Zeppelins

Wait, why is here a Day 26, you ask? Wasn’t yesterday Christmas? Yes, it was, but you see I did this thing where I assigned a letter for each day and well, there are 26 letters in the alphabet and I didn’t get to “Z”. So I feel it deserves its time in the sun.

And today is a sort-of holiday. In Britain and many of its colonies, today is Boxing Day. The origins are apparently disputed, but it seem to be the day when the wealthy would share gifts and money with the working class and the poor (in boxes) after having their big celebrations.

So what do Zeppelins have to do with Christmas? Well, traditionally not much, though there is that scene in A Christmas Story where Randy gets a zeppelin toy for Christmas and later curls up with it under the tree. But, really, all that matters is that they’re cool.

The zeppelin was of course a rigid airship which got its name from Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who designed it in the late 19th century.

The Hindenburg disaster went a long way toward killing the use of zeppelins. And World War II put the nail in the coffin.

Recently, though, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH has been manufacturing new airships called Zeppelin NTs (for New Technology). Unlike the original zeppelins which used rigid frames, the NTs are semi-rigid meaning that they use partial frames, the rest of the shape maintained by the internal pressure of the lifting gas.

There’s a lot more I could say about zeppelins, and indeed other airships, and perhaps I will later, but I just wanted to honor the “Z’. For now, I’m calling this Advent Calendar series completed. For now I would just like to say that I hope everyone had a good holiday (or non-holiday) and I leave you with this vintage image of Santa in an airship.Best to everyone.