Well, let’s see:
As I’ve shared previously in these pages, reviving blimps or (in this instance) rigid airships is a pointless exercise. The Pathfinder 1 has a payload weight of around 11,000 lb. It is about 406 feet in length, and 66 feet wide. The claimed passenger capacity is 14. One assumes this figure includes crew and the roughly 2,800 lbs these folk represent are to be subtracted from the payload. The LZ-129 (Hindenburg), the largest rigid airship ever built, was 803 feet in length, 135 wide, had a crew of 52 and could carry 72 passengers. The payload was about 212,000 lb. No one is ever going to achieve the same scale with a helium-based rigid airship. Not ever. While the numbers from the 1930s dwarf today’s project, they still seem modest—because they were. Experts at the time (including Hugo Eckener who knew more about flying rigid airships than any other human) realized that there was (and could be) no commercial future for airships. Although there were efforts to revive Zeppelins after the war, these were unsuccessful and not commercially focused nor presented as the future of aviation. Today’s Zeppelin company, Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH, is more modest in its claims, despite whatever relationship it may have with Pathfinder 1. Its airship ambitions focus on tourism, promotions, and research. I ‘gotta go, Old Man Wardell Confirmed Skeptic of Stupid Projects David Wardell (757) 561-0582 [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> <https://wardell.us/url/b5s86> <https://wardell.us/url/s9qvz> From: Jack Keady via Mifnet <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2025 4:04 PM To: David Wardell via Mifnet <[email protected]> Cc: Jack Keady <[email protected]> Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 74758] Fw: Pathfinder 1 - World's Most Advanced Airship keady - these people seem to have a good p.r. machine Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2025 at 10:48:12 PM PST Subject: Pathfinder 1 - World's Most Advanced Airship <https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9CvOJTSEcnA/maxresdefault.jpg> www.youtube.com <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C7663cf2ee47e44cdbbc008de287960fd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638992698969230497%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=C8VOn5lQiOQc3SsnZstkDA4Yfnqxy8ox7iZtftck0E8%3D&reserved=0> Pathfinder 1 - World's Most Advanced Airship Pathfinder One is the world’s largest buoyant craft, the first “zeppelin” since before World War II, and the first hybrid – petroleum/electric – airship ever... <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D9CvOJTSEcnA%26t%3D991s&data=05%7C02%7C%7C7663cf2ee47e44cdbbc008de287960fd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638992698969259215%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=GjDbLA0HtE3yxLIPJORSLl2Q%2F%2BooLupawxnr%2B0S3XnI%3D&reserved=0> 🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CvOJTSEcnA&t=991s
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