Up Ship! The Airship History Podcast

'Out of the softening sunset came the airship; and the manner of its moving was beautiful. Few inanimate objects attain beauty in the pursuance of their courses, and yet, to me, at least, the flight of this ship was far lovelier than the swooping of a bird or the jumping of a horse.'

Giant rigid airships the size of ocean liners once ruled our skies. Crossing continents and transporting passengers in spacious luxury, they seemed t...

"Nothing will ever equal that moment of joyous excitement which filled my whole being when I felt myself flying away from the earth. It was not mere pleasure, it was perfect bliss. Having escaped from the frightful torments of persecution and of calumny, I felt t...

Observing the first manned balloon flight, Benjamin Franklin believed that the balloon would be such a potent weapon that it would bring about an end to war. If only that had been the case.

Balloons played a role in numerous conflicts, from the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Civil War up to World War One, but they and their proponents often sat uncomfortably in the strict military hierarchy of  their armies, leading to...

It was great to interview Thibault Proux from Flying Whales, one of the companies making the biggest strides towards bringing large airships back to our skies. Flying Whales are developing what will be the largest aircraft in the world - the LCA60T, 200 metres long, 50 metres wide and capable of carrying 60 tons of cargo to areas of the world with little to no infrastructure.

Thibault has been there almost since the beginning. We ...

Aviation history is full of outsize characters. But few are as colourful or as interesting as Brazilian pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont.

Born to a wealthy coffee planting family, young Alberto dreamed of emulating the birds in flight. His dreams became reality when he moved to the exciting, vivid world of turn-of-the-century Paris. First building balloons, then airships, then ultimately aeroplanes, he steadily developed his understa...

In the second part of our Alberto Santos-Dumont double-bill, we follow his career as his fame skyrockets and he becomes one of the most celebrated figures in the world.

Embittered by the controversies surrounding the Deutsche Prize, he continues his experiments in Monaco before finally returning to France. His adventures continue; his little airship Number 9 hosts the world's first female pilot and the world's first child to fly. 
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I was delighted to welcome Max Pinucci to the podcast. Max is a designer, pilot, author and teacher. Among many other roles, he is the Cofounder and Head of Design at OceanSky Cruises, an exciting company which aims to operate large passenger airships for luxury, sustainable aerial cruises.

In this wide-ranging interview, Max and I discuss his many airship- and aviation-related projects, from his beautiful book Airships: Designed ...

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was a titan of the airship world - of aviation in general, in fact. The inventor of the rigid airship, he founded a company which manufacturers airships to this day and which was responsible for the creation of some of the most iconic aircraft of all time.

But this was not supposed to be his legacy. An army officer and diplomat, he faithfully served the Kingdom of Wurttemberg and the German Empire that...

The road to success was not a smooth one for Count von Zeppelin. This episode tells the story of his repeated attempts to put the Zeppelin enterprise on a firm foundation, to safeguard the future for his rigid airship invention. Even now he would have agonising false starts, with his second airship torn to pieces in a storm. 

With the stunning success of his third airship, the LZ-3, and her larger successor, the LZ-4, the stage se...

Delighted to share a very special bonus episode - a discussion with the senior management team of Straightline Aviation, one of the leading British airship companies.

Straightline Aviation was formed by some of the most knowledgeable people in the industry so it was fascinating to sit down with them to discuss their significant airship experience and their objectives with Straightline as they work with AT2 Aerospace to bring the Z...

In the years before the First World War, people from nations around the world worked to fill the sky with airships. In this episode, we take a look at developments in the United States and the United Kingdom. We will join one of the most epic adventures in the history of early aviation and we will see how one man's obsession with airships ended up costing him his life.

The governments and armed forces of both the United States and...

"Remember - there are 7,000,000 cubic feet of hydrogen at the end of a fishing pole!"

A slightly different bonus episode today - my film nerd husband and I recap the plot of the 1975 disaster movie The Hindenburg, starring Anne Bancroft and George C. Scott! 

My husband knows a lot about films but not much about airships (although he helps me produce these podcasts, so you'd imagine that by osmosis some knowledge has crept through...

In 1909, the Zeppelin Company made history by founding the world’s first airline, DELAG.

But it was not smooth sailing; DELAG lost their first airships in a series of high-profile, humiliating disasters before they found their feet.

Expanding amid a wave of German nationalism, in which the Zeppelin became a patriotic symbol of Teutonic technological might, DELAG airships soon flew over all the major cities of...

As political tensions escalated across Europe in the years leading up to the First World War, the major powers engaged in an aerial arms race to develop their airships into war-winning weapons.

Britain, Italy, France and Germany watched each other's progress with fear and alarm. Britain struggled to keep up with its continental rivals. Italy was the only country to deploy airships in combat pre-WW1. France built a large fleet but ...

It was great to interview Toby Page, Managing Director of Skyship Services Inc, operator of the largest lighter-than-air fleet in the world. Toby and I met 25 years ago when I boarded one of his airships as a wide-eyed teenager and it's testament to the power of these wonderful aircraft that we are both still airship-obsessed.

Toby talks about some of the key moments that have shaped the industry over the last quarter century, fro...