German Empire, German Republic, Nazi Germany

9 Airliners

Intro:

While the age of the airship has long since passed, these aircraft were involved in a nearly 30 year battle for aerial supremacy with the airplane. This competition would lay the foundations for modern air travel and, as the railway once did, change humanity’s conceptions of space. The Zeppelins of the DELAG airline earned the honor of being the first aircraft to regularly fly passengers, and to be the first to offer transatlantic air service from Europe to the Americas. While the destruction of the Hindenburg, operated by the DZR, spelled the end for passenger airship travel, DELAG’s airships had defined modern air travel with a near spotless safety record.

The Count

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born in the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1838 as the second of three brothers to a fairly unremarkable aristocratic family. His father was an aristocratic native of the region and his mother being of French-Swiss descent. As a child, Ferdinand was educated by a tutor hired by his family before joining the Army at age 15 in 1858. He saw no action in the Franco-Austrian war in 1859, and in the peace before the Kingdom was embroiled in the wars of German unification, Zeppelin would continue his education. He took courses at the Stuttgart Polytechnic institute, the University of Tubingen, and the Royal War College. Zeppelin was an odd character, traditional, curious, fascinated with machines, and equal parts ambitious and stubborn.

He was far more adept in terms of his technical knowledge than other aristocrats, with engineering typically being reserved for young men of the middle class. Zeppelin, however, could not be considered a true engineer owing to the broadness of his studies. His formal education would end in 1861 when he began to travel Europe at the behest of the Army, observing the armies of foreign nations. He would travel to Austria, Italy, and France before finally making his way to the Americas, then embroiled in civil war.

This journey, however, was a personal venture, the young Lieutenant Zeppelin having taken leave to see the conflict. He would arrive in Washington DC in 1863 where he acquired permission to travel with the Union Army after a meeting with President Lincoln. Zeppelin soon found himself in the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac in May, and was disappointed soon after. In short, apart from an impromptu escape from a Confederate cavalry patrol in Ashley Gap, Virginia, his experiences with the Union army were dull and uninformative. He felt that their ways of fighting were clumsy and dated, and that the openness and frankness of officers with their superiors was unprofessional and unwarranted. It seemed the entirety of the trip seemed a loss, militarily he found no new lessons or methods to be found with the Army of the Potomac. This was until he encountered Professor John Steiner, an aeronaut who formerly flew as a balloon observer in the service of the Union army.

By this time, the balloon had become a valuable, though uncommon, tool of the Union army, and a ride for thrill seekers. Steiner flew his balloon the ‘Hercules’ for the public after serving with the Union’s balloon corps. The Bavarian born aeronaut met Zeppelin in Saint Louis during the former’s diversion to see the Great Lakes. The two had very little in common apart from their first language and an interest in technology, which quickly sparked a long conversation over balloons and their operation. They spoke of the difficulties and limitations of the existing spherical balloon, which had to be tethered, lest it be carried off by the wind, and was almost impossible to keep them oriented in anything but the most mild weather.

With the end of their conversation, Zeppelin was eager to set off in the balloon. So eager in fact, that he purchased much of Saint Louis’ supply of coal gas to ensure his fight, to the annoyance of its residents. The two took to the sky on August 19, 1863, rising to around 55 meters. In the air, Zeppelin was not amazed or awestruck by the feeling of flight, in fact he never would be, but he saw in it both an immense promise and a series of problems to be solved. To the aerial observer, every detail of the landscape was revealed, and to a military man like Zeppelin, its value was evident and extraordinary. However, it wasn’t without its drawbacks. To his frustration, the balloon had to remain tethered, as uncertain winds could take the balloon any number of directions and Steiner didn’t believe they had enough coal gas for a long flight. The two would part ways after the flight; Steiner would later design and build his own portable hydrogen generator, and Zeppelin would return to Württemberg to resume his service with the army.

Zeppelin wouldn’t fly again for forty years and by the time he had returned home, he had largely thought the issues surrounding balloon flight were yet unsolvable. The Lieutenant would return to his homeland facing the Prussians, who were then seeking to establish their hegemony over their neighbors in a new central German state. Zeppelin was promoted to Captain and an aide-de-camp to the King in 1866. He would see no action, and witnessed the loss of the Austrian led coalition. Zeppelin remained in the army after the loss and was later married to baroness Isabella von Wolff.

