Originally Posted by
Asturias56
SNIP
Rather like large passenger flying boats they had a very important place in aviation history but that time has long passed. No-one builds 4 masted cargo vessels anymore, nor triremes and I use a watch rather than Stonehenge. It's sad in a way but don't confuse romance with modern aviation - you'll only be disappointed......
PS National Pride is a poor basis (on its own) for building things - the UK has quite a record of burning money on projects that never made it economically- Brabazon, Comet, Herald, Concorde, Trident (airliner), VC-10...... even the hovercraft only has limited application
True, Asturias, but with a difference. Large passenger flying boats were operated successfully by a number of airlines. I don't know of any successful commercial passenger airship operators apart from DELAG, and they were led by Eckener, who seems to have been something of a genius. Then he was kicked out by the Nazis; he might or might not have prevented the Hindenburg disaster, but the only way to avoid the bad weather problems was to be extremely cautious, which would be difficult to do under modern commercial management.
National pride is indeed a poor basis for building things, but it's probably quite a good motivator for extracting investments from people who are suckered by the romance of these things. My father-in-law (who wasn't a mug, in general) invested in Alan Bond's Airship Industries. But I suppose it's long enough ago for most people to have forgotten that fiasco. Like the perennial flying car, the airship turns up repeatedly.