Billionaires’ yachts make me yawn. If I had that sort of money and needed some way to get around in style, I’d commission an airship. Rigids airships have been around for more than a century.
The biggest airships to date, the Zeppelins, were built by the Germans in the 1920s and 1930s. The Hindenburg, completed in 1936, was 245 meters long, carried 70 passengers and 40 crew, and had a range of 15,000 km at a cruise speed of 122 km per hour. The airship included private rooms, a dining room and a lounge, all of which seem more luxurious than any modern business class cabin. A partial recreation can be visited at the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen in Germany. It’s worth the visit if you’re in that part of the world. The Hindenburg made 18 crossings of the Atlantic before it famously caught fire and burned in 1937, resulting in 37 fatalities.
Those Zeppelins remain unmatched along multiple dimensions. One exception is safety: Modern airships would not explode like this because unlike the Hindenburg, which used hydrogen, they use helium. They are also less impressive. The largest contemporary airship is the Pathfinder 1. It was built by a company called LTA Research, which is funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Pathfinder 1 is 124 m long, has a gondola designed for 14 people, and a range of maybe 4,000 km. LTA is currently building a larger version, the Pathfinder 3. It will still be smaller than the Hindenburg (185 m and less than half the lift), but its range will be comparable at 16,000 km.
Why hasn’t anyone matched the Hindenburg in scale? Airships are a good example of technological capability in a specific area reaching a peak and then declining. Even so, why isn’t there more interest by billionaire to build to own large airships? Can’t get it licensed by the FAA? Build it somewhere else. It seems like a more attractive investment than a yacht. You’re not limited to the ocean, you are similarly self-sufficient, and you’ll get a lot more envious press coverage.
Nehaveigur 