Reviews for Lighter than Air: An Illustrated History of the Airship - Lee Payne - Hardcover - REV

The average rating for Lighter than Air: An Illustrated History of the Airship - Lee Payne - Hardcover - REV based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-05-08 00:00:00 James Snowden I thought this was excellent. The author writes with clear-eyed sympathy for his subject and conveys the excitement with which the technology was viewed at the time, and the inherent flaws and accidents of timing which led to its ultimate rejection. The final chapter, written in the 1970s, speculates on the potential future for lighter than air flight in a world newly awoken to the fuel demands and pollution caused by jumbo jets; ironically, they are much the same arguments being put forward by advocates of an airship revival today, but it still seems unlikely that any of these applications will ever take place. The book is absolutely crammed with material from primary sources, with vintage archive photographs and with letters, published accounts and newspaper interviews taken at the time. In addition to the famous stories of disaster (the "Hindenburg", the R101), there are many detailed accounts of events of which I had simply no idea; apparently Ronald Amundsen of Antarctic fame also flew to the North Pole by airship, for example, and actually died in an airship accident while trying to rescue a fellow explorer. And I had never even heard of the Brazilian, Alberto Santos Dumont, for whom the author makes a good case that he was effectively the pioneer of all successful airship flight (and, in ignorance of the Wright brothers in America, of powered aeroplane flight as well; his 'Dragonfly' design, "one of the most stable and reliable of all the early flying machines, was widely copied and flown by others"). Lee Payne manages to synthesise all these accounts into a fascinating and coherent narrative of related developments all across the world and across a long time period. He makes a good argument that many of the airship failures after the First World War were caused by the failure of the Allies even to recognise that Zeppelins existed in a variety of highly specialised types, and, crucially, that the specific craft they had managed to capture as wartime reparations were extreme high altitude craft unsuitable for basing heavyweight designs upon. It's interesting to learn from an American author about the US airship programme, of which one normally hears nothing and which apparently went on into the 1960s in the form of Navy 'blimps' - but it's also worth noting that Payne makes an admirable job of writing about the history of his subject all across the world without any hint of US-centric bias, to the degree that one forgets his nationality. (There are a few fascinating hints about Soviet Russian airships, which were hidden at the time of writing in deepest Cold War paranoia; one wonders what further information might be available to a researcher now.) This book is beautifully written with a clear love for the subject, and covers some highly technical material without ever becoming in the least tedious. It was a fascinating and very entertaining read.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-03-31 00:00:00 Luis Fuentes This is my favorite of several airship books I have. I like the writer's slightly dramatic style, and the in-depth analysis of the history of the airship. The book is punctuated by many enjoyable excerpts from first sources (e.g. the writings of Hugo Eckener, among many others with first hand knowledge and experience in airship travel). This is my recommendation for the first book anyone should read, if they had an interest in airship history. This one is hard to put down.