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Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

airships.net

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Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#111

Post by elzbardico »

c7b wrote: post #84
gwbas1c wrote: post #42

One interesting lesson from airships is about disruption and how people take old assumptions into new paradigms. Today we're used to being on plans for short periods of time. We get on, sit down, wait, and then arrive at our destination. Airships came about when long distance travel meant you were spending multiple days in a vehicle, either a train or boat. An airship was a place that was set up for you to spend a fe…

I felt a bit similar about electric cars with a trunk in the front where the engine would sit in an ICE car. But that's more about esthetic expectations, like the first cars looked similar to horse carriages.

But here the space also have the role of serving as a crumple zone in case of frontal collisions

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#112

Post by hparadiz »

canpan wrote: post #89
gwbas1c wrote: post #42

One interesting lesson from airships is about disruption and how people take old assumptions into new paradigms. Today we're used to being on plans for short periods of time. We get on, sit down, wait, and then arrive at our destination. Airships came about when long distance travel meant you were spending multiple days in a vehicle, either a train or boat. An airship was a place that was set up for you to spend a fe…

These places still exist, but you need to look for them. Here in Japan, some remote islands, you can travel overnight boat. I love those. There might be a speed boat or plane, but I love boarding the boat in the evening, everyone feels like having a party, sleeping in a bed and arriving fresh in the morning. (If you are in Tokyo, the nearest is Oshima Island). There is also slow rail travel, with pretty trains, sleep…

Flying a turboprop from Yakushima to Kagoshima on my way back to Tokyo was a highlight of my trip. Especially the domestic airport lounge with shoe-less tatami mat areas to hang out.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#113

Post by kortilla »

dangus wrote: post #57
kortilla wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s still getting a handle on it. Vaping is not good but it’s significantly better than the tar that comes from burning cigarettes

In the context of the alternative which was “nobody really smokes or vapes” it’s not really a good outcome. Sure, smoking rates cratered. It was great. But now vaping rates have gone up and it just didn’t have to happen that way at all. Go back a few years and less people vaped with similarly low smoking rates. Vaping didn’t replace smoking, its net new usage.

No, the context was getting a handle on smoking, not some alternative goalpost. As lung cancer rates plummet from lack of second hand smoke nobody should ever lament that even if people are doing something else not great.

Classic “perfect is the enemy of good”.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#114

Post by WalterBright »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #110
paulpauper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jim Simons got so tired of paying these, he bought a private plane to save money. To say he was a prolific smoker is an understatement.

I assumed you were talking about who I know as james Simons, but just googled him to make sure there wasn't someone else, and yeah - first pic on Google is him with a cigarette. Also learned it was lung cancer that took him out, though he did make it to 86 which isn't bad.

Then there's George Harrison, who died of lung cancer way too young.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#115

Post by WalterBright »

elteto wrote: post #105
-warren wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Story time. Last summer I flew from ATL to SFO on a brand new Airbus. Pretty cool plane! Halfway across the count I had the obligatory restroom break. In the head, I noticed an ashtray. I was confused -- "smoking has been banned in planes doe decades. Why is there an ashtray here?" I flagged down a flight attendant and asked them. Their answer was that yes smoking is banned, and it's a $250 fine. But EVERY SINGLE TRI…

The ashtrays are there, even today, because it is suspected that this flight [0] went down when someone disposed a cigarette butt in the lavatory trash, causing a fire. A reminder that aviation regulations are written in blood. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_820

> A reminder that aviation regulations are written in blood.

It's enormously expensive for an airframe manufacturer to deal with the fallout of a crash.

There aren't any engineers in an airframe manufacturer willing to sign off on a faulty design. Some good engineers are so worried about that they get shifted to working on conceptual projects.

I took a loooong time for Boeing to convince the FAA that a twin engine jet was safer than a 4 engine for ocean crossings.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#116

Post by tialaramex »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #95
canpan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These places still exist, but you need to look for them. Here in Japan, some remote islands, you can travel overnight boat. I love those. There might be a speed boat or plane, but I love boarding the boat in the evening, everyone feels like having a party, sleeping in a bed and arriving fresh in the morning. (If you are in Tokyo, the nearest is Oshima Island). There is also slow rail travel, with pretty trains, sleep…

> I think Europe has sleeper trains too. Europe has sleeping boats too: you can go from, say, south east of France to the Baelaric island (like Ibiza) in 12 hours overnight.

I remember as a child using a sleeper ferry to get between Jersey and the British mainland. Politically Jersey is ours (it's not technically part of the UK but it's a crown dependency), but geographically it's basically in France. Seems like these days there is no overnight option but the long slow ferry from up the coast does take like half a day to get there and you can book a room so you can get some sleep.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#117

Post by rrvsh »

charcircuit wrote: post #67
mschuster91 wrote: post #3

> The real danger of allowing smoking on a hydrogen airship — and the reason it was strictly confined to the closely monitored smoking room — was the risk of a fire; I'd say... contrary, allowing smoking in a dedicated controlled place was the safer option. The real danger was not allowing smoking because if you ban smoking, people will smoke no matter if it's banned - and back then, there were a looooot more smokers…

Make it illegal. No rational person would through their life away just to smoke.

Feels like this may run into a no true scotsman but this is demonstrably false if you look at the number of marijuana smokers in countries where they impose severe penalties (up to life) on them

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#118

Post by WalterBright »

Waterluvian wrote: post #5

It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.

I don't know if sailors can smoke on an aircraft carrier, but with all that gas and bombs around, it seems like a no-brainer to ban it.

As a former Air Force brat, I remember the horrific stench of stale smoke in the AF office buildings. My parents were about the only adults I knew who didn't smoke. I bought my 72 Dodge in the 1980's, and it still smells like cigarettes.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#119

Post by [deleted] »

Sebguer wrote: post #36
-warren wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Story time. Last summer I flew from ATL to SFO on a brand new Airbus. Pretty cool plane! Halfway across the count I had the obligatory restroom break. In the head, I noticed an ashtray. I was confused -- "smoking has been banned in planes doe decades. Why is there an ashtray here?" I flagged down a flight attendant and asked them. Their answer was that yes smoking is banned, and it's a $250 fine. But EVERY SINGLE TRI…

It's actually mandated by the FAA that an ashtray be present in the restrooms: > (g) Regardless of whether smoking is allowed in any other part of the airplane, lavatories must have self-contained, removable ashtrays located conspicuously on or near the entry side of each lavatory door, except that one ashtray may serve more than one lavatory door if the ashtray can be seen readily from the cabin side of each lavator…

[deleted]

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#120

Post by gwbas1c »

c7b wrote: post #84
gwbas1c wrote: post #42

One interesting lesson from airships is about disruption and how people take old assumptions into new paradigms. Today we're used to being on plans for short periods of time. We get on, sit down, wait, and then arrive at our destination. Airships came about when long distance travel meant you were spending multiple days in a vehicle, either a train or boat. An airship was a place that was set up for you to spend a fe…

I felt a bit similar about electric cars with a trunk in the front where the engine would sit in an ICE car. But that's more about esthetic expectations, like the first cars looked similar to horse carriages.

I've lost count of the number of people who I've had to explain that, on long trips, you don't "stop to charge." You charge where you stop to poop.
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