About the Site / Author / Contact

About the Site

This website is a non-commercial, non-profit, educational resource for the public. It is the product of original research from primary and secondary sources [see "Sources and Credits"] by the author, Dan Grossman, who is also deeply grateful to those distinguished historians who have generously reviewed the site and offered their suggestions, criticisms, and corrections.

The entire website is protected by copyright, but permission to reference the site or its contents is liberally granted to those who request it. A link to the site is always required.

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About the Author: Why my interest in airships?

As a technology and transportation nerd, I have long been fascinated by the history and technology of aircraft, ships, and trains. And as a former pilot, obsessed by flight since I was a little kid, I naturally have a particular interest in the history of aviation.

In addition, as a technology enthusiast without formal training (my degree is in history, and not engineering), I am drawn to an era in which the most advanced technology of the day could be developed by untrained amateurs like Ferdinand von Zeppelin or Hugo Eckener. The defining aviation technologies of the 1920′s and 1930′s — the improved internal combustion engine, the flying boat airliner, the passenger zeppelin — are remarkably simple devices, and there is not much about these machines that cannot be understood by a person with average intelligence and a touch of mechanical ability; there is something appealing for me about a time in which the height of technology was represented by machines which were, in essence, so very basic.

And finally, I am fascinated by the wide-eyed, innocent enthusiasm for technology and science which was expressed by the popular culture of the Machine Age, and which included the wild public enthusiasm for zeppelins in the 1920′s and 1930′s.

Plus, they were just really cool.

Dan Grossman
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Concorde was the Graf Zeppelin of its day.

Contact

My email address is dan@airships.net, but I strongly encourage you to use the webform below to contact me. Messages sent through the form are specially flagged and will get my attention much quicker, and they are also guaranteed to evade my rather strong spam-filtering, which is likely to block an email sent directly to my address.