Keying off the threads on Buoyant (YC S21)[1][2], and Hansard being the official record of UK parliament discussions, this is interesting material from the 1930s after the crash of the British R101 airship[3], and including the man who headed up the inquiry. They're discussing the use of airships in WWI both by Germany and by the Allies, the reliability and running cost of them, what to do with the remaining R100 and the Cardington Royal Airship Works, the whether airships have valid commercial or military uses, the bases in Egypt and India, etc.
e.g.
> "We know that the fabric is a cause of endless difficulty. No fabric, I believe, has been found which will resist cold weather and hot weather simultaneously. Conceive of that as a difficulty to begin with, and then think of the wear and tear of a ship of that size—greater and greater the bigger the ship. We are creating this delicate as well as costly Colossus, for what purpose?
> [...] the lifting value and power of one of these ships. It is very small. Once it has been able to lift its engines, its crew, its food, its fuel, very little is left for anything else. Therefore, you have vast ships created to carry commodities of the weight, say, of 30 tons, or even only a dozen tons, in a ship of the capacity of the R 101. There is no room for any further commodities, and, even if there were, there is no certainty of any flight taking place. How do you know when you are going to launch one of these great ships into the air?
> It is far too expensive for the ordinary merchant to trust his commodities to a ship about which there is no time-table and no certainty as to when it can leave or where it is going to land. I recollect hon. Members of this House travelling to the middle of England in order to sit for hours waiting for a trip in an airship, and, if hon. Members of this great and distinguished House were kept waiting, what about less important people? There is no question whatever that nobody could afford to risk putting their treasured goods upon a large airship in order to be carried into the unknown.
> These big airships would be a medium of travel for millionaires on freak voyages, not to where they wanted to go, but to where the airship could safely travel"
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 15.2 ms ] threade.g.
> "We know that the fabric is a cause of endless difficulty. No fabric, I believe, has been found which will resist cold weather and hot weather simultaneously. Conceive of that as a difficulty to begin with, and then think of the wear and tear of a ship of that size—greater and greater the bigger the ship. We are creating this delicate as well as costly Colossus, for what purpose?
> [...] the lifting value and power of one of these ships. It is very small. Once it has been able to lift its engines, its crew, its food, its fuel, very little is left for anything else. Therefore, you have vast ships created to carry commodities of the weight, say, of 30 tons, or even only a dozen tons, in a ship of the capacity of the R 101. There is no room for any further commodities, and, even if there were, there is no certainty of any flight taking place. How do you know when you are going to launch one of these great ships into the air?
> It is far too expensive for the ordinary merchant to trust his commodities to a ship about which there is no time-table and no certainty as to when it can leave or where it is going to land. I recollect hon. Members of this House travelling to the middle of England in order to sit for hours waiting for a trip in an airship, and, if hon. Members of this great and distinguished House were kept waiting, what about less important people? There is no question whatever that nobody could afford to risk putting their treasured goods upon a large airship in order to be carried into the unknown.
> These big airships would be a medium of travel for millionaires on freak voyages, not to where they wanted to go, but to where the airship could safely travel"
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28278515
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28331686
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R101