Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine — Douglas Botting

The year 2000 marks the 100th anniversary of the maiden flight of the first experimental Zeppelin airship. A further 115 giant airships were built and flown by the Zeppelin company (based at Friedrichshafen on the shores of Lake Constance in Germany) - mostly for the purposes of war - but the most successful and best loved was the second to last of them, Dr Hugo Eckener's round-the-world airship, Graf Zeppelin, the dream machine. Based on the reports and recollections of those on board, including Lady Grace Drummond Hay, an attractive young aristocratic English widow, and the man at the heart of the story, the airship's creator and commander Hugo Eckener, the book is both a romantic travel adventure and the story of a great scientific achievement. The Graf Zeppelin was almost as famous in its day as Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis and the Wright brothers'first aeroplane. There are plans afoot in Germany to re-develop the airship, now that the true cause of the famous Hindenberg crash in 1937 has been identified. Based on the Graf Zeppelin's amazing round-the-world flight in 1929 - the first-ever passenger circumnavigation by air - the book tells the story of the Zeppelin airship: one of the most spectacular technological and operational marvels of its age.