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Cloud City

One of my favorite inventions of all time is the rigid airship. Although the infamous Hindenburg disaster sixty-nine years ago today essentially signalled the end of the industry’s commercial practicality, those old black and white early 20th-century images of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s products are, in my opinion, awe-inspiring things to behold. They weren’t simply the tiny little blimps we’re all familiar with that provide aerial footage of athletic competitions while advertising crappy tires or Snoopy’s insurance company - they were jaw-dropping monsters of the sky that must have seemed like something out of a science fiction novel. Just imagine looking up in the clouds and seeing something three football fields long just hanging there! Must’ve been the early 20th-century equivalent of those big-ass alien motherships from Independence Day.

History and hydrogen obviously proved the fatal flaws inherent in the dirigible designs of yesteryear, but I can’t help but wonder what it must have been like to be some 1930’s high roller shelling out thousands of bucks to hold some sort of business meeting with his rich, fat cat colleagues while hovering in place thousands of feet above King Kong’s New York City.

Very cool.