The story of the "sky sailors" - the men who pioneered a mode of air transport that today is virtually forgotten. During the first two decades of aviation pioneering (c.1890-1910), airshipmen greatly outnumbered aeroplane pioneers. But the great innovations in heavier-than-air aircraft, the advent of two world wars, and the bad publicity brought about by a few horrific airship disasters, changed the picture completely. Ces Mowthorpe describes the early days of airships and their brave crews, mixing narrative with first-hand ...
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The story of the "sky sailors" - the men who pioneered a mode of air transport that today is virtually forgotten. During the first two decades of aviation pioneering (c.1890-1910), airshipmen greatly outnumbered aeroplane pioneers. But the great innovations in heavier-than-air aircraft, the advent of two world wars, and the bad publicity brought about by a few horrific airship disasters, changed the picture completely. Ces Mowthorpe describes the early days of airships and their brave crews, mixing narrative with first-hand accounts by airshipmen from England, Germany, Italy and the US. His account begins in Paris in the 1890s and moves on to examine the development of British and German military airships in World War I (Blimps and Zeppelin-type rigids); the interwar development of rigid airships by Britain and Germany; the Americans' use of massive airships to carry aircraft, and smaller airships for anti-submarine patrols in the Atlantic and Pacific during World War II; the use of airships by smaller, civilian operators; and the fatal disasters of the Hindenberg, R101 and Shenandoah. By the beginning of World War II, Britain had long since pulled out of airship building and the post-war years saw the end of military airships in the US.
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