Lost Knowledge: Airships

From MAKE Magazine:

The weekly Lost Knowledge column explores the possible technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those slightly off to the side). Each Tuesday, we look at retro-tech, "lost" technology, and the make-do, improvised "street tech" of village artisans and tradespeople from around the globe. "Lost Knowledge" is also the theme of the current issue of MAKE, Volume 17 (on newsstands now) With a crew of drunken pilots, We're the only Airship Pirates! We're full of hot air and we're starting to rise We're the Terror of the skies, but a danger to ourselves now. Airship Pirate, Abney Park Zeppelins. Airships. Dirigibles. These words have fired my imagination since I was a child and put together my first Zeppelin scale model. And as a headbanging teen, my devotion to a Led Zeppelin meant that I was always surrounded by icons of these floating horizontal skyscrapers. Every decade or so, there seems to be a resurgence of interest in airships, with new material availability, an energy crisis, or some other motivating factor. Today is no different. So here's a sampling of some of the airships of the past, a few in the skies of the present, and some fantasies for the near-future. So far, efforts to create a serious and sustained airship industry have fallen far short. It seems unlikely that airships will ever become common transportation, but it'd be nice to see them find some sustainable niche.

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