9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
His Beautiful Balloon, November 4, 2001
This review is from: Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel (Hardcover)
There has been a popular fascination with zeppelins ever since the first one flew, as is well attested and documented in a history of the craft, _Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel_ (Henry Holt) by Douglas Botting. For many, this will be a first introduction to Dr. Hugo Eckener, a remarkable airman who did more for the zeppelins than Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin himself. Eckener was a journalist and private scholar who wrote of the crash of one of Zeppelin's early models, and was critical of the endeavor. Zeppelin called upon Eckener in 1906 to explain what improvements were going to be made, and then invited him to dinner, and Eckener was convinced. Eckener was a brilliant publicist first of all, and under his influence Zeppelin became a German folk hero whose magnificent machines embodied German pride and industrial skill.
The ships proved unreliable militarily, but between the world wars, the zeppelin became a sensation. The centerpiece of this book is the now all-but-forgotten record-breaking flight of the _Graf Zeppelin_ in 1929. Christened in memory of the count the year before, the ship was a product of Eckener's enthusiasm and all the improvements accumulated by trial and error in the previous decades. Eckener knew his ship well, and had become a master of meteorological observation and prediction. He had seen the eagerness with which his countrymen greeted the huge ship whenever it approached their cities, and he wanted to extend the prestige of his downtrodden country into the world. There was no better way to do this than a feat that could be undertaken by no other craft than his own _Graf_: the first-ever passenger flight around the world. Funding was offered by William Randolph Hearst, who was prepared to pay for most of the bills in return for rights to the story; his reporter, Lady Grace Hay-Drummond-Hay, a star journalist for the Hearst papers, was the only woman on the flight, and showed herself as having as much pluck and courage during it as any of the other passengers or crew. There were twenty paying passengers ($9,000 per ticket) and forty-one crew. Much of the other funding for the expedition came from the sales of special zeppelin stamps and first day covers during the voyage. It was a luxurious voyage, but often a dangerous one, and Botting tells his story well.
The disadvantages of zeppelins eventually ensured that they would be overtaken by the airplane. They were much more at the mercy of the weather than ships or planes. And as the _Hindenberg_ showed, there was always the danger that all that hydrogen would explode. Eckener himself, however, blamed Hitler, for whom he had nothing but disgust. Eventually Dr. Eckener's beloved _Graf_ was scraped, the metal to go into traditional aircraft to fight the war. Botting is clear about Eckener's dream: it was little more than a dream, and a failed one at that. There are, however, good dreams and bad ones, and Eckener's dream was a sweet reality for a short span, many years ago, beautifully recounted in an absorbing book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WHEN GIANTS ROAMED THE SKIES, October 30, 2002
This review is from: Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel (Hardcover)
Today with stealth fighters and bombers, Concorde supersonic airliners and jumbo-jets, few people realize that from 1928 to May 1937 German zeppelins dominated trans-Atlantic passenger air travel. In the book, Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine, Douglas Botting takes the reader back to the time of "zeppelin fever" and using the Graf Zeppelin as the narrative vehicle, tells the story of the German zeppelins and the life of Dr. Hugo Eckener.
The book opens with a account of the Graf Zeppelin's August 1929 flight from Friedrichshafen Germany to Berlin, the beginning of the Graf's 1929 round the world flight. Chapter 2 tells the story of Count Zeppelin and his invention of the rigid airship in 1900. Amazingly in 1910 zeppelins began carrying passengers on sightseeing flights over German cities. Chapter 3 narrates the zeppelin in WWI where great technical advances were made but the zeppelin had limited military utility. Virtually put out of business after WWI by the Inter-Allied Control Commission, the Zeppelin Company was revived in 1926 by supplying the LZ-126 (USS Los Angeles) to the United States as war reparations. Later funds were raised in Germany to build LZ-127, christened Graf Zeppelin on July 8, 1928.
The Graf Zeppelin was a passenger airship test-bed and Dr. Eckener wrote that the Graf ". . .was to prove that passengers could now be carried across the Atlantic Ocean by air in speed and safety, and with all the comfort and pleasure which the modern traveler demands." Botting narrates the dramatic first Atlantic crossing of the Graf in 1928.
The 1929 world flight was in reality two record flights, one originating at Lakehurst, New Jersey financed by Hearst Newspapers and the second starting at Friedrichshafen. Chapter five continues the world flight narrative noting it was not a world record that Eckener had in mind but considered it ". . .a proving flight to demonstrated the zeppelin's potential for a worldwide passenger air service." The book's account of the world flight is a fascinating well-written adventure story. The world flight of the Graf Zeppelin "provided incontroversible proof of the airship's capability as an intercontinental transport mode"; the author notes the world flight "had been brilliantly executed in both its planning and operations stages." However, the passenger zeppelin used dangerous hydrogen and was vulnerable to weather masses. The author writes "The Graf got away with it on the world flight partly because it was a first-class aircraft, but above all because of the masterly expertise of the crew."