With the start of the Franco-Prussian war, Captain Zeppelin was once again called into service, and with some good fortune, placed back on the path to aeronautics. Zeppelin would see action in this war, in the form of a daring, if brutal cavalry mission which saw everyone in his unit except him, killed or captured. He was subsequently honored by his homeland of Württemberg, and met with a decidedly cold reception by the Prussians, with whom he had developed a growing antipathy towards. However, Zeppelin’s key moment of the war came at the outskirts of Paris.

When the war had been decidedly lost for the French, the capital remained a brave, but doomed, holdout. As Zeppelin waited on the outskirts of the city with the rest of the Prussian-led coalition, he noted the many balloons that departed the city. Numerous French aeronauts made flights out of the city, carrying news and letters out with them. Zeppelin once again saw the drawbacks of the balloons, the wind drew them in random directions, though most landed in friendly territory. He would still regard the balloon as questionable at best, and though he would take note of their ability to drift over the blockade safely, he lamented that they were totally unnavigable.

After the war Zeppelin remained with the army, being given command of the 15th Schleswig-Holstein Uhlans. For many years, he expected that this would be the end to the most exciting chapters of his life and prepared himself for a relaxing, if uneventful retirement. In all likelihood this would have happened, had it not been for a riding accident on March 18, 1874 (Robinson 9-13, Rose 3-12).

The Dream

After a particularly violent fall from his horse, Zeppelin was placed on several weeks of sick leave. During his recovery a fellow staff officer had come to deliver his well wishes, and some reading material, which included a pamphlet from the head of the new Imperial Post Office entitled World Postal Services and Airship Travel. The pamphlet, and a subsequent lecture Zeppelin attended, would set his imagination running. Soon he would begin accumulating basic airship concepts, though these early ideas proved very crude. Such was the case for a large airship which controlled its altitude solely through dynamic lift, and no ballast. However, from this early point he would also conceptualize the use of a rigid hull formed from rings and longitudinal beams which would contain a number of individual gas cells. Several features, like propulsion, were simply omitted as they had not yet been developed. It is curious that Zeppelin conceived of his first vessels without a way to move them, but in a period of such rapid technological development as the late 19th century, it was not an unreasonable assumption that the problem would be solved soon enough (Robinson 14). In Zeppelin’s case, the ‘suitable prime mover’ that his first concept used, materialized in less than a decade when Daimler produced the first series of reliable gasoline internal combustion engines.

Perhaps most crucially of all, Zeppelin understood the airship would operate as a series of independent components which could be developed, and improved upon separately. Its hull structure, gas cells, control systems, and propulsion could and would be developed in turn.

These developments, however, would be stalled for some years following the birth of his daughter, Hella, and his return to military service. This hiatus would only end with the end of the Count’s military career. By this time, the German Empire had only existed for some few years, and its second sovereign, Wilhelm II, was defined mostly by his insecurities and petulence. His greatest irritation were those in the Empire who still held to their regional identities and allegiances to their local Kingdoms and Duchies, over the Prussian dominated Empire. In this way Zeppelin found himself labeled a ‘peculiarist’ by the Emperor after he submitted a report in which he wished that the Army of Wurttemberg would retain a degree of autonomy and that its King not simply become a rubber stamp for the governing of the Empire. These sentiments instantly made him an enemy of the Emperor, and despite a glowing review from General Von Heuduck after the Imperial War Games of 1890, he was dressed down by the Prussian General Von Kleist in front of his fellow officers (Rose 19). At fifty two, his career was over and in its place was a desire to restore his name and all the time he needed to pursue what he’d set aside years ago, building airships.

Following his forced retirement, Zeppelin soon confined himself to private study on pursuing the airship. However, beyond his desire for restoring his name, he also worked against what he saw was the newest and greatest threat to Germany, French airships. Having previously written to the king of Wurttemberg over the success of the airship La France in 1887, he was now focused on designing an aerial warship to combat it. With his declaration of ‘help me build the airship for Germany’s defense and security!’ he established his own airship development firm in 1891 (Robinson 15).

