In Transatlantic Airships, John Christopher recounts the fascinating story of the lighter-than-air 'pond hoppers' from the earliest schemes and bold pioneering flights, including the triumphant double-crossing by the R34. The book goes on to describe the rise of the Zeppelins and the ambitious British scheme to connect its far-flung Empire, the US Navy's lighter-than-air craft and the incredible post-war proposals for colossal atomic-powered leviathans. It is a story of fantastic visionaries, incredible flying machines, great moments of triumph and, ultimately, of spectacular disaster. AUTHOR John Christopher started flying balloons in the 1980s and has flown almost every size from tiny one-man cloudhoppers to huge people-carriers. He is also a journalist and author specializing in all aspects of aviation. For twelve years he edited Aerostat, the journal of British Balloon & Airship Club. ILLUSTRATIONS 250 colour photos *

Drawing on the extensive photographs, notes, diaries, reports, recorded data, and manuals he collected during his five years at the Zeppelin Company in Germany, from 1934 through 1938, Harold G. Dick tells the story of the two great passenger Zeppelins. Against the background of German secretiveness, especially during the Nazi period, Dick's accumulation of material and pictures is extraordinary. His original photographs and detailed observations on the handling and flying of the two big rigids constitute the essential data on this phase of aviation history.

Here is the story of airshipsÑmanmade flying machines without wingsÑfrom 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 dirigibleÊbecame 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 centuriesÑthe pioneering aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, the doomed polar explorers S. A. AndrŽe and Walter Wellman, and the great Prussian inventor and promoter Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, among otherÊpivotal figuresÑand 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 toÑand often beyondÑits 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,ÊDirigible DreamsÊwill appeal to a new generation of general readers and scholars interested in the origins of modern aviation.

This volume covers rigid airships from their beginnings in 19th-century Germany until World War II and examines their role in both civil and military aviation. It gives the development histories of 163 different airships constructed during that period in Germany, Britain, France and the USA.

Six decades later, there is still a mystique surrounding these technological leviathans, one that Zeppelin! addresses with insight and wit.

“Reveals their race across the Atlantic in stunning pictures . . . includes a first-hand account from Captain Brown of his world-first flight.” —Daily Mail Online It was Tuesday, 15 July 1919 and for the residents of Clifden on Ireland’s west coast this was not to be a normal day. Just before 08.40 hours, descending out of the gloom, came a large, twin-engine airplane lining up for final approach. After a flight lasting 16 hours and 28 minutes, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown had won the race to be the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic—and the prize of £10,000, roughly equivalent to $1,000,000 in today’s money, offered by Lord Rothermere, aviation philanthropist and owner of the Daily Mail. Illustrated by many unique photographs this book tells the story of the race, delayed for almost six years by the First World War. Many aircraft would be entered but few would even get off the ground. The teams faced great difficulties in preparing for the challenge of crossing one of the most hostile stretches of ocean on Earth. The authors not only reveal tales of failures and technical difficulties, but of the intense frustration of waiting for the perfect weather-window. And even when finally airborne, Alcock and Brown’s flight almost ended in disaster on several occasions as weather conditions almost conspired to cast them down into the grey, cold waters of the Atlantic and almost certain death. “Right from the first page, you’ll be hooked . . . you’re in the cockpit with Alcock and Brown and every dump and dive of the flight across the Atlantic.” —Vintage Airfix