The text notes "In the autumn of 1930, as the Graf Zeppelin was completing its first series of commercial flights to South America," the Zeppelin Company began the design of LZ-129, later named the Hindenburg. In 1931 the Graf made an Artic exploration flight to the Soviet Union meeting a Russian icebreaker above the Artic Circle. The text notes that this was the last spectacular proving flight for the Graf.
In 1931 the Graf made three scheduled advertised flights carrying passengers and mail to South America, the first scheduled transatlantic air passenger flights in history. In 1932 scheduled passenger flights to South America in the Graf Zeppelin continued and plans were initiated to establish zeppelin travel throughout the world.
The author's account of this critical period in zeppelin history is excellent. In 1933 the Graf continued transatlantic passenger flights and the Nazi came to power. The 3rd Reich helped to fund construction of the Hindenburg, but at a price. The government took over zeppelin passenger operations and moved it to Frankfurt Germany with the Zeppelin Company left solely as a manufacturer. Having criticized the Nazi, Dr. Eckener was declared a non-person and could not command the Hindenburg when it was completed. The book tells how in 1936, Eckener's dream came true as the Hindenburg made ten scheduled round trips from Germany to America, plus seven round trips to Brazil while the Graf made thirteen round trip flights to Rio. The financial results were impressive with Eckener noting that they were an "agreeable surprise."
On May 3, 1937 the Hindenburg, LZ-129, left Frankfort for Lakehurst, N.J. under the command of Captain Max Pruss, Eckener still a Nazi non-person was not on board. Three days later at 7:25 P.M. EDT, while landing at Lakehurst, the Hindenburg exploded. The account of the Hindenburg catastrophe is excellent. Most interesting are several direct quotes from on-board passengers and crew. The total number of dead totaled thirty-six-thirteen passengers out of thirty-six on board and twenty-two of the sixty-one crewmembers plus one civilian ground crew. The book states that the Hindenburg disaster marked the first passenger fatalities in commercial zeppelin operations since their beginning in 1910, zeppelins having made twenty-three hundred flights carrying more than fifty thousand passengers with a blameless safety record. After May 1937, commercial zeppelin operations ceased. However, as one of the last commanders of passenger zeppelins noted, "It was not the catastrophe of Lakehurst which destroyed the Zeppelin, it was the war." During WWII, the Zeppelin Company assembled V-2 rockets.
In less than ten years, the Graf Zeppelin had made 590 flights traveling 1,060,000 miles safely carrying 13,000 passengers; a record not exceeded by an airplane for many years. When the Hindenburg's successful passenger flights are added in, this was a remarkable accomplishment, as transatlantic airplane passenger flights didn't begin until 1939 with large flying boats making numerous enroute-refueling stops. Not until 1957, twenty years after the Hindenburg's nonstop passenger flights to North America, did scheduled direct nonstop service begin with DC-7s from New York to London.
This is a well-written history and those interested in aviation history will find it refreshing to read an account of German zeppelins where the book's primary focus is not the Hindenburg disaster.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating, superbly written book, June 14, 2003
This review is from: Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel (Hardcover)
I have been fascinated by the age of the rigid airships since childhood, and have read as much as I could find on their history, but I've never come across a book on the subject as well-written or as informative as this one.
The Graf Zeppelin's famous flight around the world is the jumping off-point for this story, and the author recreates it in vivid detail. You will find yourself peering out of the gondola with the other passengers as the giant silver bird floats gracefully up into the sky. You will marvel with them at the vastness of the globe below them...the endless Siberian territory, much of it probably never gazed on by human eyes before; the great expanse of the Pacific, never crossed by air before; and on across the great panorama of America.
You will relive this historic journey, but you will learn much more. You will travel back to the birth of the rigid airship, the brainchild of the "Crazy Count" Von Zeppelin; you will learn of its development, its triumphs, its failures, its key role in the First World War. You will follow the story into the Golden Age of the passenger airship, as the Graf under the command of Dr. Eckener explores one new frontier after another; you will understand how the Nazi takeover in Germany changed the nature of the Zeppelin enterprise; and you will see the steps that led to the fiery demise of the passenger airship when the Hindenberg exploded in flames over the landing field at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
If you have any sort of interest in airships, you should buy this book. It won't disappoint you!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