Zeppelin’s firm rapidly sent out requests for engineers, manufacturers, and workers to begin his work. Additionally, he also began a correspondence with General Alfred von Schlieffen, who directed him to the Prussian Aeronautic Battalion, the best hope for getting military interest in the airship. Zeppelin’s contact with Capt. Rudolf von Tschudi of the PAB was cordial, but to found he would need to provide an approved design before funding would be forthcoming for the project (Robinson 15). Zeppelin’s first major design was led by Theodore Kober, a twenty-four year old engineer formerly employed by the Riedinger balloon factory. It was almost entirely unworkable, with the two being far too inexperienced to carry out the project successfully. The airship was designed with a layout akin to a train, with a locomotive section at its front, being 117 m in diameter, 5.5 m in length, and with a volume of 9514 cubic meters. When the design was reviewed on March 10, 1894, Cpt. Hans Gross and Maj. Stephan von Neiber of the PAB, and Muller-Breslau of the technical college at Charlottenburg, would point out the design was unworkable for countless reasons. Zeppelin refused to accept the verdict and railed against his critics, only abating when Muller-Breslau agreed to consult with him on improving the design. The resultant airship presented a length of 134 m with a 13 m diameter, its hull was cigar shaped, and its hemispherical ends were replaced with tapering ones. Despite being at first very grateful for Muller-Breslau’s much needed assistance, Zeppelin never openly credited him for his work. Zeppelin would prove a difficult man to work with, and for Breslau, this was likely a better outcome as the count often took criticism very personally and rarely, if ever, forgave a slight. Zeppelin would harbor an intense and abiding hatred in the aforementioned Capt., later major, Hans Gross, who among other things, openly supported an unsubstantiated rumor that Zeppelin had appropriated the work of the then deceased aviator, David Schwartz. A duel between the two men was only stopped by the Emperor’s intervention (Robinson 22 Rose 50).

With the shape of the airship decided, what lay ahead were the no less important practical duties of building the firm’s manufacturing base, and finances. In short, Zeppelin’s airship was to be paid for mostly by his own fundraising efforts, with his joint stock company being established in 1898, to which he paid 300,000 of the 800,000 raised. The airship’s engines were among the first major steps forward for the program, with the Count having been in contact with the up and coming Wilhelm Maybach of DMG. The correspondence between the two would result in Zeppelin’s access to the new Phoenix engine, a two cylinder engine which included a spray-nozzle carburetor and a camshaft for controlling the exhaust valves. The lightweight engine was among the most advanced internal combustion engines in the world at the time, and by 1900 it would produce 16 horsepower. The engine however, was not so much as chosen for the project, as to boost the confidence in the effort overall, as the final design would use a different model. The design team was also shaken up with Kober’s departure after the airship’s redesign, Zeppelin was fond of the optimistic young engineer, but recognized that his inexperience made it impossible to head the project. In his place came Ludwig Dürr, a solitary, humorless, 22 year old engineer. Dürr was initially derided for his eccentricities, but his talents soon revealed themselves and he outshone everyone at the firm. Such were his abilities that he became the only employee to openly disagree with Zeppelin (Rose 54). In this first project however, his tasks were focused on the fabrication and construction of the airship, most of which had already been designed when he arrived at the firm.

Possessing the best power plants available, a workable design proposal, and a very capable engineer to head the project, Zeppelin prepared to begin the work itself. The site of construction and testing was to be Manzell, Baden-Württemberg, which sat on the Bodensee, a serene lake whose shores were spread between Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The final construction and housing of the airship was to be done within a floating hangar on the lake. Zeppelin believed water landings were much safer, and the hangar, which was to be anchored at only one end, would be able to turn with the wind, which was a considerable safety feature. At the time, the hangar was the largest wooden building in the world, which amusingly enough, was secured only by a chain which anchored it to a 41 ton concrete slab at the bottom of the lake. Construction began on June 17, 1898 with components arriving from across Germany. The airship’s aluminum frame was supplied by the Berg factory in Ludenscheid, its gas cells came from the August Riedinger balloon factory in Augsburg, the engines were shipped in from the Daimler works at Carnstatt, its gas storage tanks came from the Rhine Metal works, and its hydrogen came from the Griesheim-Elektron chemical company from the city which was its namesake (Robinson 23, Rose 54).

Humble Beginnings

The construction of Luftschiff Zeppelin 1 was an arduous task which took almost two years. Zeppelin himself was involved in ensuring nearly every part of the vessel matched its specifications and that the components he was shipped were of acceptable quality. Safety was a top priority, one that kept the 62 year old count at the firm ten hours a day for nearly the entire duration of the construction process. When completed, the airship measured 128 m and 11.7 m in diameter, its hull was composed of 24 longitudinal beams connecting 16 rings, each composed of 24 beams which were bolted together and supported by bracing cables. This hull framework was made of aluminum, which easily made it the most expensive component, as the mass production of aluminum was not yet economical. Its lift and altitude control was achieved by means of 17 cylindrical hydrogen cells with a combined volume of 11298 cubic meters, in combination with water ballast. To propel it, the airship carried a pair of Daimler 4 cylinder gasoline engines which each produced 14.2 horsepower, and were connected to two pairs of two bladed propellers through a set of bevel gears and shafts. These engines were carried in a pair of aluminum control cars in which the crew sat, with the forward car equipped with controls for the gas cells and the airship’s few control surfaces.

