Are Zeppelins about to take off again - or is it just hot air?

By Jane Fryer


In demand: The U.S. Army has ordered three new airships to be built and fitted with high-tech surveillance equipment so they can be used in Afghanistan


As we soar up into the grey skies above Lake Constance - propellers whirling, seat belts tightly fastened and everyone brandishing their cameras in excitement - something feels ever so slightly strange.

It could be the gentle breeze coming in through the wide open windows and the long ropes dangling in front of the cockpit in an alarmingly relaxed way.

Or perhaps it's the fact that the twin 200hp engines are so quiet I can hear my fellow passengers unwrapping toffees and whispering, and Hans-Paul the pilot clearing his throat and swallowing.


Stunning: Writer Jane Fryer enjoying the panoramic views seen from on board a Zeppelin Airship over Lake Contance in Germany


Or maybe it's just the fact that we're in a tiny blue-and-white gondola dangling from the underbelly of a helium-filled aircraft that is bigger than a Boeing 747 and hails from another era.

I am in an airship - an engine-powered navigational balloon, or a Zeppelin, to be precise.

And we are cruising silently over the German/Swiss/Austrian border, peering down at ducks swimming, children running, people playing tennis - and an enormous grey gherkin-shaped shadow that follows us everywhere we go.


This is one of only two places in the world where commercial passengers are able to cruise in airships - the other is the United States.

Perhaps not surprisingly, public enthusiasm for airship travel rather plummeted after the Hindenburg went up in a ball of fire in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937.


First class service: Passengers enjoying the panoramic views seen from on board a Zeppelin Airship


Overnight, airships - once the height of elite luxury travel, kitted out with Axminster carpets, awash with smoking rooms, bridge rooms, monogrammed towels, promenade decks and portholed cabins - were relegated to the status of scary-sounding historical white elephants.

But according to a very enthusiastic man called Gordon Taylor, this could all be set to change.

'We are at the beginning of the new age of luxury travel - a whole new method of transport,' says Gordon, who has dedicated the past 13 years of his life to airships.

'Imagine you're planning a party with 400 of your best friends. You go to Regent's Park, say, at noon on Thursday and board the SkyCat200.

'There will be bars and luxury and you'll dinner-dance your way across the Atlantic at 10,000ft. You might go up on the roof and have a cocktail in the fresh air - we'll only be going 100 knots, so there'll be no wind chill - or have a dip in the open-air pool . . .


Airships, like the one pictured, could be making a comeback in both a commercial and military capacity


'Then you'll have ten hours' sleep and at two o'clock on Friday afternoon you'll disembark in New York.

'You've travelled 3,000 miles, but there is barely any turbulence and no jet lag [because of the length of the flight] - though quite possibly a thumping hangover from all the cocktails, all for the cost of a business class air ticket.

How about that? Isn't this just about the most exciting thing you can imagine?'

Gordon lives, breathes and dreams airships.

He is the marketing director of a British company called Hybrid Air Vehicles which, in association with American company Northrop Grumman, has recently won a £335 million contract to build three airships to act as the 'unblinking eyes' of the U.S. Army above Afghanistan, using high-tech surveillance equipment to record every bomb planted by the roadside, every ambush.

A week before my trip to Lake Constance, I visited him at his office on Cardington Airfield, near Bedford.

It's basically a group of portable cabins in the shadow of two vast 800ft corrugated steel hangers - the relics of the once great British airship industry.

Gordon has two things he wants to make very clear before we go any further.

First, he likes to refer to his company's flying machines not as airships, but as Hybrid Air Vehicles, because they use lighter-than-air helium to float, as well as some aerodynamic tricks taken from more traditional aircraft.

'It's not a very snappy name, but if we can only get beyond the word "airship" - which has so much of the wrong kind of history - people may think of them differently.'

Which brings us to point two - the 'Don't Mention the War' aspect of the airship industry.

'Just remember that the Hindenburg happened not too long after the Titanic disaster, but each time you look at the QE2 you don't think about the Titanic, do you? No.

Because they didn't have the cameras rolling on the Titanic when it went down, did they?' No. But sadly they did have a camera rolling when the Hindenburg went up in flames. And a radio reporter called Herbert Morrison saw it all and sobbed on air:


Impressive sight: Passengers wait for the arrival of a Zeppelin Airship at Lake Contance


'It's burning, bursting into flames! This is terrible! It is one of the worst catastrophes in the world! Oh the humanity!'

Which is one of the reasons why Gordon and his team have had such a battle with investors, governments and the general public over the perception of the airship.

