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60 free Airships trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This airships trivia quiz covers the whole lighter-than-air story, from Henri Giffard's steam-powered dirigible of 1852 to the semi-rigid Zeppelins that Goodyear still flies over stadiums today. The easy questions ask what a blimp actually is, which gas made early airships so dangerous, where the Hindenburg burned and which company's name became a synonym for rigid airships. From there it moves through the pioneers, the First World War raids on England, the interwar giants and the string of disasters that ended the airship era. The hard end is for people who know their R100 from their R101: the newspaper magnate who paid for the Graf Zeppelin's world flight, the airship that carried its own fighter planes, the count who took his first balloon ride in Minnesota, the pressurised smoking room aboard a hydrogen ship, the only blimp ever shot down by a U-boat and the metal-clad ship that outlasted them all. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on airships, the Zeppelin company, the Hindenburg disaster, the Graf Zeppelin, USS Akron, R100, R101, the Norge and the Goodyear Blimp before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our aviation, World War I and inventions quizzes are natural next stops.
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Q 01What is a non-rigid airship that keeps its shape purely through internal gas pressure called?
Blimp
Blimps have no internal framework at all; smaller air bags called ballonets are inflated or deflated inside the envelope to control lift.
Q 02Which lifting gas, used in most early airships, made them so prone to catastrophic fires?
Hydrogen
It lifts slightly better than helium and was cheap and easy to make, which is why builders kept using it despite the danger.
Q 03The Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937 while trying to land at a naval air station in which US state?
New Jersey
The Lakehurst mooring mast was the American terminus of the Zeppelin company's transatlantic service, and the disaster unfolded in front of newsreel cameras.
Q 04Rigid airships are called 'zeppelins' after a company founded by a count from which country?
Germany
Luftschiffbau Zeppelin built the vast majority of the world's rigid airships, and its founder gave his name to the whole type.
Q 05Which tyre company operates a famous fleet of advertising airships?
Goodyear
The company built hundreds of airships in the 20th century, mostly for the US Navy, before its own commercial fleet made the brand a fixture over stadiums.
Q 06How many of the 97 people aboard the Hindenburg died in the disaster?
35
Thirteen passengers and 22 crew were killed, plus one member of the ground crew; more than 60 people on board survived the fire.
Q 07Herbert Morrison's eyewitness account of the Hindenburg fire was recorded for a radio station in which city?
Chicago
Radio broadcasts were rarely recorded then; Morrison and an engineer had chosen the arrival to experiment with delayed broadcast, which is why his words survived.
Q 08The Hindenburg's namesake field marshal held which Weimar office from 1925 to 1934?
President
Paul von Hindenburg had commanded German forces in the First World War before becoming head of state of the Weimar Republic.
Q 09What activity had a pressurised, air-locked room aboard the flammable Hindenburg?
Smoking
A bar steward checked departing passengers to make sure nobody carried a lit cigarette or pipe back into the rest of the ship.
Q 10What heavy aluminium luxury item was aboard the Hindenburg in 1936 and removed a year later to save weight?
A grand piano
The Blüthner instrument sat in the music salon during the airship's first year of service.
Q 11Henri Giffard's 1852 airship, the first powered and controlled flight, used an engine powered by what?
Steam
The wind was too strong for him to fly back, but he made turns and circles, proving a powered airship could be steered.
Q 12Which Brazilian aviator won 100,000 francs in 1901 by flying his airship around the Eiffel Tower?
Alberto Santos-Dumont
He designed 18 balloons and dirigibles before turning to fixed-wing aircraft, and his small airships inspired a generation of inventors.
Q 13The French Army airship La France made the first fully controllable free flight in 1884 using what motor?
Electric
Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs covered 8 km in 23 minutes and landed where they took off, powered by an 8.5 hp motor and a 435 kg battery.
Q 21Who designed and piloted the airship Norge on its 1926 polar flight?
Umberto Nobile
The airship was originally the Italian N-1; it was renamed when the Norwegian Aviation Society bought it for the expedition.
Q 22USS Shenandoah (1923) was the first airship inflated with which then-scarce gas?
Helium
When the USS Los Angeles arrived, the two ships had to share the supply and alternated between flying and overhaul.
Q 23What aircraft did the flying aircraft carrier USS Akron launch and recover in flight?
Sparrowhawk fighters
The Curtiss F9C biplanes hooked onto a trapeze lowered from a hangar inside the hull.
Q 14In what year did the first Zeppelin, LZ 1, make its maiden flight?
1900
The flawed LZ 1 was followed by the more successful LZ 2 in 1906, launching the most successful line of airships ever built.
Q 15Count Zeppelin made his first balloon ascent in 1863 while visiting which country as a military observer?
United States
After observing the Union army during the Civil War he travelled to Minnesota, where he went up with balloonist John Steiner in St. Paul.
Q 16During the First World War, in which year did German airship raids on England begin?
1915
The raids peaked in 1916, and the last one came in August 1918; the material damage was small but they tied up British resources.
Q 17What British innovation of 1916 finally made the flammable Zeppelins vulnerable to fighter aircraft?
Incendiary and explosive ammunition
Ordinary bullets simply punched small holes in envelopes whose pressure was barely above ambient air.
Q 18Which ship launched the world's first successful carrier air strike, on the Zeppelin base at Tønder in 1918?
HMS Furious
Seven Sopwith Camels flew off the ship and destroyed L 54 and L 60 in their sheds.
Q 19Which British airship made the first Atlantic crossing by a passenger aircraft in July 1919, landing on Long Island?
R34
The return flight took 75 hours; despite the achievement, Britain's airship programme was rapidly wound down.
Q 20The Italian-built semi-rigid Norge, in May 1926, was the first aircraft to fly over which location?
The North Pole
Roald Amundsen, designer Umberto Nobile and American Lincoln Ellsworth crossed from Spitsbergen to Alaska on the flight.
Q 24Why did the 1933 loss of USS Akron kill 73 of the 76 people aboard?
It carried no lifeboats and few life vests
Most died of drowning or hypothermia; life jackets and inflatable rafts were added to its sister ship Macon as a result.
Q 25USS Macon was lost in 1935 after a structural failure off the coast of which US state?
California
It went down near Point Sur Lighthouse; only two of its 83 crew died thanks to the safety gear added after the Akron disaster.
Q 26The USS Akron and Macon still hold the world record as the largest airships filled with which gas?
Helium
At 785 feet they were only about 18 feet shorter than the Hindenburg class, but the German ships were hydrogen-filled.
Q 27The 1930 crash of the British airship R101 on its maiden voyage to India happened near which French town?
Beauvais
Forty-eight of the 54 people aboard died, including the Air Minister who had championed the programme, and Britain gave up on airships.
Q 28Which government minister, who initiated the Imperial Airship Scheme, was killed on R101?
Lord Thomson
Almost all of the ship's designers from the Royal Airship Works died with him.
Q 29Which engineer, later famous for the bouncing bomb, headed the R100 airship's design team?
Barnes Wallis
Novelist Nevil Shute Norway worked under him as senior stress engineer, and later wrote about the project.
Q 30R100 successfully flew to and from which country in 1930 before the whole scheme was scrapped?
Canada
After R101 crashed that October, the Imperial Airship Scheme ended and R100 was broken up for scrap.