Controlling the airship was done through two pairs of small rudders, placed fore and aft along the sides of the airship. To control its pitch, there was a weight placed along the narrow walkway between the control cars, which was manually winched between the two to achieve the desired pitch. Climbing was achieved entirely through dumping ballast and some small degree of dynamic lift as the airship was being propelled forward (Robinson 24, Curtis).

The long awaited flight was primed for July, 1900, with the airship being floated at the end of June. Given that only a handful of aviators worldwide had any experience in controlled flight, Zeppelin himself would take the controls. When conditions were prime on July 2nd, the airship was withdrawn from its hangar before the waiting shoreline crowd and a number of onlookers who had arrived in their boats. Along with the more casual onlookers was the head of the PAB, Bart von Sigsfeld. Before all of them, Zeppelin took off his hat and led the crowd in a short prayer before he took a boat to the airship.

Zeppelin was joined in the front car by one of his company’s own mechanics, Eisele, and a personal friend and physicist, Baron Maximillian von Bassus. The rear car would seat the journalist and world traveler Eugene Wolff along with Gross, a Zeppelin company mechanic. The airship was untethered at around 8 in the morning where it was soon trimmed to level flight. The entire flight lasted some 18 minutes, and was cut short by the trimming weight becoming jammed, and the failure of an engine, though neither proved dangerous as level trim could be maintained by venting hydrogen, and the second engine provided enough power for the remainder of the flight. From the floating hangar, the airship traveled to Immenstaad under favorable conditions, with the entire flight spanning around 5 and a half kilometers. Even with these impediments, Zeppelin was able to bring the ship in gently on the surface of the lake before returning to its hangar.

While the crowds were thrilled by the exhibition, the PAB’s response was mixed. While Sigsfeld was thrilled by the demonstration, the other two representatives had understood that while the airship was safe and capable of navigation, its low speed, reportedly between 13-26 kilometers per hour by journalist Hugo Eckener, left it unable to travel in anything by the most placid weather (Robinson 26, Eckener 1). Perhaps of greater concern was the structural damage the airship had sustained during its flight.

The aluminum beams which comprised LZ 1’s hull had warped during its flight, and likely made worse when the wind had pushed the airship ashore after it landed. Unfortunately, the girders had been laid in a manner similar to the first airship concept, and provided little strength against torsional forces and seemed unable to adequately support the weight of the motor-carrying control cars. The airship’s hull was bent upwards at both ends, and was clearly operating on borrowed time. It was reinforced and sent airborne again on September 24, where it flew for an hour and a half, and again for one last time on October 17, where it reached a top speed of 27.3 kilometers an hour and maneuvered well against the wind. These flights, however, failed to convince the military that LZ 1 was much more than a clumsy experiment.

Unable to sell the airship to the army, or even fly his prototype again, Zeppelin dismantled the company, sold its assets, and laid off his staff, save for a handful of specialists. However, to the stubborn Count, this represented a short hurdle to be overcome, and soon he would begin new appeals for funds and resources while the diligent Ludwig Dürr began to design the next airship (Robinson 28).

LZ-2

Even with its limited test flights, LZ 1 had much to teach Zeppelin’s firm on airship construction. Dürr would revise its hull, using triangular section girders that could resist warping in all planes, and they would be built with a zinc-copper-aluminum alloy, instead of soft aluminum. He also reduced the number of sides to each ring section and shortened the overall length of the airship. LZ 2 would be far simpler, and stronger than the first design.

The flimsy and unreliable lead trim weight would also be removed, with pitch control being achieved by added elevators. The small rudders of the first design were also improved, using several parallel sets in a ‘venetian blind arrangement’. Its engines too were massively improved, with Zeppelin having access to Daimler’s new 85 hp motors, which now drove three bladed propellers. Redesigning the airship would prove a surprisingly straightforward process, with each component, the hull, the motors, and the control systems being addressed and improved upon in turn (Robinson 28, 29; Rose 73, 74).

