Seems like controlling a huge balloon would be a little challenging.
In: Engineering
The thing is, they were not precise at all. They could not be manuevered anywhere near as accurately as needed for docking.
So what they did was drop a whole bunch of ropes to the ground, and the ground crew would run and grab those ropes and pull the airship into docking position. It was very dangerous work and many ground workers died in the process.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooring_mast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooring_mast)
The blimp drops a rope and the ground crew secures it to the mooring mast.
I got a see a Goodyear Blimp land at my small town’s airport once. It is a large airship, but it seems that it just takes small control inputs and takes its time to move, slow and steady.
Takeoff:
Accelerate into the wind to generate some lift, hope that all of the guys on the mooring ropes let go at the same time
Landing:
Head into the wind, have a couple hundred guys grabbing ropes to guide you down and against the mooring mast
When docked:
There are purpose built hangers (like those at Cardington)
If there isn’t one most usually you will be bow on to a mooring mast and pivot in the wind like a weather vane
In both cases though you can’t just park it and walk away. You still need to adjust buoyancy as temperature and pressure change and be careful of storms and gusts as things can go wrong
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zr3nearvertical.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zr3nearvertical.jpg)
The big zeppelins like the Hindenburg weren’t one giant “balloon. There were 11 different inflatable sacks surrounded by a protective layer.
They could add or remove air from any individual air sack – or empty all at the same time to descend straight down.
They also carried a large amount of water ballast that they could drop when needed.
Either way there still weren’t “manoeuvrable” in any useful way
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