Up Ship! The Airship History Podcast Nick Rogers

'Out of the softening sunset came the airship; and the manner of its moving was beautiful. Few inanimate objects attain beauty in the pursuance of their courses, and yet, to me, at least, the flight of this ship was far lovelier than the swooping of a bird or the jumping of a horse.'

Giant rigid airships the size of ocean liners once ruled our skies. Crossing continents and transporting passengers in spacious luxury, they seemed to be the future of long-distance air travel. But one fiery moment in 1937 over Lakehurst, New Jersey changed aviation forever and robbed the world of these magnificent, otherworldly aircraft.
Join podcast host Nick Rogers as we look at why large airships are no longer in our skies, why that matters and why you should be interested in airship history.

"Nothing will ever equal that moment of joyous excitement which filled my whole being when I felt myself flying away from the earth. It was not mere pleasure, it was perfect bliss. Having escaped from the frightful torments of persecution and of calumny, I felt that I was answering all in rising above all… On whatever side we looked, all was glorious; a cloudless sky above, a most delicious view around."

Imagine the thrill of being one of the first humans to experience flight. Imagine the courage it must have taken to set foot in a balloon and allow yourself to be transported into the clouds, not knowing what it would be like or whether you would survive the experience. Every time we board an aircraft today, we owe a debt to these brave pioneers.

Join podcast host Nick Rogers for episode 2 as we trace the early days of flight, from Greek mythology to the first manned flights in balloons.
 
 

Observing the first manned balloon flight, Benjamin Franklin believed that the balloon would be such a potent weapon that it would bring about an end to war. If only that had been the case.

Balloons played a role in numerous conflicts, from the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Civil War up to World War One, but they and their proponents often sat uncomfortably in the strict military hierarchy of  their armies, leading to conflict and personality clashes. On this episode, we examine the role that balloons have played in military history and look and why, ultimately, they were not as effective as some hoped they would be.

We also pick up the thread of airship history, looking at attempts, sometimes fatal, at solving the biggest problem of early flight - how to build an aircraft that could actually be steered. We look at the first ever powered flight and the different approaches to building a useful airship.

Welcome to Up Ship! The Airship History Podcast. I’m Nick Rogers and I will be your captain on this long-haul flight through the fascinating history of the most awe-inspiring and ethereal aircraft ever conceived – the airship. 
We will navigate from the earliest days of airships, through the violent days of the First World War into the Golden Age of the great airships of the 1920s and 30s, and beyond.
We’ll fly around the world on the Graf Zeppelin, travel to the North Pole with Roald Amundsen, escort World War 2 convoys in US Navy airships and much, much more. And of course, we will examine in the depth the tragic crashes that bedevilled airship history, such as the Hindenburg Disaster.
On our journey we will encounter courageous pilots, crazy inventors, ambitious politicians, visionary engineers; a whole cast of colourful characters. We’ll look at how airships influenced the way we travel now, and at the companies trying to bring them back into regular use.
Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts to join the adventure as we voyage back to a time when giant airships ruled the skies!

It was great to interview Thibault Proux from Flying Whales, one of the companies making the biggest strides towards bringing large airships back to our skies. Flying Whales are developing what will be the largest aircraft in the world - the LCA60T, 200 metres long, 50 metres wide and capable of carrying 60 tons of cargo to areas of the world with little to no infrastructure.

Thibault has been there almost since the beginning. We talk about the challenges both of building new aircraft and of developing effectively an entirely new industry, about the problems ‘load exchange’ poses for airship designers and the solutions Flying Whales have developed, and about how you should always follow your passion!