Ricks Hindenburg

About

The Luftschiffbau Zeppelin LZ-129 Hindenburg was the largest aircraft of any kind ever built — 245 meters (804 feet) long, with a maximum diameter of 41 meters (135 feet), and a useful lift capacity that allowed transatlantic passenger service in unprecedented luxury. Construction began in 1931, and the Hindenburg made its first flight on March 4, 1936. Through the 1936 season the airship completed seventeen successful Atlantic crossings, carrying passengers between Frankfurt and Lakehurst, New Jersey (or Rio de Janeiro for South American service) at a level of comfort that no airliner of the era could match.

The Hindenburg's 1937 destruction at Lakehurst on May 6, 1937, while attempting to moor at the Naval Air Station, ended the era of commercial passenger airships in a way no other accident in the history of aviation has matched. The radio broadcast of Herbert Morrison's "Oh, the humanity!" report — captured on a recording that would not be broadcast until afterward — became one of the most famous pieces of journalism of the twentieth century. Of the 97 people aboard, 36 lost their lives in the fire and the resulting fall to the ground.

The Hindenburg in this RC implementation carries the registration D-LZ129 — the actual airship's identification — and is an electric-motor-driven lighter-than-air model. The "Ricks" attribution likely refers to the modeler whose work this scale rendition represents. Lighter-than-air RC scale models are rare in the hobby, and the Hindenburg is the most ambitious airship subject ever attempted at any scale.

In the simulator

A unique scale subject that flies like nothing else in the catalog. The Hindenburg's enormous size and slow, deliberate movement gives the airship in our sim its distinctive character — minutes-long maneuvers, careful weather management, and the kind of unhurried flight that suits a 245-meter airframe. Use it for novelty scale flying with one of the most iconic and tragic aircraft of the twentieth century.