Lufthansa Business Class 100 years ago

In fairness, a lot of things were deathtraps back then. Look at how many ocean liners ended up at the bottom of the sea from random collisions or accidental fires, it’s appalling. Trains weren’t that great either, and 1920s cars? Yeesh.

[-]

SuperFriendlyAv8or@reddit

Username checks out!

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Does it? The Graf Zeppelin was from the 1920s and ‘30s, and was the first aircraft to fly over a million miles, but it never had a fatal accident, so I’d hesitate to call it a “deathtrap.” Maybe it was just lucky, though. I’d certainly feel better flying in it if it was filled with helium, or at least had an inert double hull of nitrogen around the hydrogen, which the actual ship did not.

[-]

SuperFriendlyAv8or@reddit

Fair enough 😂 I was going for a little joke, I didn't expect to be schooled on Zeppelins but I'm always happy to learn!

[-]

lvthud@reddit

But, but, but, it's a 5 star airline, just ask them or Skytrax......

[-]

MaterialInevitable83@reddit

"Everyone look like you're sleeping"

[-]

RangerSad3081@reddit

Would not have been nearly relaxed enough to sleep lmao

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Pshaw, there was only a fatal accident once every million miles in 1929! If you transposed that rate to today, we’d only have to deal with 53,000 fatal accidents a year.

[-]

geohubblez18@reddit

A crash every 10 minutes.

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Quite the tempo, isn’t it? I can’t imagine how anything would get done.

[-]

ChaceEdison@reddit

Estimated: Over a million people die per year globally in road accidents, so it’s still doing better than driving

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Would it? A plane typically carries a lot more people than a car, but cars travel 189 times the distance of planes annually, so does that balance out…?

A million people dying in road accidents annually would mean that if there are 53,000 fatal accidents, each accident would need to have only 19 fatalities on average to even out. That… seems like a low estimate for fatal commercial airliner crashes. Back in the 1920s the fatality rate in airplane crashes was pretty damn high, though I can’t remember the exact figure off the top of my head.

[-]

ChaceEdison@reddit

It looks like there’s a lot less than 19 people in those 1920’s planes

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Oh, I was talking about transposing that same accident rate to today, not talking about using the same planes today.

[-]

ChaceEdison@reddit

Yes but when planes got bigger they got safer because we learnt more about how to design them. If you were transposing accident rates wouldn’t you have to assume the same plane design that cause the accidents

[-]

RangerSad3081@reddit

The latecoere 631 would like a word

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Bigger does not necessarily mean safer, look at how much trouble the largest planes of the 1920s got into. You absolutely can design and build a plane much bigger and faster than you’re capable of engineering for proper safety, it’s not a prerequisite for being able to build such a thing to begin with.

The ANT-20, Do-X, and Ca.60 all come to mind.

[-]

Imtherealwaffle@reddit

thats actually insanely impressive for only a quarter decade after the first heavier than air flight.

[-]

unique_usemame@reddit

Quarter century but yes.

Then another quarter century we had jets.

Another quarter century and man had stepped on the moon for the last time... And that was closer to this photo than it is to today.

[-]

qwerqmaster@reddit

For comparison, the fatality rate for cars in the US is 8.4 per billion km

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Kind of hard to compare since “fatal accident” could mean “one person died” or it could just as easily mean “dozens of people died.”

[-]

FriskyDingoOMG@reddit

Don’t need to be relaxed, only need enough altitude to go hypoxic.

[-]

HF_Martini6@reddit

can you imagine trying to sleep with all that noise and vibration and possibly enduring bad weather?

[-]

Speedbird223@reddit

They’re still in the process of phasing out this J seat on some of the older Junkers planes operating in their fleet…

Check your seatmaps, people…

[-]

dtunas@reddit

So strange to see a square fuselage from inside

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

The 1920s had some weird interior layouts. While people debate the ideal cabin layout for widebodies, with strange seating arrangements like 2-5-2 abreast getting used, definitely the weirdest seating arrangement I know of from the 1920s was 1-1-2-5-5-5-5-2-1-1 abreast, with a shrubbery in the middle of the 5-row benches, and the outer single-seating being deck chairs.

[-]

Ok-Parfait-9856@reddit

Do you have a picture of that layout? I can’t even picture it

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Sure, here you go:

The yellow line is covering up part of the shrubbery, but you can still see it there in between the benches.

[-]

quesoandcats@reddit

Goddddd I will never enjoy a nice cocktail on the patio of a zeppelin :(

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Well, never say never. LTA’s working on it, and they already have a flying 2/3-scale prototype. It is designed for mass production, with both passenger and cargo uses.

The actual production version will have a two-deck gondola about 150 feet long and 40 feet wide, or two A380s’ worth of space—more than enough for someone to turn it into a flying cruise liner instead of a cargo hauler. And that’s the smaller one. The big one will max out the size of the hangar it’s built in, the Akron Airdock, and have about 9 A380s worth of space, and a 200-ton payload.

[-]

tj111@reddit

Don't do that, dont go giving me hope.

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Well, they did succeed in flying the largest rigid airship seen since 1938 when all others have failed to progress even to that point, so what is that if not hopeful?

[-]

sneijder@reddit

Here’s the flaming sambuca you ordered Sir.

[-]

quesoandcats@reddit

Oh the humanity

[-]

Martin8412@reddit

Jesus Lana, the helium!

[-]

quesoandcats@reddit

WHAT PART OF HELIUM CANT EXPLODE DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND

[-]

AwkwardTurtle50@reddit

Core concept

[-]

JazznBlues_lover@reddit

Looks like the first living room that I built in The Sims from years ago. 😅

[-]

Ok-Parfait-9856@reddit

The zeppelin, man that’s an awesome layout. Thanks for the pic, I never realized how luxurious the cabin was. Beds look tight but sure beats a reclining seat.

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

That’s actually the upper deck of a two-deck internal layout, the passenger area alone covered 7,300 square feet.

The actual external gondola is a dinky little thing, only 163 square feet in this case. It would be under both of those decks. You can understand why airship designers wouldn’t want to put whole multi-story hotels for up to 100 passengers outside the ship in its hurricane-force slipstream, where the structure could act as a massive air brake.

[-]

deltajvliet@reddit

I think you hit me with this about a year ago.

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

It’s not the first time I’ve mentioned it in passing, yes.

[-]

ForsakenRacism@reddit

What. Explain.

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

See for yourself, along the wall to the left:

[-]

ForsakenRacism@reddit

Is this a blimp?

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Rigid airship, actually.

[-]

prady8899@reddit

What’s the difference?

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

A blimp is typically a single pressurized gas cell with an external gondola underneath that contains all of the habitable spaces on board. Because they rely on gas pressure to maintain their shape, blimps cannot be built as large or as fast as rigid airships.

Rigid airships have some sort of rigid frame, usually made of metal but sometimes composites or wood, covered by fabric or thin metal. This allows them to enclose several unpressurized gas cells for safety and redundancy, as well as having a vast habitable internal space for passenger decks and crew spaces without needing to put them all in external gondolas that cause drag. Typically, only 2-3% of a rigid airship’s floor area is represented by the external gondola, the rest is inside the ship.

[-]

deltajvliet@reddit

This guy airships.

[-]

OfficeZestyclose9952@reddit

Are you saying there was an airplane in the 1920s which could seat 28 people abreast and had 9 gangways?

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

No, it was an airship.

[-]

quesoandcats@reddit

Username checks out

[-]

Telepornographer@reddit

That and the perfectly square windows.

[-]

gritsource@reddit

They aren't sleeping, they are likely passed-out hypoxic from operating above 14,000 feet un-pressurized! :-D

[-]

Pasadenaian@reddit

Yeah right. Can you imagine the turbulence back then? No one was that relaxed.

[-]

whyy_i_eyes_ya@reddit

Here’s me thinking what, 100 years was before the Wright Brothers.

Age hits fast as you get older. Enjoy your youth kids, it’s wasted in most of ya!

[-]

myelinsheath30@reddit

[-]

peepay@reddit

What's that?

[-]

myelinsheath30@reddit

A face with a Zorro mask? lol

[-]

lsthrowaway69@reddit

Oddly terrifying

[-]

myelinsheath30@reddit

It cracked me up, reminds me of the big face from 1984

[-]

Katsu_Vohlakari@reddit

How was anyone sleeping back then? Must've been so loud. And why is the cabin square? Or is this just a demonstration?

[-]

ncoremeister@reddit

Air ships are much quieter, I think the 1920s is a bit early for passenger fixed wing planes.

[-]

mrhumphries75@reddit

Imperial Airways, an early precursor to what we now know as British Airways, even flew long-haul multi-stop routes from 1924. And even had an in-flight movie screening.

Other airlines operated fixed-wing aircraft in the 1920s. Some of them (the airlines, not the birds) are still in operation. Like KLM that was founded in 1919.

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

The first fixed-wing passenger airliner started service in 1914! The Benoist XIV could carry one passenger up to a blistering top speed of 56 knots, better than the passenger Zeppelins of the time which could only manage 41 knots (though the Zeppelins carried 26 times as many people).

[-]

makgross@reddit

The Ford Trimotor was around in the 20s.

[-]

ncoremeister@reddit

I doubt that anyone could sleep in one of those :D but indeed, Lufthansas first fixed wing air liner flew already in 1922 (Dornier Comet).

[-]

GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Cabins are typically round these days because that is the shape best able to maintain pressurization, which wasn’t a concern at the time. Of course, they often still had rounded fuselages on unpressurized planes for unrelated structural reasons, but they’re not a requirement. Even today, they’re sometimes not round if they’re not pressurized.

For example, the unpressurized Sherpa:

[-]

tunafun@reddit

Was this actually business class, or was this just how airtravel was in the 40s and 50s?

[-]

TheEvilBlight@reddit

Flying was the flex

[-]

Craicriture@reddit

Well you could fly in steerage, which was just a case of holding onto the wings…

[-]

TheMonkeyPickler@reddit

First this is the 20s so only people with insane wealth could even afford to fly. But in general the general public couldnt really afford to fly until airlines started getting deregulated in the 70s and 80s allowing them to lower ticket prices so normals like us could fly.

[-]