I find Ric’s analysis and commentary very illuminating and persuasive, as usual, no surprise there.
I do have a question, just for clarification, since for me Physics 100 was 62 years ago. Ric wrote, “So, unbeknownst to anyone, the ship was grounded.” He then goes on to say that the airship became, in effect, a giant capacitor, which was an important point in the explanation proposed and supported by the experimentation reported in the video. But the key point was that in order for the ship to become a capacitor it must have two
electrically separated components, one of which, the frame, became grounded by the mooring ropes, whereas the other, the skin, did not, thus creating the capacitor effect, the difference in electrical charge between the frame and the skin that built up and in a few minutes produced the sparking between the frame and the skin that ignited the leaking hydrogen.
Isn’t the main point here NOT that the
entire airship was grounded by the ropes, but rather that the ropes grounded only
part of the ship, the frame to which they were attached, leaving the skin, the other electrically separate part, still ungrounded?
The frame and the skin were the two electrically separate parts of the ship, according to the Nova program. It would have been helpful for me to have their explanation of how the normal landing procedure, involving the mooring mast, managed to ground both the frame and the skin at the same time, or nearly so, thereby averting the hypothesized sparking that in combination with the hydrogen leak doomed the Hindenburg.
(I wrote and posted the above before seeing Marty's post, but I think I am addressing some of his points.)
Evening addendum: The following article has more details, provided in quotations from Prof. Konstantinos Giapis, the Cal Tech professor of chemical engineering who conducted the investigation:
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster