What if the Hindenburg Disaster Never Happened?
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- Опубликовано: 9 май 2024
- The Hindenburg is synonymous in history with catastrophic failure. It permanently tainted the reputation of the airship. So what if the disaster didn't happen? Or I guess the more important question. What if airships were actually more popular (earlier than in our timeline)
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Fun fact: The only US airship loss in WW2 occurred when a blimp tried to sink a U-Boat off the coast of Florida. The U-Boat had more guns and easily shot down the blimp, but everyone on board survived and tread the warm waters awaiting rescue. Then right before a ship arrived for them, one of the crew members was eaten by a shark.
KZ-74 off the Florida straights, July of 1943. Odd place for only one lost to enemy combat. Thanks for tugging my memory to check out the many other wild details of that incident, including sailors on the recovery ships trying to fight off the sharks with small arms fire. Blimp just settled down easy on the water; some crew riding the still-inflated parts like a raft (engine was hit/exploded which brought her down).
And while they didn't sink the sub, the charges they DID drop on it were enough to cripple it. British Navy found it as it was limping back and sent it to the bottom.
The extremly Low Chances of a shark attack, u-boat attack AND being in an airship are enough but ALL AT ONCE? The odds, eh?
So this proves it. Sharks are more dangerous than airship crashes. Science.
@@sizanogreen9900and since vending machines are more dangerous than sharks, they must also be much more dangerous than airship crashes!
Poor guy
Airships have style that modern jetliners can never match.
honestly, the style is fire
Airships are hot, and then they aren't
@@Richard.Vox., true but statically speaking the Hidenburg had a higher survival ratio then the Titanic.
They’d be an interesting experience but there’s a weight limit to them so most material in the passengers areas were made of light flimsy material and wasn’t good for sound prove lol
Them planes just can't handle the thicc-ness an airship has
Aluminium was so rare that when Emperor Napoleon III wanted to really flex on guests he busted out the aluminium cutlery rather than the silver
And the very tippy-top of the Washington Monument is a little pyramid of aluminum...
And many of the medallions made for George Washington's funeral were made of aluminum
@@rtpoealso that only a few years after completion, the means to effectively and efficiently produce aluminum was discovered/invented, completely crashing the value of aluminum.
Its funny because aluminium is actually extremely common, it just wasn't until recently that we had an efficient way to refine its ore
It's nice knowing an aluminum soda can could make Napoleon feel small.
I love how hard cody tries to avoid the obvious and inevitable conclusion:
"What if the Hindenburg never exploded?"
"The disappearance of the airship would be less memorable."
Yep, that's about what it boils down to, without helium being mass-producible airships were always doomed to fail (or, the usual steampunk "explanation" of a method of making hydrogen not explosive, but no, science says no)
Not every 'What if' makes that much of a difference, unfortunately.
Airships just look cool.
They are a boat in the sky. They set the imagination on fire.
That's why they are so popular in Retrofuturism and Alternate History. They are visually cool.
Yes indeed.
Sad that their utility is so limited.
In the 1970s advertising blimps became a thing.
A good way to monetise the *cool* factor.
They look so weird to me. I see the photos of them and can hardly believe it’s real and that those things were really flying around at one point
Just look in the sky above your average sporting event. Blimps DO have a place in our world. Just not for the important crap. Still doesn't change the fact that I want to one day experience flying in one!
Oh, they set the imagination on Fire alright.
One must never underestimate the "Rule of Cool.™️" 😎
Then we'd miss out on "Oh the humanity" and honestly I can't imagine a world without hindenburg jokes
The world simply wouldn't exist without the Jokes like oh the humanity will be different
You beat me to it! xD
@@throwaway7969 theres no competition because i think everyone associates Hildenburg jokes will the disaster, its unavoidable xD
Imagine a world without an Archer episode
E
The Japanese DID use unmanned incendiary balloon bombs in WWII. Sent them across the Pacific to try to start forest fires in Oregon and California. Failed, but killed a handful of civilians in one incident.
