Would Zeppelins Have EVER Been Widespread?

[ZombieSlayer54]

I've noticed that a popular sentiment in ATLs in the early 1900s is somehow getting Zeppelin and Airships more widely used, as combat aircraft and civilian aircraft.

But, let's be realistic here.

No matter the timelines (CP victory in WWI, Axis victory in WWII) would zeppelins have ever been used as the main form of aircraft, as opposed to actual planes?

 

[TrickyNixon]

While i personally think the Zeppelin is the greatest thing ever made in the history of time, i can't see them being the popular choice for air travel up to the 2000's, at least.

 

[Slowpoke]

No matter the timelines (CP victory in WWI, Axis victory in WWII) would zeppelins have ever been used as the main form of aircraft, as opposed to actual planes?

Fail premise.

No sane zeppelin fan would try to bend the laws of physics so that a zeppelin becomes the main form of aircraft.

What they try to do is find a potential niche that could've been filled by their use (like, for instance, a long term long range patrol picket, ex. USS Macon).

 

[NKVD]

We don't take kindly to denying the plausibility of zeppelins around here, boy. *takes out shotgun*

Nah. I don't see why it would be implausible.

 

[Flashman]

Trying to design a flying machine as a nine year old led me to my greatest love of zeppelins, the greatest goddamned thing in history and inpired a love for them that would spur me on to machinery to perfect them. That in turn led me to steampunnk, which led to alt history. If it werent for Zeppelins, i wouldnt be here.

 

[Electric Monk]

No.

However there are all kinds of in-between niches that zeppelins can handle.

For example, cargo: a zeppelin is cheaper, carries more, and can deliver just about anywhere. The main downside is that its slower than an airplane, but still much faster than a ship and despite the higher cost over a ship it doesn't have to load/unload in ports. (Or load/unload in airports.)

On passenger travel it is of course vastly slower, but can also offer a sight-seeing experiencing that the best cruise ship could never match and a vastly higher quality trip. So certainly not a business travel kind of thing after the 1940s or so but still plenty of uses.

One can stick a great big radar on board a zeppelin quite easily which makes them rather useful at least up until the 1950s.

 

[Flashman]

Could they make an Atomic dirigible? Cause that would be awesome.

 

[Gunnarnz]

Heavier-than-air aircraft offer too many advantages for them to not dominate air transport in something like OTL. That being said, as Slowpoke mentioned above there are niches that lighter-than-air craft can fill.
Any application where endurance is highly important might offer them opportunities, and especially early in the 20th century their load capacity is another advantage. I seem to recall hearing they had good fuel economy too.
Find out what their advantages are and create situations where those advantages are important, and you might get them more widespread.

 

[Gunnarnz]

Could they make an Atomic dirigible? Cause that would be awesome.

There's a TL somewhere in the forums with exactly that in it. It crashed, but the results weren't horrible. For the moment, however, I give you yesterday's tomorrow today, the future of Soviet civil aviation!

 

[dgharis]

Now, let's not sell them short. Zeppelins do have several advantages.

First, they have ridiculously long range compared to aircraft. In the 1920's they routinely crossed the Atlantic, a distance of more than five thousand kilometers. One traveled from Germany almost all the way to Tanzania and then returned, a distance of nearly eleven thousand kilometers.

Second, they're relatively safe compared to aircraft. I know; there have been many fatal accidents involving zeppelins. But how many have there been involving airplanes? And zeppelins don't fall out of the sky if they run out of fuel or have an engine failure; only fire is a real threat.

Third, they're much more resistant to the effects of bad weather than aircraft. Although high winds can blow them off course, things like rain or ice don't bother them nearly as much as aircraft, and neither do extremes of temperature.

 

[Monty Burns]

Find out what their advantages are and create situations where those advantages are important, and you might get them more widespread.

Definitely cargo. Really heavy and bulky cargo. And not necessarily over long distances.

Have you ever seen a heavy transport going through densely populated areas? With street signs cut down and the like? One could just hang it to a zeppelin which could transport it on low heights of maybe just some meters but above the various obstacles on ground. And much cheaper than a helicopter.

