An enormous white zeppelin described as the world’s largest successfully completed its maiden flight on Friday in Japan.
The German-made, 75m-long airship wafted into blue skies above the western port city of Kobe on Friday morning for half an hour before embarking on a five-hour flight to Nagoya in central Japan, said Yoshifumi Sato, an employee of the zeppelin’s owner, Nippon Airship Corporation.
It was shipped by sea from its maker, Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, in Friedrichshafen, Germany, in July and arrived in Kobe last week, echoing a flight 75 years ago of the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Friedrichshafen to Tokyo.
The ship is destined for sightseeing and advertising flights in Japan and a starring role at the 2005 world’s fair in Aichi prefecture.
”Of course we’re relieved the flight was completed successfully,” said Sato. ”But we don’t have time to enjoy it because the real work begins now — getting advertisers.”
Named Zeppelin NT, for ”New Technology”, the craft is filled with helium rather than the intensely flammable hydrogen that fuelled airships in the era of the Hindenburg, which caught fire on landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937.
The fire killed 35 of the 96 people on board and virtually ended the era of the lighter-than-air dirigibles as passenger vehicles.
Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik starting building the new airships in 1996, and the sale to Nippon Airship Corporation was its first commercial deal.
Its gondola has room for 12 passengers and two crew members. It had eight people on board on Friday, and is scheduled to fly again on Monday, Sato said. — Sapa-AP