Lighter Than Air (1980)

[Music] Events of the past and present shape tomorrow. Our vital concern is you, today's youth. For our future depends on you. Before attempting to figure out where we're all going, it is imperative for us to have a strong awareness of where we have been. To untangle today's problems, we need to understand yesterday. This film series hopefully will in part make you aware of people, places, and events which have helped shape our nation and our world. Manufacturers Handover is pleased to sponsor this educational film. Manufacturers Handover. It's banking the way you want it to be. The derigible majestic reminder of a bygone era in the conquest of the skies. Destined now to fly again. Blimps skyborn centuries and war and peace flying onto new horizons. Hot air balloons. Earliest and most enduring of all lighter than aircraft. [Applause] On many a morning, in many a field, the great adventure begins. Colorful balloons expand and take shape. Wicker baskets become magic carpets, riding the gentle breeze, as balloonists have done for almost 200 years. 1783, the Montgomeier brothers of France make history's first lighter than air flight. 10 years later, the first flight in America is made by Pierre Blanchard, a Frenchman who earlier flew the English Channel. Development of gas filled bags makes ballooning popular and practical in the 1800s. [Music] Balloonists are used as spies in the sky during the Civil War. An interested observer is a German cavalry officer who pioneers derigible development, Count Ferdinand van Zeppelin. During World War I, German airships called Zeppelins terrorize England. An observer in a so-called cloud car is reeled out until he is 1,000 ft below the airship. Clouds hide the zeppelin from search lights below as the spy in the sky uses a telephone to pinpoint targets and order bombs away. Wars end marks the beginning of the golden age of lighter than air. 1919 the British derigible R34 leaves Scotland on the first non-stop lighter than air crossing of the Atlantic. Landing in America 4 days and 12 hours later in 1923 America's first derigitible is completed. Shannondoa is an Indian name meaning daughter of the stars. The sleek silver giant serves as a flying hanger for Navy fighter planes. The Shenond door steers as easily as an automobile and docking in the air is as smooth as landing on the ground. Hooked into place, plane and pilot are lifted inside the airship. The maneuverables is demonstrated when the Shenondo becomes the first to moore to a ship at sea. Lighter than aircraft are opening a new era of exploration. [Applause] Motion picture news reels destined to become film classics record in 1926. The world's first original flight over the North Pole. Plowing through heavy seas, Roald Ammonson and Reich and Lincoln Ellsworth are heading for the Norwegian islands of Spitsburg and inside the Arctic Circle. The Polar Flight grips the public's imagination and news producers use every means of transportation to rush coverage to theaters around the world. 15 years after becoming the first man to set foot on the South Pole, Rowald Ammonson, last of the Vikings, is seeking to become the first man to reach both poles. The derigible nor built in Italy and commanded by Ombberto Noil is pulled from its hanger on May 11th, 1926 and final preparations are made for the transpolar flight to Alaska. [Music] Hammonds and waves Alask goodbye as a Nord rises majestically and heads northward on its trailblazing journey. Soaring over the great white world that he knows and loves the best, Roel Ammonson completes his conquest of the bottom and top of the world. 1936 work nears completion on the Hindenburg, most luxurious sky ship ever built. his designer, Hugo Echiner. >> I hope I will be able in about six or seven weeks to take over the new airship to the United States of America to demonstrate the feasibility of a regular airship service over the North Atlantic. The Hindenburg uses hydrogen for buoyancy, and any kind of spark or flame can ignite the highly flammable gas and turn the airship into a fiery torch. But Germans are supremely confident of their silver giant, almost three times the length of a football field. [Applause] Flight time from America to Germany, 49 hours. There are luxurious accommodations for 70 passengers, including shower baths, spacious dining room, ornate lounge with aluminum grand piano, and two observation decks. Crossing the Atlantic on $300 worth of diesel fuel, the Hindenburg is as cheap to run as a medium-sized car. Loring the sky ship at Lake Hurst, New Jersey is like reeling in a giant flying fish. Transatlantic mail is unloaded even before landing is completed. Oneway fair, $400 plus $5 US tax. And despite the fact that the Shenandoa and two other American derigibles have crashed with heavy loss of life, passengers speak glowingly of traveling aboard the Hindenburg. >> We've had a lovely time ever since we left Tankfort. I only wish we could do it all over again. >> I've just come back from a great trip on the van Hindenburg and I joy enjoyed every minute of it. The German ship and the German crew were both magnificent. It was a swell fight. There's no need to tell you that I'm awfully happy to be back. And I can assure you that the greatest thrill of this trip was the fact that transatlantic flying has passed the stage of a hazardous adventure, but has settled down now to a dependable, most comfortable passenger service. When the Hindenburg completes his final 1936 flight, commercial derigibles have carried 51,000 passengers more than 1 and a4 million miles without a single casualty. >> We take you now to Lake Hurst, New Jersey. >> The ship is riding majestically toward us. It's practically standing still now. They've dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship. It's burst into place. Get this. Get this. It's graing. It's driving terrible. Oh my. Get out of the way, please. It's burning, bursting into flames and and it's falling on the moing bast and all the folks between this is terrible. This is a one of the worst catastrophes in the world. Oh, it's a lake funny oh 4 500 ft into the sky. And it it's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. The smoke and flames now and the frame is crashing to the ground. Not quite to the mooring mass of humanity at all. >> Miraculously, only 36 people die in the flaming holocaust while 61 survive. But not a single derigible carries another paying passenger after May 6th, 1937. Blimps replace derigibles. Their sausage-like shapes are maintained by gas pressure instead of the aluminum framework used in derigibles against enemy submarines. During World War II, these aerial sentries escort 89,000 ships in the Western Hemisphere. Not one is lost. Blimps are used again during the Korean conflict, but by the 1960s, their military careers end. [Music] Still progress made in the golden age of lighter than air is being applied toward a rebirth of blimps and derigibles. [Music] The ability to hover and land as demonstrated aboard this Navy carrier enable blimps to carry loads up to 75 tons. This compares to 16 tons for helicopters. and blimps propelled by small jet engines need only a fraction of the fuel used by helicopters. [Applause] Fuel conservation also is spurring the development in Britain of a 600 ft freight carrying derigible filled with nonflammable helium gas. The sky ship will have more cargo space than a jumbo jet and cost less to fly. Top speed will be 85 mph and transatlantic crossings will take 2 and 1/2 days. And so in the search for new ways to stretch energy supplies, interest focuses again on lighter than aircraft. Today, hot air balloons enable their crews to fly free as the wind wherever it blows, wherever it takes them. The balloons are made of nylon, dacron, or some airtight material and are filled with helium, hydrogen, or propane heated air. They cost from 7 to $12,000. Gondolas carry two to four passengers. Deluxe accommodations include padded seats and a built-in console for the traditional champagne carried as a peace offering for owners of property on which balloonists land. Balloons cannot be steered. They can only rise and descend. And as they do, search out wind currents blowing in the way that the balloonists want to go. Riding the currents, balloonists have made record-breaking flights across the United States and over the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Balloonists never can be sure where they're going, when they'll get there, or how they'll land. But the fun and fascination remain. Every flight is a new adventure, a different kind of challenge in the lonely, lofty world of lighter than air. Manufacturers Handover has been pleased to sponsor this educational film. Manufacturers Handover. It's banking the way you want it to be.