Schreiber-Bogen Airship Hindenburg D-LZ 129 Card Model

The quality of the printing and the paper is excellent. There is a surprising amount of detail. I was impressed with the double sided printing; the framework should be barely visible through the skin once assembled.

It's as advertised. The person I gifted it to is absolutely thrilled.

Appears to be a high quality paper kit. Unfortunately the instructions are in a foreign language. The English portions are too vague to follow rendering this kit useless.

This is the most highly detailed model of the Hindenburg Airship that I have seen offered at a sane price. It would be well worth the investment of time and energy to build this and to do it well. If you're a stickler for details, purchase the book, Zeppelin Hindenburg: An Illustrated History of LZ-129, right here on Amazon, for an excellent pictorial guide for detailing the outer hull.I've read everything I can get my hands on regarding Zeppelin Airships since 1975, and what I'd like to offer here is a clearer explanation of the "helium issue". For the record, the Germans never officially asked the United States for helium gas until after the Hindenburg disaster occurred. The safety record of passenger Zeppelins operating on hydrogen gas had been impeccable for decades. The Hindenburg's predecessor, the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, had achieved many aeronautical firsts, and safely carried its passengers for more than a million miles. The Zeppelin Company's decision makers felt "safe" operating with Hydrogen, and I can see why.While it's true that the LZ-129 Hindenburg was designed with the premise of operating on fire-proof helium, it is also true that the Zeppelin Company never officially asked the United States for the gas. Why? Because helium was and is expensive, whereas hydrogen is readily available and cheap.And yes, hydrogen is explosive when mixed with air, but the Zeppelin operators believed, and for good reason, that they could operate safely using hydrogen gas. In fact, it was said that a hydrogen-filled zeppelin was at least as safe as a gasoline-filled airplane.The next issue is "lift". Helium has about 92% the lift of hydrogen, and when you're working with the kinds of numbers and variables involved in such a mammoth airship, that 8% of additional lift is significant.As depicted on the product page, the Hindenburg is as it appeared at the start of the 1937 season. Gone are the interlocking Olympic Rings featured in the 1936 season, and new are the passenger cabin windows added to B-Deck. During the winter layover, additional, more deluxe passenger cabins were added to the Hindenburg, each with its own window (see picture).The original passenger cabins were all inboard, on A-Deck, and lacked windows. The point being, you don't add passenger cabins and plan to carry additional weight if you're planning on switching to a gas with less lift. The Zeppelin Company was satisfied with operating with hydrogen.It should be noted too that the Hindenburg carried mail and cargo, and operated service to South America during the winter. Cars, airplanes, live animals, were all successfully carried. In 1936 and 37, the fastest way to get cargo and mail across the North Atlantic, or deep into South America was the Hindenburg, or its forerunner, the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin. These ships were the fastest alternatives then available.You will often hear that the Hindenburg was the largest aircraft ever to fly. Well, what about its sister ship--the LZ-130--also called the Graf Zeppelin? The LZ-130 was built to the same dimensions as the Hindenburg. So, the pair of them, LZ-129 and LZ-130, were the two largest aircraft ever to fly. Included in the LZ-130, in lieu of the Hindenburg disaster, were modifications made to operate the ship using helium. Sadly, after the Hindenburg accident, both the LZ127 and LZ130 were grounded, and eventually dismantled. At this point, well after the Hindenburg disaster, it is true that the US had no interest in selling helium to Germany (and I can understand their reasoning at the time).Don't get me wrong. That the Germans built and flew ships like the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg just blows me away! Both ships were engineering triumphs in their day, and their histories make for some very satisfying reading! If time travel were possible, I'd want to book passage on both the LZ-127 and LZ-129, just avoiding that fateful date in 1937. I have been and remain a huge fan of the Zeppelin Airship.For an objective account and analysis of the Hindenburg Disaster see Hindenburg: The Untold Story (available on You Tube as: Hindenburg - Titanic of the Skies).For a fine read on the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, see DR. ECKENER'S DREAM MACHINE, available right here on Amazon.RayB

Nice to see this is still available. I built one years ago and it was a BEAR to build, but incredibly impressive hanging form my ceiling since the finished model is 4 feet long! The hardest parts are scoring the sides and folding them evenly and then shaping the whole thing into a smooth cylinder. Shaping both the nose and tail are also tough to get right, but well worth the effort. I also built a 5' paper model of the TITANIC around the same time but even with that ship's little detailed parts [and there are roughly twice as many on the TITANIC than on this one], the HINDENBURG was still more difficult.

Very well put together. However it's quite difficult to do. It's of good quality.

Wer glaubt, es sei ein Leichtes, dieses Luftschiff zusammen zu bauen, da man sich aufgrund seiner Größe nicht die Finger verbiegen könne, der irrt leider!Tatsächlich sind den Bögen nämlich auch Teile für das Interieur des Fahrgastraumes [Promenaden, Lounge und Speisesaal] und der Führergondel mit gegeben. Allerdings sieht man davon nach dem Zusammenbau nicht mehr allzu viel; Die Tische und Stühle, die man hinter den Separées entlang der Promenaden ohnehin nicht mehr sieht, habe ich getrost ausgelassen.Auch bei den Motorgondeln habe ich es bei den großen Teilen bewenden lassen.Wichtiger war mir eher die Beleuchtung des Zeppelins mit Hilfe von LED-Lichterketten. In diesem Punkt bietet dieses Modell wegen seiner Größe einen enormen Vorteil. Die Flächen für die Fenster wurden mit einem Skalpell herausgelöst und durch Klarsichtteile ersetzt. Zuvor wurde noch die gesamte Außenhaut von innen mit schwarzer Akrylfarbe verkleistert.Das gibt ein imposantes Bild ab und man kann sich bei diesem Anblick gewiss vorstellen, wie die ,,Hindenburg" nachts, vom Boden aus gesehen, gewirkt haben muss.

Das ist kein Papiermodell für Anfänger! Das sollte ich schnell erfahren. In meiner Kindheit baute ich Papier-Flugzeugmodelle faktisch in Serie und ohne Probleme. Aber die Hindenburg wollte einfach nicht gelingen, meine Bastelei kam über die ersten zwei Sektionen nicht hinaus, sie sahen einfach schrecklich aus, was mit Sicherheit nicht am Schreiber-Bogen lag. Also, ich gebe gern fünf Sterne für das Produkt. Aber seien Sie penibel, arbeiten Sie langsam und sehr sehr sorgfältig, dann haben Sie auch Freude an diesem eindrucksvollem Modell!

Fine printed detail on both sides of skin. My previous experience was using balsa wood skeleton for the aircraft covered with tissue. This kit needs different skills.

Can be quite tricky and requires some skill in construction, but the end result is stunning.