Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel

Rating:
Summary: Exciting Story of the 'Graf Zeppelin' and Airship History
Review: "Oh, the humanity and all the passengers... a mass of flaming wreckage." These are the famous words uttered by radio reporter Herbert Morrison who witnessed the destruction of the `Hindenberg' in 1937. Who wasn't heard these words or seen the film footage of the `Hindenburg' sinking in flames to the ground at the landing field at Lakehurst?

Now this new book can give you the amazing story behind these massive German airships that traveled the world's skies in the early part of the last century. This book provides the reader with an interesting story of not only the development and use of the Zeppelin but also a story about the one man who was intimately involved with their history, from their beginning until their end with the flaming destruction of the `Hindenburg'.

The first dirigible was invented by Ferdinand von Zeppelin and was launched in 1900 on the Bodensee in Germany. However it was Dr. Hugo Eckener who saw the future potential of the airship as a viable commercial craft. By the late 1930s airships nearly the size of the Titanic had circumnavigated the globe and were regularly transporting passengers and mail from Europe to South America and the United States.

This book not only tells you the story behind these amazing trips, full of danger and excitement but he also tells the story of the Zeppelin as a weapon of destruction. During World War One the German Army and Navy utilized Zeppelin's to carry out raids against England in the first night time `Blitz'. We read about the great Zeppelin Commanders, Strasser and Mathy and many others, most who did not survive the campaign against England. We then follow the Zeppelin into the turbulent years of peace and its historic role in global flights, setting new records in distance, endurance and comfort.

This is an amazing story, full of facts and interesting pieces of history. The story is told so well and the narrative flows so smoothly its like reading an exciting novel. I found it hard to put the book down and as I read page after page I realized that I knew very little about the `Graf Zeppelin' and next to nothing about its amazing Captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener. I am sure that anyone who enjoys aviation history or just a good book will love this story.

Rating:
Summary: The best book on rigid airships I've ever read
Review: Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin And The Dawn Of Air Travel. A book by Douglas Botting.

INTRODUCTION:
Over the years, I have been fascinated by aviation, but one thing about aviation history that has fascinated me more than anything else is the rigid airship program. For the first forty years of the twentieth century, these massive airships ruled the skies. These craft were so massive that they dwarf even the biggest airplanes of the modern age. Many books about the rigid airships have been written, but Douglas Botting tried taking a different approach to the subject - creating a historical account that reads like a novel. Did Botting succeed or fail with his experimental approach. Read on for my review of Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine.

SUMMARY:
Essentially, this book tells the story of the Zeppelin rigid airship company, from its conception in the early 1900s by Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin right down to his final days in the early 1940s. The book focuses not only on the airships and technical aspects, but also the people involved, as well as the craft used by other countries. And the book reads like a novel, making it easy enough for anyone to read.

OPINIONS:
Botting's experimental writing style paid off. I own a number of Zeppelin-related books, but this one is my favorite. It's just so easily accessible and easy to read, no matter how much (or how little) you actually know about rigid airships. Admittingly, a few parts of the book are a little confusing to read (due to some flashback sequences) and I wish there were more pictures, but I'm not complaining. Botting did a damn good job with this book.

OVERALL:
Overall, I am extremely impressed with the way this book was written, and with the information that it conveys. Douglas Botting tried to do something different with the subject, and he succeeded beautifully with it. I strongly recommended reading this book, regardless of who you are. Botting accessible writing style and the sheer amount of information contained within the book's pages make it worthwhile. If you're not a rigid airship enthusiast yet, this book might change your mind!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant description of flawd concept.
Review: Essentially a story of the historic round-world trip of the Graf Zeppelin, it evolves into a concise history of the Zeppelin dirigible industry and the men who made it happen against all the odds.
Brilliant description and narrative flow combine with meticulous research in praise of what was arguably the most impressive man-made sight in the skies - ever. However, we are constantly reminded of the economic facts that this could never be a long-term solution to mass travel. On most flights the crew outnumbered the passengers, there were no schedules to speak of, ground crews numbered in the hundreds and only the very wealthy could afford the expense of the trips. Eckener was not fazed by this - his dream was to use the airship to relieve economic hardship, facilitate scientific research and promote political harmony.
And, we read between the lines of the love that Dr. Eckener (and Mr. Botting) have for this beautiful form of air-travel; it pours from the page in the transcripts of newspaper reporter's accounts, in the tumultuous reception that these great airships had at every arrival, in the awe of the primitive people of the Sahara and Siberia.

