The first international Zeppelin airship cruise since the 1930s took off from Cardington's historic hangars today (Thursday, August 28).

Aerwin's Zeppelin NT holds ten passengers and will take around four hours to fly across Bedfordshire towards London, across the English Channel towards Calais, then Dunkirk and Gent before landing in Brussels, Belgium.

The airship will then continue on to its final destination in Valkenburg near The Hague in The Netherlands.

Katharine Board, 33, is the Zeppelin's pilot. She said: "I learned to fly planes just after school, but I have never really wanted to fly them as they seemed a bit boring, they practically fly themselves.

"Airships are completely different. Most other aircraft fly by numbers, everything is very set. Airships are the only aircraft left where you fly by feel, or by the seat of your pants.

"This airship is even more special, the designers have taken all the problems of former airships and solved them. This one has an internal structure so the engines are mounted higher up, making it quieter for passengers, more manoeuvrable and it is able to hover on one exact spot."

The Zeppelin's launch is the first of its kind since the Graf Zeppelin landed at the airfield in April 1930 and was moored next to the infamous R100 airship, which was developed at Cardington.

The new airship is the fourth of its kind to be built since the Zeppelin Luftschifftecknik company returned to designing the giant cruisers in the 1990s.

The other three airships are based in Africa, Japan and Germany.

Zeppelin NT facts

1. Standing at 64ft tall and 246ft long, it is around the same size as a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

2. It is filled with enough helium to fill 250,000
balloons.

3. The cruise from Cardington to The
Netherlands costs £5,183 per passenger.

4. Each Zeppelin NT costs around £8 million to develop and build.

5. Each of the airship's three engines
produces 200 horse power and can fly 1,000 miles without being refuelled.

6. The Zeppelin's top speed is 78mph, but it
normally cruises at around 40mph.