Dirigibles!

I've long been fascinated by the period of history between the two world wars. This includes the whole Hindenburg story. Seriously, could you have written a better story than the pride of the Nazi fleet bursting into flames over America? I think not.

Although the Hindenburg disaster meant the death of rigid airships for many decades, they have come back (sorta) in the form of much smaller blimps -- like the famous ones used by Goodyear and MetLife.

Over the weekend, we were outside reading and the familiar sound started of the MetLife blimp flying over our house near downtown Phoenix. Every time one of these flies over, I try to imagine how much bigger was the Hindenburg -- and just how majestic it would have seemed flying over houses back in the 1930s.

So, I created this little comparative photo showing the MetLife blimp flying over us (thanks to my spouse, Matt, for taking the snap) and a superimposed image of the Hindenburg. (The Hindenburg was a little over 6 times the length of the current MetLife blimp.) Pretty fascinating, isn't it? Imagine what it would have been like to see this flying over your house in 1937.