The sad thing is that these giants never really achieved their promised sovereignty of the skies - sadder still is the Epilogue which hints at the resurgence of German airship industry in the Cargolifter enterprise, which is now in receivership.

Nevertheless, a rivetting read and a fascinating insight into a breed of men (and a woman) who persevered in promoting a wonderful dream.

Rating:
Summary: History book that reads like a poignant novel
Review: I have always thought that the Zepplin or the Goodyear blimp as being a little silly but reading this book will certainly change your mind. This is a poignant book that describes the evolution of these magnificent "Kings of the Air" from its humble, stumbling beginnings, as a lumbering, globetrotting, insanely popular aircraft in its heyday in the '20s to its final dissolution in WWII. The hero Dr. Hugo Eckener fills the pages of the book like a colossus with his personality, strength of character and determination to transform the Zepplin to a viable, commercial airliner.

Make no mistake this is a history book with excruciating details but Douglas Botting has managed to make it read like a poignant novel. The book has its three parts that form the basis for a good novel: the creative and innovative genius struggling against all odds to enable his vision, the accolades and admiration of the world as he succeeds in his mission and the final tragedy as forces of evil desecrate his triumph. Add to that the romance and adventure of air travel in those heady times and you have a book that will keep you spell bound late into the night. The book has its share of momentous, world-altering plots: What if German President Hindenburg had appointed Dr. Eckener as the chancellor of the Third Reich instead of Adolf Hitler? What if President Roosevelt had approved the sale of helium to Germany to fill the airship Hindenburg? Would the tragedy at Lakehurst been avoided?

Mr. Botting offers a rare glimpse of days gone by when travel meant chivalry, heroism and adventure. Be sure to have a detailed map of the world or a globe handy so as to follow the tracks of the airship Graf Zepplin as it traveled around the world back in the mists of time.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating, superbly written book
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: When Zeppleins ruled the skies
Review: Sometimes, as the great zeppelins would cross the skies , people below would run in panic fearing the end of the world. Douglas Botting has offered up a glimpse into the creation of the zeppelin as a means of travel and war. He also gives an invaluable look into the world at that time. One man during the early 1900's was more close identified with the zeppelin and pioneered the continuation of development and usage , Hugo Eckener. This same Dr.Eckner would always be looking for ways to improve the zeppelins he would soon fly all over the world. This book follows the refinement of the zeppelin design during his time as well as the expansion of the use of the zeppelin, for both travel and commerce. Also explored is the limited success the zeppelin had as a war time airship and the continual search for ways to use it for both peaceful and wartime purposes. As the zeppelin became a travel ship, even though for only the very rich, the voyages were followed in the press. Randolph Hearst even bankrolled a round-the-world flight to set a new record. The people who traveled on zeppelins became celebrities. As the excitement of the possibilities of zeppelin travel becan to swell there was the evergrowing threat posed by the government of Dr. Eckner's Germany, the Nazi party. This book combines the feel of the times, and introduces some real personalities of those years. We see how these huge airships truly managed to capture the popular imagination. Not at all a dry read.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent..and personal
Review: The woman in this book, Lady Grace Hay-Drummond-Hay is my great aunt (my paternal grandmother's sister). Sadly she died many years before I ever knew her and so this book not only is a great read from an historical perspective, it also tells me more about my inspirational relative.

Rating:
Summary: His Beautiful Balloon
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A great glimpse into a forgotten era.
Review: This book is a great look at a part of history that is all but forgotten to us now. We've all seen the Goodyear blimp flying over a Monday Night Football game and thought, 'that's pretty neat,' but few of us alive today can imagine a time when the great airships were seen by many as the future of air travel. This book is a fascinating glimpse into a forgotten era, when the sight of a giant zeppelin overhead could captivate an entire town like New York, and bring traffic to a stop. It was a time when the entire world was riveted by the around the world flight of the Graf Zeppelin as it made history. If you are merely curious about zeppelins, this will make you a passionate fan. If you're already a fan, this will put the struggle to create the zeppelins and their collapse during World War II into a greater contest that will show you how different flying could have been, if not for the time in which the zeppelins thrived.

Rating:
Summary: WHEN GIANTS ROAMED THE SKIES
Review: 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.