What would not prove as straightforward, was fundraising. While the first airship found a number of financiers, few shared Zeppelin’s stubborn optimism in working toward his second aircraft. The previously reliable Union of German Engineers had become outright hostile towards the Count after the LZ 1 failed to find buyers, and the public was mostly indifferent to the project. The private appeals, which bore a good deal of capital for the first airship began to fail too, bringing in only 8000 marks.

However, the Count would end up finding the money he needed. His prime supporter, King Wilhelm of Wurttemberg, once again came through and authorized a state lottery which brought in 124,000 marks. Surprisingly enough, the Emperor too gave support to the project, after the Kingdom of Prussia initially denied Zeppelin a lottery. He subsequently provided an additional 50,000 marks and instructed the War Ministry to rent hydrogen storage equipment to Zeppelin at low cost. Much in character for WiIlhelm II, his support came not from any generosity or personal interest in the Count, but out of a desire not to be outdone, and thus be under threat, from the new French Lebaudy airships.

 

The remainder of the sum, amounting to about 400,000 marks, was acquired through a mortgage of his family’s properties in Livonia. Along with material assistance from some of his past clients, principally Daimler and Berg, the airship would be built. In all, funding the airship would prove a far greater challenge than designing and building it. While the design work began after LZ 1’s dismantling in 1900, construction would not begin until 1905 (Robinson 29, 30 ; Rose 75).

Zeppelin’s firm began building LZ-2 in April, 1905 at the same wooden shed that housed the first, though it had since been brought to the shoreline. It would be completed in seven months, though a towing accident would see its nose dip into the water, which resulted in damage that wouldn’t see it fly until the beginning of next year. It would seem rather peculiar that Zeppelin would launch the airship during the windiest, and thus most dangerous time of year, but his hand had been forced by world events. The Russian Empire, where his mortgaged estates were located, was crumbling, and the properties held as collateral were destroyed during the 1905 revolution. Zeppelin needed results, and so he raced to launch his airship.

LZ 2 first took flight on January 17, 1906, with the Count once again at the controls, and accompanied by experienced balloonist Hauptman von Krogh, along with five mechanics. Wolff was prohibited from attending after criticizing the performance of the first airship. The flight was conducted extremely early in the morning, and with so little notice, one engineer, Hans Gassau, arrived wearing his slippers. While the weather was permissible, the flight got off to a rough start, as the crew dropped too much ballast water and the airship rose to some 450 m. After some ballast work, the crew achieved equilibrium and leveled off allowing the flight to begin in earnest. Almost immediately the airship demonstrated massive improvements as to its speed and controllability, with the craft reaching an estimated 40 kilometers an hour and demonstrating the ability to navigate in stiff winds.

However, in the midst of this promising flight, a serious problem arose. The airship proved longitudinally unstable, with its nose pitching up and down as it traveled at speed. This motion flooded the Daimler engines, stalling them, and to make matters even worse, the rudders jammed when resisting a harsh crosswind. LZ 2 was soon adrift over the lake, and it would be several agonizing minutes before they were overland and the airship’s drag anchor could be used. As the airship cleared the shore and drifted towards the Allgau mountain range, Zeppelin ordered the anchor dropped. The anchor found purchase in the frozen earth and the momentum of the ship drove it downwards as it resisted the anchor’s hold, bouncing against the ground and slowing it as it passed two local farms. Eventually it halted over nearby marshland, sustaining considerable damage from the ordeal. The crew dismounted the ship, tethered it at both ends, and left to return in the morning. Upon their arrival the following day, they found the ship had been torn to shreds in the night during a windstorm. Being tethered at both ends, the ship remained fixed and unable to turn with the winds, the forces warping the aluminum struts and tearing off wide sections of fabric (Robinson 30-33; Rose 77).

Journalist Hugo Eckener recounted that the old Count was utterly heartbroken, and beside the wreck of his airship claimed it was the end. He ordered LZ 2 dismantled. Eckener naturally thought this the conclusion to his story, which he would continue to believe until some days later, when Count Zeppelin came to visit him. While the Count often detested most of the journalists who covered his experiments, he saw Eckener’s work, which was mostly concerned with engineering, as honest and constructive. He offered to confer with Eckener directly on future projects, and invited him to dinner several days later. Eckener rightly surmised that Zeppelin was prepared to reveal something greater at their next meeting, and he was proved correct. The Count was preparing to develop a new airship to compete with the Prussian Airship Battalion’s semi-rigid design for a new military project (Eckener 12, 13). Eckener readily joined the project both as both a publicist and a consultant, with his position to encompass more of the airship project in the coming years.

