LZ-138

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The LZ 138 is a fictitious, otherwise nameless Zeppelin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which Indiana Jones and his father, Henry Jones Sr. go aboard to escape from Nazi Germany after recovering Henry Jones Sr.'s Holy Grail diary. Prior to taking off, the SS Colonel Vogel finds them, Indy punches the Nazi out the open window of the zeppelin and he falls into a pile of luggage boxes. Later the zeppelin turns around after being informed of having the "American consipirators" aboard. Indy and his father find a plane that is connected to an outward attachment to the zeppelin in which they escape.

1 Appearance
2 Reality
3 Origin
4 Sources

[edit] Appearance

The LZ 138 appears to be the same type as that of the ill fated LZ 129 Hindenburg. However it has an attachment piece for an airplane, which is like that of 1930s American airships.

[edit] Reality

There was no airship LZ 138, the last German airship produced was the LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II in 1938, the same year as the film takes place. However, after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, passenger airship flights ended by 1938 and the Graf Zeppelin II was used as a propaganda machine for the Third Reich and later as a spy aircraft over Great Britain in 1939 and by 1940 dismantled. Once more the Graf Zeppelin II had pull-propellers rather than the push-propellors seen on the Hindenburg and on the fictitious LZ 138.

[edit] Origin

"138" is most likely a reference to George Lucas early film THX-1138. This title appears as "easter eggs" in different forms in many of his subsequent movies. The hot rod of one of the main characters in American Grafitti has the license plate 'THX 138'.