Was hoping he'd mention that one.
The brits used them far far more and they were effective from what I recall. They also tied wire with weights to another type of balloon to pull powerlines or some retarded shit. Plus the whole fact of ballons being used for spying for like decades. They're cheap simple and work, they fly high and stay "hidden". Unless its a massive massive Chinese one which was tracked for ages and no one cared about because they knew what it was doing right away. And could have popped it before it even reached the coast. But that would A let China know more about our tech B let them think they're cuckthetic passive aggressive threats matter and C cause the media to talk about this blow it up and make it seem like something important even tho this happens all the time. Since we live in the time of social media no fucking shit someone would noticed the balloon and post about it. Thus the government had to figure out how to play this while not making themselves look bad or making China mad and sad because it was just a poor old weather balloon think of the Chinese peoples feelings shooting down their poor weather balloon with fighter jews China did nothing wrong China is never violating air space and ocean treaties with other countries China totally obeys global laws®s. God that whole ordeal was so fucking retarded they should have said it was a massive threat China was using it to spy and release covid blast it down and get the world to place heavy embargoes on China for this. And all the BS they are pulling in the south "Chinese" sea claiming the own everything wiping out fisheries attacking every country around them in said countries own waters bullying everyone. Totally isn't going to mak everyone side with Amerca and start screechig how we need to cluster nuke the mainlander and wipe out the CCP ASAP due to them constantally attacking ships in their own waters for the past few years creating fake islands(which are sinking because China cant build anything) claiming they are Chinese islands that have always been their poisoning the water and getting fishing boats to suck the sea dry so no one else can fish and is forced to buy from China. As they come closer and closer to our waters illegally fishing and harming our fishery numbers, as we for whatever reason are not shooting down and detaining illegal Chinese fishing ships violating international law. Because that would hurt the Chinese peoples feelings China is ruining the ocean China isnt illegally fishing the west did it for ages the west totally constantally attacked other nations fishing boats created fake islands and poisoned seas/oceans killing everything while also planting illegal listening bouy's to spy on subs/boats/tap into under sea cables.
/autstic rant
Two kids, their mother and maybe someone else there in one incident if memory cells work right. Simply out camping; kids find something strange; let's go see ...
How did japans balloon bombs impact the US mission to strategically bomb them
Also fun fact a japanese balloon also hit an electrical grid which cause delays in the Manhattan, unintentionally.
One thing that most people overlook is that the majority of people on board the Hindenburg survived. Since the descent was so slow, most of the passengers were able to escape the burning wreckage as it hit the ground.
And the few passengers that did jump off in panic didn’t survive the fall
About 1/3 of the passengers and crew were fatalities according to Wikipedia. So technically a minority, but still significant enough to make me hesitate to say "most" survived.
the actual deadliest disaster was a US rigid airship filled with helium - the USS Akron. 73 out of 76 people died
@@MathMasterismfr
@@MathMasterism it is most by definition, but yeah, it's not great
"Kirov Reporting!" might actually be something that you can hear historically
Or “we are being reinforced with an airship”
“Building. Construction complete. New construction options.”
The wonderer over the sea fog.
"We're shall we strike! Our Homelands are in peril!"
@@oilersridersbluejays"Silos needed."
The book that the movie "Die Hard" is based on is called "Nothing Lasts Forever". It takes place in the 1970's and at one point the protagonist, Leland, thinks back to a conversation with a fellow airplane passenger who claims that his favorite way to cross the Atlantic in all his life was by airship, floating just a few hundred feet over the surface of the ocean. I've always thought about that ever since, and wondered what that would be like.
Just imagine the cinematic possibilities. "I'm tired of these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin!" just rolls right off the tongue.
Do a what if Adolf Hitler didn't get introduced into politics
@@Pellagrah Graf Zeppelin was the name of the ship, that's like saying "I'm tired of these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' Clipper Maid of the Seas". And yes, that was the name of an airliner.