While LZ 2 can’t be regarded as more than a cumbersome and tragic project, Zeppelin wasted little time in gathering up the resources to capitalize on the intense military interest that had arisen around the airship.

The Winner

Practically undaunted from the loss of LZ 2, Zeppelin raced to produce a new airship for the army. One might think that the partial success of LZ 1 and the solo-ill fated flight of LZ 2 would have disqualified him, but at this early stage in aviation, Zeppelin was a leading pioneer in airship design. Disqualifying Zeppelin was not an option, and so, he joined the competition alongside August von Perseval, and the Count’s old rival, Gross of the Prussian Airship Battalion. His competitors produced a non-rigid, and a semi rigid airship respectively. However, by the time the Military Airship commision began, Zeppelin was the only aspirant to have already built and flown their design. In this way, he held a considerable advantage ahead of his opponents, despite the military commision being biased towards semi-rigid airships. In many ways, Zeppelin had already won the competition before it had even begun, as his immense technical advantage was cemented by his military background. With his foot in the door, Zeppelin soon received a gift of 100,000 marks from the Emperor, gained 250,000 marks from a Prussian state lottery, and a Government interest-free loan of 100,000 marks (Robinson 31; Rose 90).

Zeppelin’s only real competition was the Gross-Bassenach, a fairly uninspired semi-rigid airship, as while Perseval’s blimp was fairly practical, it had very little room for further development. With Eckener’s appeals in the press adding to his credibility, all Zeppelin had to do was cross the finish line before his rivals. The race to build LZ-3 was on, and to save time it would use the same hull as its predecessor, even reusing the propellers from the wrecked airship. While the airship would be built on the same lines as LZ 2, it carried with it serious improvements in regards to propulsion, maneuverability, and its hydrogen capacity. Dürr would increase its capacity to 11428 cubic meters and fit the new ship with a set of triple box rudders, two pairs of vertical stabilizers, and two pairs of elevators. These modifications were refined at the engineer’s own homemade wind tunnel and would greatly improve the stability and maneuverability of the ship. However, the airship still lacked a set of vertical stabilizers, mostly as a result of the dated aerodynamic theories the Count still stubbornly clung to. Regardless, the new airship flew spectacularly.

On its first flight on October 9, 1906, LZ-3 traveled some 111 kilometers for two hours and seventeen minutes. It too proved fast, with a rated top speed of 39 kilometers an hour, with a highest claimed, and likely overly optimistic, speed of 53. Though perhaps more than anything, it carried eleven people aboard and possessed a maximum useful load of 2812 kilograms (Robinson 32). LZ-3 not only proved that Zeppelin’s airships were capable of navigation in windy conditions, but that they could do so when loaded with cargo. Many within the government were impressed with Zeppelin’s results, including Major Gross who, in spite of their rivalry, recommended that the Count receive additional resources for his experiments. This wave of support led Zeppelin to offer LZ 3 to the Military with a promise to build them two more airships. He also followed this deal with a series of claims so optimistic and absurd, only his finance man, Alfred Colsman, would repeat them. One such claim was that he would soon build an airship capable of transporting 500 soldiers and use heated air in place of hydrogen (Robinson 33).

The military would decline the offer, and the Interior Minister would state that the government would purchase no airship incapable of making a 24 hour long endurance flight. However the Count still had an excellent position. Zeppelin had practically beaten out his competitors and now had a good deal of confidence in military circles. Even the Emperor himself was pushing airship development both to ensure the German military stayed ahead of the French and draw attention away from a series of scandals in his court. In more practical terms, they extended him a payment of 500,000 marks to pay for a new, expanded hangar, to be dubbed the ‘Reichshalle’ (Rose92).

Seeking the military contract, Zeppelin would have LZ-3 improved with the goal of reaching the 24 hour endurance threshold. Its easily damaged forward elevators would be moved higher up to the sides of the hull, and its rudders would be placed between the horizontal stabilizers. The latter were made more effective, and enabled the airship to take off heavier thanks to dynamic lift, and the former less effective, and less responsive at lower speeds. Stability was further improved by extending the triangular keel forward and aft of the control cars.

