Dirigible Dreams: The Age of the Airship

Dirigible Dreams: The Age of the Airship

Here is the story of airshipsâ€”manmade flying machines without wingsâ€”from their earliest beginnings to the modern era of blimps. In postcards and advertisements, the sleek, silver, cigar-shaped airships, or dirigibles, were the embodiment of futuristic visions of air travel. They immediately captivated the imaginations of people worldwide, but in less than fifty years dirigibleÂ became a byword for doomed futurism, an Icarian figure of industrial hubris. Dirigible Dreams looks back on this bygone era, when the future of exploration, commercial travel, and warfare largely involved the prospect of wingless flight. In Dirigible Dreams, C. Michael Hiam celebrates the legendary figures of this promising technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesâ€”the pioneering aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, the doomed polar explorers S. A. AndrÃ©e and Walter Wellman, and the great Prussian inventor and promoter Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, among otherÂ pivotal figuresâ€”and recounts fascinating stories of exploration, transatlantic journeys, and floating armadas that rained death during World War I. While there were triumphs, such as the polar flight of the Norge, most of these tales are of disaster and woe, culminating in perhaps the most famous disaster of all time, the crash of the Hindenburg.

This story of daring men and their flying machines, dreamers and adventurers who pushed modern technology toâ€”and often beyondâ€”its limitations, is an informative and exciting mix of history, technology, awe-inspiring exploits, and warfare that will captivate readers with its depiction of a lost golden age of air travel. Readable and authoritative, enlivened by colorful characters and nail-biting drama,Â Dirigible DreamsÂ will appeal to a new generation of general readers and scholars interested in the origins of modern aviation.
Country USA
Brand Hiam, C. Michael
Manufacturer Foredge
Binding Hardcover
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781611685602
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Hiam, C. Michael
Manufacturer	Foredge
Binding	Hardcover
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781611685602
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Dirigible Dreams: The Age of the Airship

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