Sometimes the internet and gaming is just pleasant and wholesome for a short time and this might just be one of those moments.
In March Red Wing Simulations launched its LZ129 airship for Microsoft Flight Simulator – the LZ129 is most famously known for being the Hindenburg – still one of aviation’s most infamous accidents in New Jersey in 1937. Now, for the past two days, flight simmer PzKpfwIIIAusfL/Lina going by the name of The Zeppelin Girl has been attempting to recreate its famous journey from Frankfurt to the USA in real-time. A flight that was expected to take some 30 hours but with the winds and weather they have faced, plus a couple of technical difficulties is now looking like a 50-hour journey.
Keeping masses of loyal followers up to date on the journey with screenshots and flight updates, fans are able to track the flight Flight Radar style on a webpage called Volanta.
At the time of writing the flight is just south of Newfoundland approaching Nova Scotia. 19 hours or so again, The Zeppelin Girl estimated she had about 35 hours to go on this historic ‘first to cross the Atlantic in this ship’ journey.
Posting on Reddit the latest update reads, “She’s still floating! More or less on course, I’ll expect to land in the next ~35 hours.
What happened so far? After the sunset on the French-German border yesterday evening, I was graced with a fault on the gyrocompass which I used for navigation. Luckily I noticed it on time so my course deviation was not too far. From now on, I needed to rely on crew commands to more or less stay on course. With an accuracy of 20°, course deviations are definitely to be expected.
After about 10 hours in, the power went out. It seemed to be an issue with the Generator, but the backup Generator didn’t help here. I tried to figured out the problem together with the Redwing development team, but they are still unsure/working on the issue. Luckily, the flight controls are all mechanical and the engines are Diesel ones, so it’s just the passengers who have to give up electrical light and some other amenities on their flights…
I’m kinda being blown around over the Pacific but the winds favour me. I’m a bit worried about my fuel reserves at the moment, but I should at least make it to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia so if all else fails I can perform an enroute landing to fuel up.”
This virtual journey has captured the imaginations of many other flight simmers, if only for the amount of time it is taking to complete.
If you want to follow along with the final stages and see if the Hindenburg makes it, you can do so on this direct link to the flight path.
