Page 10 - Demo

In July of 1931, the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, headed to the North Pole. The money to fund this particular Arctic expedition came primarily from the sale of special postage stamps issued by Germany and the Soviet Union, which were applied to 50,000 postcards and letters. Sixhundred-and-sixty pounds of mail was on board when Commander Hugh Eckener touched the airship down on the Arctic ice. Several scientists took measurements and performed a variety of experiments during the flight, much of Franz Josef Land was accurately photographed from the air, and the airship was hailed for its ability to operate under extreme conditions. It was a very successful voyage, yet it only got to within 490 miles of the Pole itself. The Graf Zeppelin%u2019s first flight had been only three years earlier, in 1928. And a year later, in 1929, it flew around the world. By the time it was retired in 1937, the ship had made a total of 590 flights, flown over a million miles, and was the most successful Zeppelin in history.A blimp is an elongated gas-filled airship that differs from a Zeppelin in that it has no rigid frame. There are at least three explanations for where its quirky name came from. The most plausible dates to 1915, when British Commander A. D. Cunningham produced a sound by flicking the skin of one with his finger. In mimicking the noise, Cunningham pronounced it %u201cblimp,%u201d and it caught on as a nickname for all non-rigid airships.During the first World War, the U.S. Navy used blimps for aerial surveillance. The British tried to launch a fighter plane from one so it could quickly reach the altitude of a Zeppelin, but the experiment failed with the loss of two lives. Britain did however use blimps to escort ship convoys, and by WWII, the U.S. was using them for anti-submarine warfare. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company launched an airship named Pilgrim in 1925 as its first advertising blimp. Its descendants have been soaring above major sporting events since the Rose Bowl of 1955. In 2014, the company launched a new design%u2014a semi-rigid airship, Wingfoot One. With an internal frame of aluminum and carbon fiber, it is technically not a blimp, but Goodyear calls it a blimp anyway. By this time, it had plenty of competition, as there are over a dozen advertising airships around the world designed and built by several firms.Today%u2019s colorful hot-air balloons were developed by an American, Ed Yost, who made his first successful flight in one over Bruning, Nebraska on October 22, 1960. His biggest contribution was the development of an onboard propane burner, but he also patented nonporous synthetic fabrics, maneuvering vents, and deflation systems for landing. As these modern propane-fired hotair balloons evolved, they became capable of