A Zeppelin history lesson proves Airbus fuss is nothing but hot air

摘要

From the fuss made last week about the roll-out of the A380, the monster Airbus bid for air-passenger domination of the world, a man from Mars might have concluded that the Wright brothers were still selling bicycles in Dayton, Ohio, and the only true aerial pioneers were the pre-modern Montgolfier brothers with their smoking-paper hot-air balloons. I refer, of course, to the absence of any reference to the rigid airships that dominated all discussion about long-range passenger and cargo flight for the first half of the 20th century.