I love how you take a common alternate history subject, show that the alternate scenario lesser authors would have think of couldn't work, and manage to propose another scenario, original, more realistic, and fascinating at the same time. I wish alternate history novels and movies were of the same quality.
Yeah it would probably stabilize to be something like flying cruise ship (especially after commercial flights tech would become cheap enough around the 60’s)
I love the realistic part, in other alternate history stuff they would've likely said that the hindenberg not happening would've caused zepplins to take over planes in popularity when that just really isn't the case
"The US trying to shrink its military" is not a sentence I'd ever expect to hear.
Yeah… there was a time when America took pride in not preparing for a war until they were in one.
How times change.
For the longest time, the United States would reduce its army after wars, dating back to the end of the American Revolution, due to the fears of a tyrannical standing army.
before world war II, lots of americans hated joining the military. the pay and benefits sucked. some judges would offer military service as a punishment instead of jail. Various perceived moral scandals, lack of recruiting budgets, and the belief all enemies could never pass the ocean-- were all issues that plagued the military after the civil war well into the interwar (post wwi era). At the same time, congress chronically underfunded every branch. after the revolution, congress almost cut out the navy entirely. before WWII, every single branch of the military was undermanned below their peacetime readiness goals.
@@AwfulfeatureWe have done a pretty good job shrinking our military in recent times. The Navy in particular is a war behind as is tradition.
@@Awfulfeature And then Pearl Harbor happened, one fateful Sunday...
I had a family member who was a WW1 vet who, when he saw the Hindenburg, tried shooting at it with his rifle.
He figured the Germans were spying, which... wasn't entirely far off from what I understand.
And every other nation was spying on every other one too.
Just others did it more subtly than using an airship 😊
The Hindenburg didn't *really* engage in much explicit espionage, although its younger sibling absolutely did. That being said, to this day, it's fairly rare for Goodyear to bring in one of its Zeppelin NT airships for its yearly maintenance without the crew finding a few bullet holes in the hull.
Oh the humanity, he uploaded twice in like two months! It's a miracle!
Hussah!
Late april AND early may?? It's magnificent!
In 1863, a private business man developed a dirigible that could travel into the wind. He did several demonstrations and tried to pass it off to expertsto develop, but the Union was not interested. It was reported on in a period newspaper with multiple witnesses attesting to the capabilities of the airship.
Solomon Andrews' dirgible if I remember correctly
Never expected a Santos Drummond mention.
Much love from Brazil.
Finalmente! Procurei demais ate achar um comentário brasileiro. Muito contente por finalmente Drummond receber as honrarias que ele merece! Proud to be Brazilian!
Every time I think of the Hindenburg or zeppelins in general, I only think of Sterling Archer slapping a man attempting to smoke aboard a blimp and uttering his immortal words:
"Wanna blow us all to shit, Sherlock?"
It was a rigid airship
"For God's sake, it's not hydrogen, it's HELIUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!"
i like that episode, good times.
"Yeah, which part of this aren't you getting?"
"Well, obviously the core concept, Lana."
@@CivilWarMan Years since I'ce seen it, still reading that in Archer and Lana's(LANA!!!) voices! 🤣😎
So that Hindenburg joke was foreshadowing after all…
They were sky cruise liners. You didn't take them to go faster you took them for the slow and amazing process of going across the world from the sky.
I would happily ride upon a zeppelin cruise, over an ocean-based one, if I had the options in front of me!
Yeah they would probably be used for that and probably for inter country travel when you don’t care for the speed much but just need to let’s say: travel from Paris to Lyon and wants something that would be faster than train or car but still wants to enjoy the view
@@jacob4920You could fly directly from Europe to America over the Arctic. Boats obviously would struggle, and there is a market for that route
@@thesenate1844polar vortex: *allow me to introduce myself*
This isn't really the case. Passenger airships had their moment specifically *because* they were the fastest option to cross the Atlantic. If you wanted a scenic view and opulence, you picked one of the big transatlantic liners. If you wanted to make a splash and/or get there fast, you took the Graf Zeppelin or the Hindenburg.
