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Died. Dr. Hugo Eckener, 86, next to the late Count Ferdinand Zeppelin the greatest dirigible expert in aviation's history; of a heart ailment; in Friedrichshafen, Germany. A onetime journalist, stolid Aeronaut Eckener joined Count Zeppelin in 1909, worked fanatically to prove his conviction that the lighter-than-air ship was safer, more practical than the airplane, saw his dream explode with the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, N.J. in 1937. Self-taught, he developed uncanny skill as a pilot (Said a friend: "He was born knowing what the weather would be"), captained the Graf Zeppelin in its triumphal round-the-world flight in 1929, won a hatful of aeronautical medals and international homage until the Hindenburg disaster and the opposition of the Nazis ruined his airship and him. He spent his last years as a lonely, bitter, jet-age misfit.