After the move to the Reichshalle, the airship was refloated in September of 1907. Its next flight was on September 24, where it spent 4 hours and seventeen minutes over the lake. Several more flights were conducted with a number of guests including Dr. Eckener, the count’s daughter Hella von Zeppelin, Major Gross of the PAB, a Naval Representative Fregattenkapitan Mischke, and the Crown Prince. Its most impressive flight was during Mischke’s visit, when LZ 3, then piloted by Dürr and Hacker, conducted an overland flight lasting seven hours and 54 minutes, turning back when their fuel ran low. It was a notably more challenging flight, as the inconsistent air currents overland and the up and down drafts caused some concern. This was to say nothing of the 152 m altitude they flew at. In spite of the challenge, they flew some 354 km over Lake Constance followed by the Ravensburg countryside. Despite their success, they did not reach the threshold, and by the end of the year the airship was in need of new gas cells, and their supply of hydrogen, which the PAB had provided, had been fully expended. Things were not helped by a winter storm which pulled the floating hangar from its moorings and pushed it ashore, damaging LZ 3 in the process (Robinson 34-36).

While LZ-3 did not reach the Interior Minister’s goal, it drew international attention. Despite this, the acclaim it won abroad was nothing compared to the excitement it generated across Germany. The turn of the century was a period dominated by immense technological and industrial development, where countries sought to distinguish themselves through cutting edge developments. Where Britain had its gargantuan high speed ocean liners, America, its skyscrapers, and France its groundbreaking film industry, Germany would have Zeppelin’s airships. Amateur aeronauts and students formed clubs to travel to see the airships as they glided over the Bodensee, and among the upper classes there was likewise excitement as balls were held in honor of Zeppelin’s achievement, and there was even talk of events to be held over a 300 meters in the air (Rose 96). While LZ-3 failed to meet military standards, the funds for LZ-4 would come as a matter of course. Its success was taken as inevitable, and with this in mind, LZ-3 was placed in long term storage as work on the next airship began.

LZ-4

Zeppelin’s next airship was once again an incremental improvement on the previous design, this new model being built to meet the 24 hour endurance requirement. Its production began shortly after LZ 3 completed its last flights for the year, with the skeletal hull of the new airship being assembled in the old floating hangar at Manzell in November 1907. Construction was finished on June 17, 1908, after it had traded places with the damaged LZ-3 in the restored Reichshalle. LZ 4 was designed to increase the endurance of its forebearer, and improve its mobility and maneuverability. It was lengthened to 136 m to accommodate a 17th hydrogen cell, increasing the total volume to 15008 cubic meters, and it received a large rudder at the nose, but this was removed after test flights revealed the arrangement to be inadequate. The gondolas too were enlarged to fit a larger 110hp Daimler motor (Zeppelin 15). A small cabin was also added along the keel, which was connected to a rooftop platform for navigation.

LZ 4 first flew on the twentieth of June, during which the airship turned so poorly that it soon made its return to the hangar, after which the aforementioned fore rudder was replaced by a large, semicircular aft rudder. The succeeding trial flights on the 23 and 29th would prove well as to convince the Count to embark on his most ambitious journey yet. Zeppelin would take his new airship over the Bodensee and across the Alps to Lucerne, Switzerland on July 1st. It proved exceptionally well, making the 386 km journey in 12 hours, setting records for both distance traveled and time spent in the air. Zeppelin’s airship traversed the picturesque, but dangerously windy Alps, and was met by crowds in the Alpine city. After a set of maneuvers to impress the crowd at the lake, LZ 4 departed for home. This was made all the more impressive as the airship traveled into a headwind on its return flight to Manzell through Zurich. Only one problem arose, this being that once the fuel in the main fuel tanks for each engine ran low, the engines had to be shut off while they were refueled from cans, leaving the airship at half power for several minutes. It would, however, prove only a minor inconvenience in the greater scope of the journey. Dr. Eckener wasted no time in working the press to promote this newest achievement, ensuring generous articles in Germany’s leading, and competing, newspapers Die Woche and the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. Word soon reached France, Britain, and America, though it would only be an echo of the attention Zeppelin received within Germany. A week after his return, he received over a thousand telegrams for his seventieth birthday and King Wilhelm II of Wurttemberg, his longest and steadfast supporter, awarded him the Kingdom’s gold medal for the arts and sciences (Robinson 36 Rose 102).

The Swiss voyage would prove an immense success both in proving the airship a robust means of travel over otherwise rough terrain, and as a symbol of technological accomplishment which propelled the Count and his creation onto the world stage. As one might expect, the Count was now confident enough to attempt the 24 hour endurance flight which would ensure military interest, and allow him to sell his two airships. On July 13, 1908, LZ 4 was outfitted for the long trip and departed the next day, only to have to return after a fan blade broke on the forward motor. Further delays were caused when the airship collided with the hangar, resulting in damage to its hull and hydrogen cells. The next journey to Mainz was pushed back until August 4th, where it departed with incredible fanfare.