"Imagine Washington DC surrounded by balloons"
Chinese spy balloon controller: Every night. Every night.
We would never have that iconic Led Zeppelin cover.
Hell, we might not have had Led Zeppelin AT ALL. I don't want to live in that timeline.
And they probably wouldn't've been *called* Led Zeppelin, maybe keeping their original name, *the New Yardbirds.*
@@andrewgutierrez4841 That is my thoughts also.
We'd also probably lose the iconic Icarus cover too. This timeline sucks.
This, I believe, is the most consequential aspect of the question that was proposed.
A vid on if the Sino-Soviet split never happened or was patched up in the 70s would be so kino man
Sup my man
unintentional Viktor Tsoi jumpscare?
Or a video on if the Sino-Soviet border conflict escalated to all out war.
In the third book of the Pendragon series, The Never War, there's an alternate timeline in which there were spies onboard the Hindenburg, and its survival allows the Nazis to develop the atomic bomb first and win World War II. The main character actually goes on to cause the Hindenburg disaster by shooting it down with a rocket.
That, uh, sure is something.
I… don’t think that’s how Nuclear weapons work, but that’s pretty funny
“Oh Hans, something seems wrong on zhe Airschip”
“Hmm? Oh, pressure ist off”
(Flips switch)
“Done”
“Good, now to- vhat is zhat?”
“Vhat ist vha-“
*BOOOOOOM*
It's worth noting that the plan involved a lot of Nazi gold and the Mob with a Nazi contact, but yea when I first read that book my brain basically just short circuited with how silly the scenario was.
And apparently they never ended up rebuilding the eastern seaboard after thousands of years in that timeline which is bizzare and stupid.
@@santiagoperez3024 I think he meant the spies on the hindenburg were able to steal secrets from the manhatten project at the last second and change events.
Glad to see someone else in the comments has read it! My favorite one in the series
What i wanted to see: balloon advancement to the point where final fantasy airships became a thing
What i got from the video: probably the Crimson Skies game timeline
It would have brought Kaiserin Viktoria Luise into power in Germany, right?
...right?
Holy Roman Empire, here we come
New Jersey mentioned ‼️
I've eaten gabagool at the Hindenburg disaster site
“Right after they invaded Austria” *shows Italy and Switzerland*
Honestly, all the things you mentioned about anti-aircraft technology might have pushed back the development of airplanes by decades, maybe not even having jet aircraft for decades after. Could you imagine a world without the oppressive nature of modern aircraft or at least a lesser form of it?
9/11 probably wouldn't have happened.
Wouldn't that affect ww2 quite a bit?
Being an airplane pilot in WWI was already ridiculously deadly, there's some horrific statistics for them. The presence of serious AA capabilities might have made airplane use in combat straight up impossible.
Imagine how awesome it’d be to go visit any big city in the 21st century and see gigantic floating ships in the sky jumping from city to city, country to country just like modern airplanes do.
Reminds me of the other world in Fringe.
I always thought airships would be cool as luxury ships or possible cargo haulers. Basically anything that doesn’t require speed.
Granted this isn’t a great explanation for real life but fun use in fiction
It’s on my “I would if I could” kinda things list for sure. Re cargo I always think oh yeah I bet that’s a good eco friendly option but it would require a lot of things coming slower and I can see that going down like a lead balloon for most
Cargo is actually a great explanation for airships, they fill a niche similar to trucks, slower but cheaper than planes, faster but more expensive than ships or rail. But with the trade off of more expensive production for cheaper operating costs.
Airships are -maybe- making a comeback despite the negative image because of cargo. They 100% would have served that role with the unfairly negative PR of the hindenburg (even hydrogen airships were actually safer than planes)
I searched the whole comment section to find this 👍
@@hollithomas899the main problem would only be the initial cost. It takes a lot of materials and money, but I think it would be as durable as cargo planes but much more capacity and less fuel to run. But, that initial cost alone might discourage every investors that came across, so maybe it wouldn't happen soon.
