LO
The Hindenburg took 60-80 hours to cross the Atlantic - that's 3-4 days roughly. I don't believe it was pressurised and so would have sat outside the jetstream. But why would you want spend 3-4 days in a blimp when you can do it almost in as many hours in a fixed wing aircraft?
I remember listening to Gen Dave Deptula state when he was the 'big cheese' of USAF Intel and he explicitly stated he wanted 'weeks and weeks' of ISR and that was what the LEMV was all about. Having been sold their 'snake oil' the US military bailed before wasting another load of dollars; why? Because LEMV was 12,000lbs overweight and rather than being capable of delivering 'weeks' of ISR it was now going to be 'days' - funnily enough it was estimated at just less than 5 days, which is what the Airlander is quoting!
Trans-atlantic services of fixed wing aircraft only really started properly after WWII as the engines were all too unreliable pre-1939. Hence, flying boats that could land on if one of their 'donks' packed in or an airship that could limp on whilst the crew fixed the engine (somewhat bravely in my opinion). We don't need to do that anymore, our gas turbines are reliable and efficient. If you have a look on the internet the cost of the Hindeburg ticket was ~$400 one way which was a sh!t load of money in 1936!
If this was such a good idea then t'Bungling Baron, Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Dassault, Saab, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, etc...etc... would have thrown their weight behind it decades before. Even now, if there was any 'brass' to be made then the big boys would be wading straight in. I tend to agree with the implied lack of faith by the big aerospace companies - the concept is flawed and even if a few end up flying it will end up being a great big expensive folly at the tax-payers' expense.
LJ