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The Hindenburg Disaster and Giant of the Sky: The Return of the Zeppelin Combination VHS Video
The HINDENBURG Disaster
VIDICOM 1997 Produced by Dr. Peter Bardehle

She was the pride of the Zeppelin works, the culmination of experience building more than one hundred airships. Most efficient of the Zeppelins, she had returned a profit to her operators her first season of eighteen round trip Atlantic Crossings. Yet on May 6th, 1937, the luxury dirigible began its first "high" landing on her 11th visit to Lakehurst, New Jersey. Suddenly the stern was ablaze, the tail crashed to the ground and 36 people lost their lives. What caused the accident - sabotage, an act of God? A German TV crew has sought out survivors and witnesses to piece together the events of sixty years ago. Many still remember the searing heat and smell of burning flesh, and have long been told that the airship's lifting gas had somehow caught fire. Yet the crew insisted no gas had been lost, and the conflagration does not look or act like a hydrogen fire. Following two years of study and laboratory tests, a NASA fuel expert explains his startling conclusion - hydrogen did not start the fire! Germans dubbed in English, 28 minutes.

TOGETHER ON THE SAME TAPE AS:

Giant of the Sky: The Return of the Zeppelin
VIDICOM, Produced by Dr. Peter Bardehle, Hamburg, Germany

Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin and his crew operated their first airship nearly 100 years ago. This German TV production, using film never seen in the US, explains the rich history of man's first scheduled passenger airship line. Shown are the airships built for the US Navy, the achievements of the Graf Zeppelin's round the world flight in 1929, and the luxury of airship travel from Europe to South America.

We go aboard a re-creation of the HINDENBURG located in southern Germany. Former rigid airship crewmen are interviewed. Then the Zepplelin NT - "New Technology" - is revealed to the public. The first large airship to fly in 35 years, the new Zeppelin promises to restore the safest and most efficient methods of air travel. With a generously spaced cabin, this youngest member of the Zeppelin family is determined to become a tourist attraction, custom-made for sightseeing trips. Its rigid internal framework allows a top speed of 140 km/hr, but it is the precursor to much larger airships in the works. Computer animation brings the next gargantuan to life, a giant with deadweight capacity of 160 tons. Germans dubbed in English, 56 minutes.