@@shironee_2384 Good for emergencies in difficult to reach areas as well. The main issue - both with that and cargo - is ballast.
What if the Hindenburg was instead named after a certain “Toothbrush mustache having Austrian man” who in 1945 wanted to "checked if his skull was bullet proof"?
History Matters reference.
That also had a certain Fez-wearing Italian Man as an ally?
You only get things named after you if you win. Paul von Hindenburg was a highly capable commander during WW1, and even though his country did lose that war it wasn't for lack of achievements on his part. Even after Germany lost he was still remembered as a patriotic hero - plus he sort-of supported the Nazis (if only out of expediency), which made him influential enough to get such public recognition as an entire line of airships named after him.
Shitler, on the other hand, was a moron who thought 'lets invade Russia in winter' and 'America is all the way over there, they can't hurt me.' He lost his war so hard, what was left of Germany was carved up and turn into puppet states. No-one is naming things after him.
Still, he did succeed in his dream of a unified Europe. Everyone else unified against him.
@@vylbird8014 Hitler invaded Russia in late June...
@@smalltime0 And was still invading Russia six months later. If you invade Russia you have a very brief window before the weather turns.
"Because - again - _it doesn't catch on fire_ " had me rolling
I can't belive it.
You didn't mention the militarization of "ballons" in "Avatar: The Legend of Korra", even in the first serie "The Leyend of Aang".
I think the autors did a great job with the zeppelin evolution.
Oh hell yea gamers - for me, “what if Zeppelin did not blow up” is the gateway drug to alternate history
I'm sure that Santos-Dumont would have been a much bigger deal in the hypothetical "airships become popular in the 19th century" world - he made a lot of contributions to airship design - but the Wright Brothers probably would still get to fixed wing flight first. Greg's Planes and Automobiles had a pretty good video explaining why: ruclips.net/video/EkpQAGQiv4Q/видео.htmlsi=jxskGTF1ygSOlJIw
TLDW: the Wright Brothers didn't just copy what everyone else did, they invented a wind tunnel to test airfoil shapes, disproved misconceptions that the European aviation community had, and made breakthroughs in wing design (curved airfoil instead of flat), propeller design (twisted airfoil shape), and control (wing warping, which became obsolete pretty soon but at least established some key principles).
Can't help but wonder if old man Maxim been able to do more if lighter engines came along sooner.
I did enjoy Crimson Skies back when I was a kid, the whole concept of armored airships and stuff. didn't make much sense, but good fun.
Alternate History Hub you never cease to disappoint me. Just when I start to worry that the content is gonna start to become a bit predictable you find a way to peak my interest.
Btw, a great topic of interest for you to consider. What if Apartheid South Africa never fell?
Impossible. Apartheid SA, or just South Africa, would've fell eventually. Nelson Mandela only delayed the inevitable.
"You never cease to disappoint me" is meeean lol
@@amberhernandez Maybe they meant "amaze" or?
We’d have the brotherhood of steel riding around in the prydwen
Ad victoriam
🗿
you touched on the effectiveness of planes because of unpreparedness. the faster development of countermeasures to planes would have a big impact on especially world war 2. i wish you talked more about this
the problem with airships wasnt shooting them (they had bi-planes with interrupt gears when the london raids started), its that the hydrogen didn't catch fire as they expected them to. The bullets tore through the canvas bladders (when/if they hit), but didn't cause enough of a leak to down them. Later they'd make delayed incendiary rounds
“What if Cody from AlternateHistoryHub got some maidens?”
8:42 I immediately thought of the balloon troop from clash of clans.
I love how this video’s just as disguise for Cody talking about how cool he finds airships
Gotta be honest; this video is of MUCH higher quality than your last one. Well done, Cody!
As a man with airship autism, this is the best video you've ever made. Imho. Scratches that itch perfectly.
I saw this one in the time travel documentary “Timeless” Sundays on ABC.