 

[Electric Monk]

Definitely cargo. Really heavy and bulky cargo. And not necessarily over long distances.

And regular cargo, for that matter.

Interestingly this might help railways. Everything a truck does over long distance a zeppelin or a train can do better/faster/cheaper. IOTL trucks won for flexibility and low American investment in rail. In an ATL zeppelins might well make it more sensible to reinvest in rail and use zeppelins for the other use cases.

 

[Color-Copycat]

I think one of the most plausible niches for zeppelins is luxury air travel. I mean, it'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable to spend 3 leisurely days crossing the Atlantic in a passenger zeppelin rather than 8 hours in a cramped 747 with incessantly crying babies, sick people coughing all over the place, and no circulation in your legs. The problem would be one of consumer demand and cost, though.

 

[mowque]

They'd be around if they worked.

 

[Gunnarnz]

They'd be around if they worked.

You're here on an AH forum, saying that because OTL doesn't have them widespread that they can never under any circumstances "work"?
I agree that in OTL any job LTA craft can do is usually being done by something else, but that doesn't mean LTA craft can't do it (it doesn't even mean they'd be worse at it). I think what the OP is trying to do is identify PODs which might lead to them being widespread, not insisting that they must "work" IOTL.

 

[Maniakes]

An idea I've tossed around in my head and wondered if it's practical is airships as commuter transit in areas where there's geographical problems limiting surface routes. In the Seattle metropolitan area in particular, the as-the-crow-flies distance between the suburbs and downtown Seattle is pretty short, but there's two long, narrow lakes dividing up the region, and the bridges over Lake Washington and the routes around Lake Sammamish are major bottlenecks for surface transit. Even if an airship only went 30 mph or so, going 30 mph over the straight-line route to your destination would be a pretty big win at rush hour. The obvious problem, of course, would be cost, and I've got no idea how much a short-haul airship would cost to build and operate compared to building more bridges (either for cars or commuter rail).

 

[Elfwine]

Third, they're much more resistant to the effects of bad weather than aircraft. Although high winds can blow them off course, things like rain or ice don't bother them nearly as much as aircraft, and neither do extremes of temperature.

What?

Zeppelins are quite sensitive to hot weather. And I wouldn't want to try sailing one in anything seriously rainy or icy judging by their disaster record (as in, the disasters they've suffered).

Speaking as an airship fan.

I think their best niche would be either very high class luxury liner substitutes, or very long ranged limited port-facilities travel.

 

[Farnsworth]

I think their best niche would be either very high class luxury liner substitutes, or very long ranged limited port-facilities travel.

Reconnaissance would be a big one as well, I think. That plus cargo transport to otherwise inaccessible places. In Northern Canada, for example, there have been a few proposals for airships as permanent infrastructure like road and rail is prohibitively expensive to maintain.

 

[fortyseven]

An idea I've tossed around in my head and wondered if it's practical is airships as commuter transit in areas where there's geographical problems limiting surface routes. In the Seattle metropolitan area in particular, the as-the-crow-flies distance between the suburbs and downtown Seattle is pretty short, but there's two long, narrow lakes dividing up the region, and the bridges over Lake Washington and the routes around Lake Sammamish are major bottlenecks for surface transit. Even if an airship only went 30 mph or so, going 30 mph over the straight-line route to your destination would be a pretty big win at rush hour. The obvious problem, of course, would be cost, and I've got no idea how much a short-haul airship would cost to build and operate compared to building more bridges (either for cars or commuter rail).

Los Angeles. People were willing to take a plane when that highway was closed in the summer.

 

[Elfwine]

Reconnaissance would be a big one as well, I think. That plus cargo transport to otherwise inaccessible places. In Northern Canada, for example, there have been a few proposals for airships as permanent infrastructure like road and rail is prohibitively expensive to maintain.

They're kind of vulnerable for reconnaissance work, and high flying seems to play to their weaknesses, which is a problem.

Might be better as part of the air carrier idea, I think, if that could be used to its full potential, than just a zeppelin on its own.