I really like airships as a concept, but they have a major flaw in any universe where planes exist. A plane is much faster than an airship, so airships must be large enough for the mass transport of goods and people via them to be practical. If a plane can haul 10 people from London to Washington Dc in 10 hours, then an airship needs to be able to haul something more economical. Perhaps 100 people in 24 hours. Assuming some degree of technological stagnation, this consideration can allow a dieselpunk setting to have some degree of economic realism.

I really do like the idea of a world war one era for the technology in my airship setting, but I really do feel like I need to be careful when having planes be a part of the picture.

Similarly, I must make sure to have the combat exciting, and sometimes that means sacrificing realism for the sake of awesome air pirate fights. For example, having people run around on the deck of an airship is more important than whether or not running around on the top of a ship going that fast would actually work.

Thanks for reading this comment. I know it might sound like gibberish, but thinking out loud has really helped me work on my Communist steampunk yaoi. It will be very NSFW and involve themes based around the AIDs epidemic and drug addiction, both of which are subjects near and dear to my heart.