I was looking for this. although 'Timeless' is not a documentary.
@@norsie45 Nah, I’m pretty sure the handsome doctor from ER went back in time in a giant golf ball to shoot Abe Lincoln that one time.
Alt 1800s
"How do we fight a hoard of hot air balloons?"
"How about try to fly with wings like a bird, we'll call it the 'airplane?'"
Imagine marrying the Gatling Gun of the US Cavalry in the Wild West with the airship (the A-10 Warthog of its time).
Dexter Kansas is where helium was discovered. They drilled a well for natural gas, and the gas wouldn't burn. They sent a sample to a university to study why it wouldn't burn and found out it contained helium.
Try doing what if Buddy Holly Ritchie Valens and The Big Booper didn't die in 1959?
As someone who has done extensive research on airships, I just want to point out some other factors and potential possibilities for airships in alternate timelines.
1. The rival to Zeppelin company, Schutte-lanz, had made rigids with wood (plywood specifically), so there's a possibility for rigid airships being developed earlier.
2. In WWI, the Germans had managed to build a zeppelin capable of bombing New York city, but hadn't been able todeploy it for that mission. Such an event could have motivated a greater interest in them with an earlier development of intercontinental bombing coming into being.
3. The US had developed the Akron class airship, a scout craft that was a flying aircraft carrier, and planned on making a flying aircraft carrier for offensive use, the ZRCV. Would such craft have been of use or made a difference in WWII? One of the last major airship advocates, Charles E. Rosendahl, suggested in one of his books that if they were around, having (apparently) a better ability to act as fleet scouts than surface ships, he believed Pearl Harbor Might never have happened as the Japanese fleet wouldn't be able to have the element of surprise.
4. More longer range airships being in use by other nations like Britain and the US in WWII could have had an affect on the Battle of the Atlantic. One thing U-boats were absolutely terrified of was blimps, they were extremely effective against subs. Apparently only one cargo ship had be lost under airship escort over the course of both world wars, so if, say aircraft carrying rigids were in use with greater range and better ability to deploy more depth charges and bombs, the U-boat threat would have been far less of a factor.
5. Helium being found in the US in a timeline airships where of greater use would have motivated other nations to find other sources. Qatar is currently the second largest producer of helium today, and was part of the British Empire by 1914, followed by Algeria, a French colony. And surveys found there are potentially massive sources of helium in areas of China and Siberia. Those could affect things in airship development in those areas as well.
Just wanted to add that.
Hello, I am Ibrahim from the Kingdom of Jordan. I love your content and I have an idea for a video. What if the Fourth Crusade was launched against Egypt?
Best video in a while, i love the amount of detail and thought you put into this. Keep up the good work :)
While I am no Archimedes, I feel like a wooden rigid airship using a series of balloons that partially used the rising air to turn a shaft which could be used like a windmill propeller seems doable for the time.
If you want bonus points, you could have the heat source also boil water, which does the same thing but is then captured and precipitated back down into the original pot it was in.
Im not sure about weight or power because I didn't do the math, but it _seems_ realistic using 1800s technology
It would be... towards the end of the 1800s, once Otto publishes his design for a new type of engine.
Love your content! Thanks For this ❤❤❤
My mom was doing public relations for an elder care non profit, and actually got to meet a man who witnessed it. He was in grade school at the time, and Hindenburg’s visit was during school hours, but his teacher wanted his students to see the technological marvel, and took them out of class to the airfield saying “today you’re going to witness history.” I guess even if the teacher didn’t know it, he was even more right than he originally thought.
Can I just say I am so happy you chose Chester A. Arthur for your head of state picture?
Fun Fact: The United States actually DID invest in their own hot air balloon, it was the first manned balloon flight in America, it took place on January 9, 1793 in Philadelphia with George Washington as a whiteness. The ballon flight was manned by a Frenchmen named Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the balloon landed in a remote field in Gloucester County, New Jersey, which is today behind a Super Walmart in Deptford Township, New Jersey. Which is the origin of why Deptford has a hot air balloon as their Township seal.
