rebecca Maksel
To the North Pole…by Balloon
115 years ago today, three Swedish explorers set off on the only attempt ever to reach the Pole by balloon.
July 11, 2012 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Second Life for Hangar One
The Moffett Field landmark may yet house aircraft again.
May 2012 |
By Kara Platoni
Last One Out, Shut off the Helium
Fifty years ago, the Navy ended its lighter-than-air program.
August 2011 |
By George C. Larson, Member, NAA
The Akron and Macon’s Hail Mary Pass
“One of the interesting things about airships,” says Tom Crouch, a senior curator at the National Air and Space Museum, who gave a lecture on the subject this week as part of the Museum’s Ask an Expert series, is that they were “transitional technology. They were capable of doing a great many things before airplanes [...]
June 17, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Crossing the Atlantic by Balloon (and Other Means)
When Jules Verne's novel Five Weeks in a Balloon: or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen was translated into English in 1869, it appeared with this publisher's note: "So far as the geography, the inhabitants, the animals, and the features of the countries the travellers pass ove...
May 12, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Surviving the Hindenburg
When the Hindenburg flew toward the the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937, it was the airship's eleventh voyage to the United States. The nearly 804-foot-long ship, the pride of Nazi Germany, had been carrying passengers on excursion flights since 1910 without a single injur...
April 15, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Z2
The latest in sightseeing tours, brought to you by Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin.
March 2011 |
By Marshall Lumsden
Oldies and Oddities: Buying the Farmhouse
Adventures in Navy ballooning.
March 2011 |
By Captain Marion Eppes, U.S. Navy (ret.)
Junk Mail From Above
Once you get used to the slightly overcaffeinated host, this is a pretty cool project —to drop a bunch of paper airplanes from a high-altitude balloon and see where they land. The team launched their balloon earlier this month, as the video shows. But, from what I can tell on their website and Twit...
January 31, 2011 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Then and Now: From Airships to Waterslides
The world's largest free-standing building gets a second lease on life.
January 2011 |
By Roger A. Mola
Not Your Father's Blimp
What looks like Ronaldo's nightmare is in fact the world's largest soccer ball airship, built by E-Green Technologies of Kellyton, Alabama. Why, you ask? It seems everyone's crazy about airships these days, for everything from military surveillance to tourism. E-Green just signed a deal with NASA's...
December 17, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Alberto's Big Race
As prizes go, this was a big one. In 1901, French oil tycoon and aviation patron Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe put up 100,000 francs (equivalent to more than $500,000 today) for the first airman who could fly a 7-mile circuit starting from a park in Paris, rounding the Eiffel Tower, then returning to...
October 19, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
You've Got (Balloon) Mail
In September 1870, not long after the start of the Franco-Prussian War, the city of Paris was under siege by Prussian soldiers. By the 19th, the German army had blocked all communication into or out of the city. There was nothing worse, wrote French journalist Francisque Sarcey, than to "live cut o...
October 13, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Looking for the High Life
In the wake of several misleading news headlines, researchers at Cranfield University in the U.K. have had to set the record straight: No, they're not looking for aliens in Earth's atmosphere.But they are looking for microbes floating around in the stratosphere, at altitudes up to 22 miles. The...
October 06, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
