There is a further twist in that the only US rigid airship that did not crash, the Los Angeles, was built by the Zeppelin company specifically for the US Navy after WW1, in an agreement to pay down reparations. The Shenandoah may have been based on the wartime height-climbers, but I don&#x27;t think the Akron and Macon were.<p>You are right about the Graf Zeppelin being a great success, but I have wondered how much that depended on Hugo Eckener&#x27;s good judgment about when and where to fly.