*"We are being reinforced with an airship."*
I just need to say how much you've inspired me Alt, I love your videos and they even inspired me to start my own alternate history channel
Holy shit, someone not from either Brazil or France mentioning Santos Dumont in a non-condescending way?
Kudos, good sir.
Can't tell you how happy I am that I'm seeing new content from you!
Airships always remind me of Hector's airship from A Series of Unfortunate Events
Awesome video! I’ve been watching your videos before you even had 10,000 subscribers.
You sure have a FANTASTIC channel!!! THANK YOU! WE❤LOVE ❤️ YOUR INCREDIBLE ❤️ WORK 😊
I have a feeling you make your videos after having a fever dream
"What if the Hindenburg Disaster never happened?"
Hearts Of Iron 4 Players: "Obviously it would lead to the refounding of the Holy Roman Empire under Kaiserin Victoria."
It’s kinda click bait - inasmuch as the question. Is dismissed outright - but then a way more interesting scenario, one you probably wouldn’t have clicked on, is presented. Thats the genius of this channel.
It's great to see you upload 👍
I'm sad that we don't live in the timeline where Napoleon send 10000 solideres in 5000 hot air balloons over the channel.
This was a really interesting episode, thanks!
My first experience with Alternate history was a young adult novel involving time travelers* averting the hiddenburg disaster. It leads to the Nazis getting the nuke and World War II ends in an all out nuclear exchange.
*kind of its complicated.
watched in 100x speed, a true alternatehistoryhub classic
Nice seeing you mentioning Santos-Dumont. Here in Brazil we consider him being the first because his plane could propel itself out of the ground and had flaps and whatnot like modern planes have. I think the Wright brothers' plane had to twist the wings or something like that although ingenious, wasn't very practical and required a catapult (or wind) to lift off.
All things considered, it was an involuntary joint operation to make aviation available for us. Many others were also making them in France, Germany and other places. I don't care about the nit-picking, I do care that you mentioned him. Thanks!
The Wright flyer didn't require a catapult or a head wind to lift off the ground anymore than modern aircraft do, it just shortened distance they needed for the take off run (very important considering there wasn't any run ways at Kitty Hawk).
Also why would Santos-Dumont be considered the first? The Wright brother's first flights predated him by almost a whole three years and had far more success in basically every metric of those flights, (mainly distance, altitude, and controllability). And even if you discount the 1903 flights, the Brothers flew the third version of their Wright Flyer 39 kilometers in 1905 (with witnesses), almost a year before Dumont's first flight.
Dumont didn't even have the first flaps. That was Robert Esnault-Pelterie.
@@zetablackstar2410 I didn't say he had the first flaps. I said his plane had flaps. There were even other planes before both Santos-Dumont and Wright brothers. But Wright brothers and Santos-Dumont were the first to succeed with a functioning plane
@@ozzy6852 it's just Brazilians being Brazilians... Give us a discount. I don't really care who did it first. I personally consider their flight as the first one because it literally was... Brazilians were too attached to the semantics of what a plane is instead of what a flight is.
@@DarthGTB That’s fair
If you ever played HOI4, then you know that's the first step towards refoming the Holy Roman Empire.
“The British thought it was French, and therefore useless” The accuracy 😂
How about? What if the Good Friday agreement was never signed?
Aluminum was so high status that people would sell their sterling silverware for aluminum. Aluminum is even more shiny than silver, but it is a lot lighter.
The largest single casting to that date was used as a cap on the Washington Monument.
When a much easier process to extract aluminum was discovered the price of aluminum lost 99% of it's value literally over night.
It happens. The same thing happened for quano and natural rubber. There are ghost towns still slowly decaying that were abandoned because they existed for the sole purpose of gathering a once-scarce resource that was replaced by a synthetic alternative.
I wasn’t expecting this. I could see this happening in a parallel universe.
