New research on Hindenburg disaster

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by shegeek72

...the external skin that was coated with a mixture of aluminum particles and iron oxide (the solid fuel in the shuttle rockets!)

That's not the shuttle rocket fuel, that's thermit (welding and incendiary material). The SRB's only contain a very small amount of iron as a catalyst, they're mostly made with aluminium, ammonium perchlorate and rubber.
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/s...ystem_SRB.html (on the left)

[Hylander_1314]

Also, the "dope" that was painted over the fabric was highly flammable, like the WWI planes. The dope would help to make the fabric taught, and would have aluminum powder blended into it. The same for airplanes. This would reflect sunrays, which helped keep the fabric from breaking down. The iron oxide was used as it left the surface a red colour, which helped again to "block" sunrays.

The only problem though, is that these "paints" created an acetate layer, which is like old motion picture film. A very flammable "plastic" like coating when it dries.

But look at how fast those WWI planes burned up once they were ignited.

The old hydrogen airships were almost as dangerous as the Me-163 Komet as far as riskiness is concerned.

[KeybdFlyer]

That PBS special was pretty good, yes. I noticed though that yet again (like many other documentaries) it neglected to mention that the Hindenburg was intended to utilise Helium, which would have prevented such a conflagration from happening. The US was just about the sole supplier of Helium at that time, but refused to supply Germany (presumably to show their distaste for what was happening in Germany at that time).
A case of high principles having disastrous consequences?

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by KeybdFlyer

That PBS special was pretty good, yes. I noticed though that yet again (like many other documentaries) it neglected to mention that the Hindenburg was intended to utilise Helium, which would have prevented such a conflagration from happening. The US was just about the sole supplier of Helium at that time, but refused to supply Germany (presumably to show their distaste for what was happening in Germany at that time).
A case of high principles having disastrous consequences?

Let's see..................

1937. Hitler. Nazis. Third Reich. Massive German rearmament.

Yeh. America's fault.

Most probably Bush's.

[tycho102]

The hydrogen was retarded to begin with. Hydrogen will combust anywhere from 5% to nearly 80% by volume. The thing should have been a hydrogen-helium mix. The Hindenburg was an absolute nightmare-waiting-to-happen in the exact same way Titanic was (minus the flamable skin, mind you, although the sulfur-brittle steel came close).

[Sailor Steve]

The Zeppelin corporation wanted to use helium, but deriving it was new technology held almost exclusively by the Americans, who refused to sell it to Hitler's gang.

BOOM!

On the other hand, Graf Zeppelin made her historic 'round-the-world flight with no major problems.

[August]

Originally Posted by KeybdFlyer

That PBS special was pretty good, yes. I noticed though that yet again (like many other documentaries) it neglected to mention that the Hindenburg was intended to utilise Helium, which would have prevented such a conflagration from happening. The US was just about the sole supplier of Helium at that time, but refused to supply Germany (presumably to show their distaste for what was happening in Germany at that time).
A case of high principles having disastrous consequences?

Actually the Hindenburg was in the US to get a supply of helium. Much of the reluctance to give Germany helium however was over their use of zeppelins to bomb England and Paris during the 1st world war.