On 25 September 1909, the French airship La République crashed near the Château of Avrilly on her return from a military exercise, killing the entire crew. La République was one of three semi-rigid military airships […]
On 7 August 1913, Samuel Cody died in an aviation accident when his floatplane crashed near Farnborough, England. Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody and nicknamed the “Flying Cowboy”) was born on […]
Rigid and semi-rigid airships first appeared in the late nineteenth century and were consistently developed in the following decades. Pioneers such as Alberto Santos-Dumont, Count von Zeppelin and Thomas Scott Baldwin transformed the dirigible from […]
On 9th August 1884, Charles Renard and Arthur Constantin Krebs performed the first fully controlled free flight with La France, a non-rigid airship they developed for the French Army. Charles Renard, born 1847 in Damblain, […]
On 6th May 1937, German airship Hindenburg caught fire while landing at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, USA and was completely destroyed, killing thirty six people. Rigid and semirigid airships appeared in the late 19th century […]
On 21st January 1885, Italian aviation pioneer and designer, as well as famous explorer of the Arctic areas, was born in Lauro, Italy. Umberto Nobile became famous thanks to his technical skills and passion for […]
On 3rd September 1916, Schütte-Lanz SL 11, a German dirigible that just performed a bomb raid over St Albans in Hertfordshire, was shot down by Lt. William Leefe Robinson of the No. 39 Home Defence […]
US Secretary of the Navy Josepus Daniels approved a contract for the first dirigible balloon for the United States Navy. The First World War was a period marked by a rapid and intensive development of […]
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