"There'd still be no real life steampunk airships"
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
Schuette Lanz made about a dozen rigid airships using wooden frames.
Thus, it is possible that rigid airships could have been made earlier.
“What if Oswald Mosley somehow became the Prime Minister of the UK in the 1930’s”
The Airborne series by Kenneth Oppel is kinda in this vein. A very fun alt history esque novel series that kinda deals with a world without Zeppelin disasters, including air pirates, and a space race. Tonsvof nostalgia.
Great topic!
If it wasn't the Hindenburg, it would have been another Hydrogen filled zeppelin, it was inevitable. 😥😢
Possibly. But we have plane crashes now and that doesn't stop us from using planes. If that disaster happens after they are ubiquitous there is incentive for better safety standards not a complete abandonment.
@@GodwynDi they were abandoned because planes were more efficient.
Rip state anthems part 2 😔
I read this as "What happened if the Heisenberg Disaster Never Happened" and I thought this was talking about the plane incident in breaking bad
Hindenburg was not the only airship disaster, it just happened that it was filmed.
If the Hindenburg had not crashed another would have, sooner or later.
No aircraft has been grounded because of one accident. Not even Concord. Yea, it it's history it had 1 accident, but it was discontinued because it wasn't commercially viable.
Nothing ever happens, now with more balloons
If Hildenburg didn't happen, that means "Oh the humanity" wasn't said by that guy
2:11 The real reason Airships are a promising venture is that they trade speed for efficiency, but the problem of managing buoyancy and weight would have been costly for the technology of the time so the zeppelin really is a concept that could only work in the modern era
Hearts of Iron taught me, that if the hindenburg didn't go down there, the German Empire would come back, Wilhelm III. takes over, they join the allies, send his wife over to britain ahead so she would already be there to prepare the arrival of the rest of the royal family for re-instating the royal titles. And then the Hindenburg burns down there with all the royal family except one on board, who would then become Kaiserin and get the decision to reform the HRE.
If I’m remembering my WWII correctly, the Japanese did successfully firebomb the mainland U.S.A. once using balloons. The US government kept it extremely tight lipped during the war so news of it being successful wouldn’t make it back to Japan to make them believe it was a failure.
Yes a family discovers the device and are injured unalived
What if JFK’s head didn’t spontaneously explode?
From a parasitic worm?
@@jakeaurod it was because he held in a sneeze actually.
Fun fact regarding how rare aluminum used to be in the 18th and 19th centuries: the Washington Monument was capped with aluminum when it was completed in the 1850s, primarily as a flex of America's wealth and prosperity.
The thing is that because of the square-cube law, you could make a really big airship that is lifed by the slightly hotter air inside, think a little bigger than a modern cruise ship
Here's one that Alternate History Hub should do that I don't think has ever been done: *What if Constantine converted to Gnostic Christianity and not Catholicism?* What if they became the religion of the Roman Empire?
Would antisemitism be worse? Would gender equality be better? Would the Crusades still happen?
"... to Gnostic Christianity and not Catholicism?" - you're bringing in a somewhat modern dichotomy that would have been less clear back then. And what Constantine did as Emperor flowed from his imperial urges, not really from an attempt to engineer Christianity. Patriarchy was a thing in Rome, and there wasn't going to be another option.
@@TheDanEdwards yes, I know the correct terminology is proto-orthodoxy, but most don't know that so I didn't use that term
@@TheDanEdwards
Yeah. *Gnostic Christianity* wasn't ever really a thing.
I studied the Hidenburg for a history class. Based on the evidence I collected from available data, I concluded that the most likely cause of the fire was maintenance failure and the crew were too proud to admit making a mistake.
One of the more realistic alternate timelines you’ve made! If there was early adoption from militaries, airships could have been much more prominent in the 19th century. Nice concept!
Imagine watching this video outside an ice cream shop and one of these Zeppelins lands next door, proceeded by several dozen talking dogs a kid and an old man climbing out.
What If Australia 🇦🇺 was a Green country
YES