So yes, the past is like the present in many regards. Except one. Airships.
Plans for the US Naval airship Shenandoah (National Geographic via airships.net)
We no longer look to the skies and expect to see giant balloons the length of a stadium, but shaped like suppositories, carrying people to and fro. I am fascinated by these blimpey anachronisms. One of the favorite podcast episodes I ever got to edit was Tim Harford’s The Deadly Airship Race, part of his Pushkin show Cautionary Tales. Harford and his team work with the genius sound designer and composer Pascal Wyse, who manages to recreate the sonic world not only of airships on the move, but also an airship under construction in a cold and leaky British hangar plagued by rats. No one ever recorded the sound of rats gnawing on an airship in the rain, but Pascal evokes it via his magic-of-audio tricks™. (I do wish he could ™ them!)
Lighter than air, on the air
Airships are all over the history of early radio. The two innovations developed side by side. After all, it would have been hard, if not impossible, to navigate and dock an airship without wireless communications. This was before radar — airship pilots needed constant communication with the ground to adjust their bearings.
And in return, airships brought a lot to radio. Mainly in ways that were really bad for airships.
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