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| Original Italian text here |
Airships return, old ghosts reappear, the challenge
Italy-Germany heats again, but outside the stadiums. As NASA prepares to launch the
competition "20-20-20 Airship Challenge", which in 2015 could well
earn $ 1.5 million to those who will design a dirigible drone capable of flying
for 20 hours, at an altitude of 20 kilometers, carrying 20 pounds, once again Italy
discovers to be stuck in the case "Umberto Nobile". The criticisms recently
raised by the flight of some inflatables above Milan - one collided with a civic
arena’s pylon, the other used to promote X-Factor’s transmission final - indirectly
result from the never exceeded fascist condemnations against one of the most famous
explorers and engineers in Italy.
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| Umberto Nobile |
Although, during the Postwar period, Nobile had
been rehabilitated by the prosecution to have besmirched country’s honor
because of airship Italy's crash on Spitzbergen islands ice - in
that fateful 1928 when the friend-enemy Roald Amundsen also lost his life trying
to save the Italian crew - there are too many unresolved questions: was his
immediate removal, at the expense of injured comrades, only a matter of petty
insurance reimbursement? And why did the fascist regime prevent Nobile to
coordinate aid operations, keeping it segregated and inactive on the ship “Città
di Milano”, while all other nations sacrificed themselves to rescue the Red Tent? Certainly the communist sympathies of Nobile, who unlike some Schettino objected strenuously to be taken by the group of survivors, offered an excellent
opportunity to give a personality too popular for Duce’s tastes a bad name; but
the real reason has to be found in an industrial investment’s choice that, in
all these decades, has relegated Italy as the vanguard of the skies to a mere
supporting actor of the international giants. Having ditched the production of
airships, focusing exclusively on rapid aeronautics wanted by fascist cabinet
minister Italo Balbo, not only spotted Nobile’s figure indelibly, but left a
free hand to competitors of a time: first, the legendary Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH & Co.
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| Zeppelin Museum - Friedrichshafen (Deutschland) |
So, while Zeppelin museum in Friedrichshaven
celebrates today moustachioed Count’s epic story and the heirs of his sky’s giants
are divided between tourist flights or prestigious scientific posts, Milan even
longer remembers it was his pioneer Enrico Forlanini to introduce the control
cabin fixed to the casing of the airships, or use for the first time jets of
compressed air for aircraft’s directional control, or sell his prototypes to
the English Crown. Neither the city gives importance to the fact that behind the
design of the glorious USSR airship Ve6, as well as in the US Air Force boom of
the '40s, there was just that Umberto Nobile that, first of all, had flown over
the North Pole in 1926. At most, Italians sing the praises of the restaurant Tenda Rossa in Trieste.
"In the United States - said Sarah Miller,
astrophysics professor at the University of California - the aim is now to
study the pall of pollution over the megalopolis through airships, to keep
under control the evolution of hurricanes by flying on the eye of the storm, in
stargazing remaining above the interference of the atmosphere, or to have
immense carrying capacity cargo-airships": in Italy it seems already an epochal
achievement have activated, five years ago, the Amundsen-Nobile Climate Change Tower in the Arctic island Ny-Aalesund. Then there is nothing to laugh for the
historical joke of a French soldier who, on arrival of Ferdinand von Zeppelin
in a Paris bent to Prussia in 1871, hissed to his fellows: "Behold, that
one is really a balloon".
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| Ferdinand Von Zeppelin |
Maybe it depended on
the pompous gait inherited from Wuerttenmberg’s counts, or rather the
reputation achieved as observer of "French flying weapons", anyway
Kaiser’s military genius ended to take so literally those words, he had turned
his name into the airship synonymous. Because after a hundred years since the
first civil flight in "airship", unlike what happens in Italy,
Zeppelin’s myth is alive more than ever. On the shores of Lake Costance, in that
Friedrichshafen of the first experiments, the museum named after the Count who
loved the clouds remains the best place for tracing the most important history
of aviation in the world: exploiting the 4 thousand square meters of beautiful
Bauhaus building where the museum is hosted, here the audience may immerse
themselves in the life-size reconstruction of the famous
"Hindenburg", which marked at the same time the apogee and the
decline of the first conquest of the skies, before burning in New York in 1936
(the dramatic image of the incident appears among other things on the cover of
the first Led Zeppelins’ album).
In addition to the rooms where other branches of
industry resulting from projects Zeppelin are presented, such as aircraft
Dornier, Maybach engines or transmissions of ZF, heroes, tragedies and big
businesses stories are the real highlights consecrating Zeppelins as a reference
model today, after the Count did take off a prototype adapted from David Schwarz's patent, Hungarian aviation pioneer, in 1900. It 's true. The flight
over native Lake Constance lasted just 18 minutes, due to the failure of the
mechanism that enveloped balance’s weight, but Germany was already on the verge
of history: the speed record on French models had been practically doubled,
having reached 6 metres per second against 3 metres then set.
Too bad that the coffers
of Ferdinand von Zeppelin's promotion company were empty, although
he had personally paid half of the share capital of 800 thousand marks.
Completely useless? Not really: it is here that you can possibly grasp the most
essential difference between Italian (fickle) flair and German (systematic)
wilfulness. The airship was dismantled and they had to wait another six years
to observe a new airship in flight, thanks to donations from a special lottery
called by air supporters. But if the model LZ2 seemed to affect the start of
the construction industry due to an emergency landing on the Allgäu Alps, his
immediate successor could well cover 4298 kilometres for 45 flights, projecting
finally Germany as world leader in new technologies for aviation. Against the
fury of bad luck, which reduced to ashes a prototype finally destined to the
army, the Germans rallied around their intrepid Count and again donated the
proceeds of a 6 million 100 thousand marks lottery. So Zeppelin Foundation
could arise in 1908, the year after the first flight in civilian airships took
off and the man began his rise to the stars. So the story goes: good times, bad times.
ZEPPELIN ON TOUR
Silent. Elegant.
Reliable. Zeppelin NT are the last generation airships and, thanks to the
extraordinary technology developed respect to their forerunners, now offer the
opportunity to fly 300 meters high enjoying stunning scenery. In close
proximity to Friedrichshafen Zeppelin platforms are still active and from
there, between March and October, scenic tours take off to the main
destinations on Lake Constance (Lindau, Bregenz, Meersburg ...), going up to
Stein am Rhein or the picturesque Salem’s castle, gradually towards the regions
of Austrian Vorarlberg or Bavarian Allgäu. On individual trips, as well as on
group (up to 20 people), it emerges again the typical atmosphere of luxury
"cruises in the air", so that the audience can feel the '30s flavour and
taste the same gastronomic specialities in the lounge pavillion on the ground.
Flights can last from 30 minutes (200 euro) to over two hours (730 euro),
allowing you to explore the towns in the area from a unique perspective, now
endorsed by the major production houses of nature documentaries too. More
information about routes and flights are available on the website http://www.zeppelinflug.de/en/, or by going directly to the platforms of ZTL
Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH & amp; Co., 132 Allmannsweilerstrasse in
Friedrichshafen.
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