r/Airships

Honestly stumped right now…

Given recent questions on the Hindenburg's B Deck cabins, an excerpt from the book I'm currently working on:

Following the first 1936 demonstration flights, it was realized by the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei that passenger demand was quickly outstripping the capacity of the Hindenburg. By August of that year, with sailings on average at 101%, surplus passengers on some flights were being put up in ramshackle accommodations in the Lounge (“Airship Hindenburg” 1936). It was at this point, and not during the 1936-1937 winter overhaul as is commonly believed, that Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin opted to take advantage of the additional lifting capacity of hydrogen by installing a set of temporary accommodations aft of the existing B Deck spaces. These cabins, which lacked some of the amenities of those on A Deck, were reserved for male passengers (“11 Cabins Added” 1936), holding back the properly-appointed cabins on A Deck for families and solo female travelers. Very little is known of these cabins, but it appears that they only featured the essentials - bunks, a space for storing clothing, and perhaps a canvas curtain in place of a more sturdy door. Passengers wishing to freshen up before dinner would have had to double back along the corridor and avail themselves of the small washroom through which the men’s lavatories could be accessed. A prevailing theory holds that these temporary accommodations were simply converted from the nearby crew cabins present along the keel corridor, a situation that was considered suboptimal (Von Meister, “Experience Report” 10 January 1937).

A more permanent solution was arranged following the ship’s fifty-sixth flight, a return from Recife to Frankfurt-am-Main and the last of the 1936 season. During the three months of the winter layover, the temporary cabins were removed and substituted for properly fitted-out spaces. Only used for three Transatlantic flights (Nos. 59 and 60, the first  and only South America trip of 1937, and No. 063, during which the ship crashed at Lakehurst), these nine additional cabins cabins, each with a window looking down through the hull represented a marked improvement from the standard A Deck cabins, and their design was later included in the reworked passenger spaces of the LZ-130. These cabins were accessed by a new corridor extending aft from the starboard-side B Deck passenger corridor, which included a washbasin nook and a trio of lavatories. Most of these cabins were functionally identical to those on A Deck above, with the most significant difference being the large rectangular windows that looked out onto cellon windows mounted into the bottom of the hull. These allowed passengers to sightsee whilst ensconced in their own private space, looking down “at the angry waves, whitening the sea so far below” (Mather 1937, 591). Because of the constraints imposed by the window shafts, the folding writing desk was substituted for a fixed surface. Additionally,  with the increased width of the cabins, the washbasins were shifted to a nook inboard of the berths themselves. these B Deck cabins did away with the pull toggles in favor of the type of rotary light switches found elsewhere on board, mounted just above the head of each berth.

The one exception to this standard layout was the aft-most cabin - berths 67, 68, 69, and 70, which was of a unique layout, featuring two pairs of bunk beds and purpose-built to accommodate families traveling aboard the airship.

Less is known about the decor of these cabins, although it seems to be a safe assumption that they retained the same blue and orange carpet used in the A Deck cabins. The wall fabric was of a thatch pattern, and some of the cabins were colored with “pearl-gray linen” (Mather 1937, 591). Initial plans to offer these cabins at a slight discount compared to those on A Deck were quickly dropped, as was the designation “B Deck”, and plans were made to instead advertise them at a 100 Mark surcharge in the coming transatlantic season (“Experience Report” 25 January 1937).

From the content creator Industrial Artifacts, an engineering model of an underground bunker with a rotating roof and telescoping mast designed to protect airships. Concept and model were designed by Carlotti Studio Engineering.