"Golden Age" airships
After the First World War in the United States, France, Italy, Germany and other countries continued to build airships of various systems. The years between the First and Second World Wars marked a significant advance in technology airship. The first device is lighter than air, crossing the Atlantic, was a British airship R34, which in July 1919 with the team on board flew from East Lothian, Scotland, on Long Island, New York, then returned to Pulham, England. In 1924 he took a transatlantic flight of the German airship LZ 126 (named in the U.S. ZR-3 «Los Angeles»).
In 1926, a joint Norwegian-Italian-American expedition led by R. Amundsen's airship "Norway» (N-1 «Norge») design Umberto Nobile made its first flight on Transpolar. Spitsbergen - The North Pole - Alaska.
By 1929, airship technology is advanced to a very high level; airship Graf Zeppelin in September and October, began the first trans-Atlantic flights. In 1929, the LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" with three intermediate landings made his legendary round-the-world flight. For 20 days he covered more than 34 thousand kilometers with an average flight speed of 115 km / h.
German zeppelins evoked great interest in the 1920 and 1930, and in 1930 the U.S. Post Office issued special stamps dirizhabelnoy mail for use during the Pan-American flight the airship "Graf Zeppelin". Summer of 1931 and made his famous flight in the Arctic, and soon the airship took up on regular passenger flights to South America, which lasted until 1937. Journey to the airship of this era of comfort far superior to the then (and in some respects and modern) planes. In the case of passenger airships often had a restaurant with a kitchen and lounge (The Hindenburg was even equipped with a small, specially manufactured for the airship lightweight piano). The weight of this equipment certainly tried to reduce, so instead of baths offered a shower, and everything that could have been made of aluminum, from the same was made and the piano at the Hindenburg. The British airship R101 had 50 one-, two-and four-passenger cabins with beds, located on two decks, dining room for 60 people, two promenade deck with windows along the walls. Passengers used mainly upper deck. At the bottom were the kitchen and toilets, as well as placed crew. There was even finished with asbestos-smoking room for 24 people. At the "Hindenburg" had taken place a ban on smoking. Everyone who was on board, including passengers, before boarding were obliged to pass the matches, lighters and other devices that can cause a spark. One of the largest airships in the world - American Akron nominal volume of 184 thousand m ³ - could carry on board up to 5 small planes and several tons of cargo and theoretically could overcome the non-stop about 17 km.
In the Soviet Union the first airship was built in 1923. Later set up a special organization Dirizhablestroy ", which built and put into operation more than ten blimps and semirigid systems. In 1937, the largest Soviet airship USSR-B6 "in volume 18 500 m ³ set a world record flight duration - 130 hours 27 minutes. The last Soviet airship was "Soviet-B12 bis, built in 1947.