Gordon assures me that, as well as being far greener, airships are much, much safer than planes.

'If an airship loses its engines for any reason, the pilot would probably go and make himself a cup of tea, because nothing will happen very quickly - it'll stay afloat for days.'

But it's not just safety concerns they have to battle with.

'You wouldn't believe the number of nutcase calls we get - and they all thinking they're being so helpful with unsolicited suggestions like: "Why don't you put some hydrogen in too?" Er, because hydrogen's the stuff that can go boom!'

It is 227 years since the first unmanned hydrogen balloon landed on the outskirts of the village of Gonesse, France, and terrified peasants attacked it with pitchforks and scythes.

But it was only in 1896, when Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin founded his company, that airships really took off.


Time for a break: Jane Fryer with Captain Hans-Paul Strehle aboard the airship


The halcyon days were short-lived. On her maiden fight from the now rusty hangars in Cardington in 1931, the British-built R101 crashed 40 miles north of Paris, killing 48 people.

Six years later, 36 people lost their lives in the Hindenburg disaster, and that was the end of airship travel. Until now.

'We are about to build the biggest aircraft in the world - this is British manufacturing and design at its best,' says Gordon.

'And we have the ability to change the future of flight!'

It's all thanks to a man called Roger Munk, the 'father of modern airships' who, in 1972, read a book about events leading up to the R101 crash, dedicated his life to making airships viable again and set up what is today Hybrid Air Vehicles.

Tragically, after decades of struggling to get the message across. He died suddenly earlier this year, aged 63, months before his company won its U.S. Army contract.

Today, the merest mention of him sets eyes brimming at Cardington.

But his zeal lives on. 'There's no technological reason whatsoever that this could fail,' says Gordon, eyes gleaming.
But, what about the bit about airships not working?

What' s different about HAV's amazing flying machines?

'The main problem with airships is that it's too much trouble loading and unloading them; you can't get cargo on and off easily; you can't just land anywhere and they need to be tethered, so you need a crew of 12 to help people on and off - and they're very sensitive to the weather in take-off and landing.'

He's right. I waited three weeks for suitable weather for my flight in Germany - goodness knows how Zeppelin stayed in business.

To get round this, Roger and Gordon's team came up with an airship (sorry, HAV) with a sort of hovercraft base, which eliminates the need for winches and cables and means it can land on pretty much anything:

'Water, snow, ice, grass, rubble, people - ha ha - you name it.
'It can also carry enormous and very heavy loads and use less than a quarter of the fuel of planes and ships.'

Which means that, alongside his grand scheme for black-tie transatlantic dining and alfresco cocktails on the roof, Gordon is also hatching a plan to put HAVs to use transporting 65m wind turbine blades, freighting food and supplies to remote and hostile places and playing a key role in disaster relief.

'During the recent floods in Pakistan, HAVs could have been crucial in dropping off supplies - they can carry up to 2,000 tons of freight and, unlike planes, they could have landed on the water.'

Considering their enormous size and unwieldy appearance, I can't help thinking they seem a bit of a funny choice for the military.

You'd think a great big fat blob hovering over the mountains of Afghanistan would be an easy target, but according to Gordon they're quite the contrary.

'It's all to do with air pressure - it's incredibly low inside, so if you poke a hole in the envelope [the balloon bit] it wouldn't go whizzing round the sky like a popped balloon. If the Taliban shot at it, the bullets would pass straight through.

We've tested it. It would take a lot of bullet holes to make an impact and you can patch them up, just like a bicycle inner-tube.'

Because they're not metal, HAV's are not detectable by radar, but they've been tested anyway with missiles and warheads exploded inches from the balloon and all that happens is 'that the casing sighs, dents in a bit, and pops back into place'.

All of which is very reassuring as we sail over Lake Constance with tourists hanging out of the windows taking photos, and the pilot looking so relaxed he's almost asleep.

'I'd much rather have this job than be a surgeon or a marriage lawyer,' he says.

'But it takes a certain type of pilot. It's not a very racy drive, so it's not for everyone. And, as you can see, there's absolutely nothing to fear really, is there?'

He's right. Which is very pleasing. Not just because none of us wants to plummet into Lake Constance in a ball of flames.

But more because airship travel is fantastically soothing and wonderfully civilised, and I want to see Roger and Gordon's plans come alive.

I also want very badly to sail through the skies to New York, sip champagne in the open air and arrive 30 soothing hours later with no jet lag and a thumping hangover.


source: dailymail