Quote:
Originally Posted by SDLeary
Um... Airships haven't been filled with Hydrogen in quite a long time. Helium is the preferred gas, and has been since a famous airship went down in Lakehurst, NJ. At least here in the US. In fact, it was preferred even before that incident, here in the US.
Now... poke them with holes and they will fall, yes. The hole(s) would have to be pretty large or numerous to cause this to be catastrophic. Rigid and semi-rigid airships also tend to have more than one gas bag, so you would need large or multiple hits in multiple areas.
SDLeary
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Modern airships don't have an internal structure. And while Helium is used in all modern airships, it was used almost exclusively in US airships until after WWII. The
Hindenburg disaster didn't cause a change in the preferred gas. It was the preferred gas a lot earlier. At least by the time the of the Akron disaster. The US refused to sell Helium to the Germans, since at the time airships were still used by the military, and the US was not on good terms with Germany politically.
The
Hindenburg was actually designed to be used with Helium.