#dirigible

[agelessphotography]

A Dirigible, Alfred Stieglitz, 1910

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The Hindenburg over Manhattan, minutes before it exploded, May 6, 1937.

Photo: Associated Press via N-TV

[bigglesworld]

Graf Zeppelin avec Packard à Mines Field, Los Angeles. 1929

[retropopcult]

“Roy, come and get this ---damn cat.”

On October 15, 1910, Kiddo the cat became the first of his kind to attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean by airship—and he wasn’t very happy about it.

When aeronaut Walter Wellman’s hydrogen airship, America, was preparing for take-off from New Jersey, Kiddo was found in the airship’s lifeboat. The wide-eyed grey tabby was not pleased about his unexpected journey, and his howling annoyed the airship’s chief engineer, Melvin Vaniman. (The duo seemed to have made-up after their spat—enough to pose for a photo together, at least.)

The America was the first airship to have radio equipment. Kiddo has the distinction of being the subject of the first ever radio communication from an aircraft in flight: “Roy, come and get this ---damn cat.”

The 71 hours that Kiddo and the rest of the crew spent in flight were fraught with storms and engine failure. After traveling just over 1,300 miles from their launch point, the America sent out a distress signal. Kiddo and the crew were evacuated via the airship’s lifeboat on to a Royal Mail steamship. The America—no longer weighed down by the boat, crew, and cat—drifted away and eventually crashed off the coast of Maryland.

According to the airship’s navigator, Murray Simon, Kiddo preferred the sea-faring portion of the journey; he described Kiddo as perched on the lifeboat’s sail, “washing his face in the Sun, a pleasant picture of feline content.”

(photograph and story courtesy of the Smithsonian)

[welele]

[flyingprivate]

AirYacht will now stay exclusively in the air, says CEO Guillaume Hoddé, who cofounded the Swiss company with fellow engineer Matthieu Ozanne. Jettisoning

[gravegrime]

Wanted to get all my Pepperwick Dailies in one spot!

A concept I will 100% be returning to (hopefully with some proper game design ideas as well)

[nelc]

I never get bored of seeing the sheer humongous scale of airships like this that flew nearly one hundred years ago.

Here’s Zeppelin LZ129 Hindenburg at the hangar in Lakehurst, USA in 1936 (the year before the disaster) AP Photo.

[nocternalrandomness]

Wingfoot One drifting over North Perry Airport FL

[apenitentialprayer]

Thinking about how in 1929, a twelve year old boy snuck out of his home upon hearing the whirring of a massive engine. When he looked up into the nighttime sky, he couldn't see Graf Zeppelin starting the final stretch of its three-week around-the-world tour. Instead, he saw the vast black void in the sky where it blocked out the stars, its presence felt to the same extent that it created a sense of absence. Decades later, as an old man, he'd call that moment where he saw but did not see the wonder above him "fearfully beautiful."

[lonestarflight]

USS SHENANDOAH (ZR-1) in flight. She was the first of four United States Navy dirigibles and constructed at Lakehurst Naval Air Station from 1922 to 1923. Her first flight was in September 1923. She was destroyed in a squall over Ohio in September 1925.

Painting by artist Richard Derosset.

San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives: 57737471

[stone-cold-groove]

Overflight of the U.S. Capitol building by Germany’s Graf Zeppelin - 1931.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The Navy dirigible Los Angeles flying over Lower Manhattan, July 27, 1931.

Photo: NY Daily News via Getty Images/Fine Art America

[bigglesworld]

Graf Zeppelin. Arrival in Leningrad. 1931

[witekspicsoldpostcards2]

DIRIGIBLES / ZEPPELINS / STEROWCE / AEROSTATS (photo set 3)

[weirdchristmas]

I found this guy today. One more step towards making every ornament an allusions to postcards...