Section VIII of 9
Steampunk airships and machines
Three guides to the machines steampunk dreams about and the real ones behind them: the airships of fiction, the R101 and the Hindenburg, and the trains, cars and submarines of the age of steam.
The logbook
The real airships, year by year
Nine entries from our guide to the real airships, from the first balloon to the airships flying today. Choose a year and the airship flies to it.
1783
4 June: the Montgolfier brothers show a hot-air balloon at Annonay. 21 November: the first free flight with people aboard, from the Château de la Muette near Paris.
1852
24 September: Henri Giffard flies about 27 kilometres from Paris in a hydrogen airship driven by a small steam engine turning a propeller.
1900
2 July: Count Zeppelin's first airship, LZ 1, flies over Lake Constance in southern Germany.
1919
2 to 6 July: the R34 flies from East Fortune to Long Island in 108 hours, the first crossing of the Atlantic by air from east to west.
1929
14 October: the R101 first flies. 16 December: the R100 follows.
1930
4 October: the R101 leaves Cardington for India. Early on 5 October it comes down near Beauvais in France; 48 of the 54 aboard are lost.
1937
6 May: the Hindenburg burns at Lakehurst, New Jersey. 35 of the 97 aboard die, and one of the ground crew.
1962
31 August: the United States Navy's last airships make a final flight over Lakehurst.
2016
17 August: the Airlander 10, a hybrid airship, first flies under that name at Cardington.
Section VIII
Every airships and machines guide
In the order they are best read. Each one is long enough to answer the question properly, with every fact checked and its source listed at the foot.
- 45Steampunk AirshipsSteampunk airships: why they belong to the style, the flying machines of Verne and Wells, what a steampunk airship looks like, airships in films, games and books, and building your own.About 12 min
- 46The Real Airships: the R101, the Hindenburg and AfterThe real airships: the first balloons, Count Zeppelin, Britain's R34 and R100, the R101 airship's crash in 1930, the Hindenburg disaster of 1937, and the airships still flying.About 13 min
- 47Steampunk Trains, Cars and MachinesSteampunk trains, cars and machines, and the real ones behind them: steam locomotives, Victorian stations, traction engines, Brunel's ships, Nemo's Nautilus, walking machines and where to see steam.About 13 min
More machines
Engines, gears and stories
Where the airships lead elsewhere on Steampunks.
Everything on Steampunks
The contents
Nine sections and fifty-three guides.
- IWhat steampunk isThe meaning, the look, where it came from, and how it differs from Gothic and Victorian.
- IIFashion and costumeWomen's and men's outfits, a costume on a budget, Halloween, a steampunk wedding.
- IIIHats, goggles and accessoriesGoggles, top hats, masks, corsets, waistcoats, coats, watches, jewellery, boots.
- IVHome and decorLamps and lighting, clocks, furniture and ornaments, and a whole room in the style.
- VArt and makingSteampunk art and artists, how to draw it, robots and creatures, cogs and gears, props.
- VIFilms, TV, games, books and musicThe films, the animation, the games, Minecraft builds, the books and the music.
- VIISteampunk events in the UKWhere steampunks gather, with the dates from each organiser's own site.
- VIIIAirships and machinesYou are here. Steampunk airships, and the real ones that went before them.
- IXThe Victorian world behind itVictorian fashion, London, architecture and the Gothic Revival.