LZ 4 left with a crew of eight, which included Dürr, its designer, the Count’s old friend Baron von Bassus, and three veteran engineers, Karl Schwarz, Wilhelm Kast, and Kamil Eduard Luburda. They departed before an immense crowd, the largest share of which came from a nearby resort. Zeppelin, rather uncharacteristically, eschewed the typical maneuvers over the lake, and instead ordered the ship to its next destination at its best speed. LZ 4 would overfly several towns to the delight of crowds who were gathered by telegraph reports and special newspaper editions. In spite of the fanfare, trouble began in the evening when the engines began to run rough around 5:24 PM. After setting down at a quiet spot near Rhine at Oppenheim, they set off again, only for a more dire failure to crop up at 1:27 the following morning. Its front engine was shot and the rear motor was sputtering and smoking, having expelled what little remaining oil was aboard. With Stuttgart tantalizingly close, Zeppelin brought the ship down outside Echterdingen, around ten and a half kilometers outside their final destination. While they waited for a team from a nearby Daimler workshop, a crowd grew.

News of the grounded airship spread fast, and soon tens of thousands had begun to move. Thousands poured through the small town on bikes, carriages, wagons, and cars with the hope of seeing the airship. In all, some fifty-five thousand would assemble to see the Count’s airship, with some even being recruited by Schwarz to set up a make-shift anchor out of a carriage to hold the airship in place. The rest of the crowd was kept to a safe distance by what policemen and soldiers could be mustered. At around noon, concerns arose as the sounds of a thunderstorm made themselves clear. These concerns were soon justified as gusts of wind soon followed and began to pull the airship away from its moorings. The gale pulled the airship around the clearing as soldiers desperately worked the mooring ropes and the Daimler mechanic became worried enough as to leap from the front engine car. Schwarz worked his way through the catwalk and began to release hydrogen to prevent the airship from being carried high and away by the storm. He succeeded, but was unable to stop the winds from carrying the airship across the field into a stand of trees. Gas cells were shredded, the framework twisted, and in an instant the ship was alight. Schwarz lept, and in a terrifying moment on the ground, found himself covered in burning net and cloth. Miraculously, the mechanic cast off the debris and crawled through the burning wreck and, in his own words, ‘ran like hell’. Apart from Schwarz, a soldier, and his fellow mechanic, Laburda had also escaped the airship. The latter was merely singed, and the former left unconscious. Fortunately, there were no fatalities and those injured received prompt medical attention (Rose 108, 109).

 

The crowd was horrified and left utterly dumbstruck having witnessed the destruction, and forlornly surveyed the wreckage. Zeppelin and the rest of the crew were similarly dismayed, having returned to the site from their hotel in Echterdingen and finding the warped aluminum frame of the airship across a charred stretch of Earth. The future British PM David Lloyd George was among those gathered, and having traveled hoping to see the airship would only find its remains. He would state “Of course we were disappointed, but disappointment was a totally inadequate word for the agony of grief and dismay which swept over the massed Germans who witnessed the catastrophe. There was no loss of life to account for it. Hopes and ambitions far wider than those concerned with scientific and mechanical success appeared to have shared the wreck of the dirigible. Then the crowd swung into the chanting of Deutschland uber Alles with a fantastic fervor of patriotism.” (Rose 110,111).

Dejected, the Count and crew returned to their offices in Friedrichshafen. They could have hardly expected what was waiting for them there.

The Miracle

While the accident had largely reinforced the skeptics in official circles, the public was not willing to let Zeppelin’s work come to an end. In the aftermath of the tragedy, thousands began organizing donations. What had begun with an off the cuff speech by a Stuttgart merchant Manfred Franck, to rouse the public to help build Zeppelin’s next airship, had become a national phenomenon. Soon the press echoed his words and were raising thousands of marks a day, and they were not to be outdone by public and private associations who alike, sent hundreds of thousands of marks to Zeppelin AG. Those who hadn’t the money, sent clothes, food, and liquor of varying quality, and had done so in such amounts that the resort town’s post office was incapable of sorting it. Following Zeppelin’s return to his offices in Friedrichafen, he had received some 6,096,555 Marks from the public (~$25-30 Million USD 2020).

Perhaps even more bizarrely, came the Government’s response. Despite Zeppelin’s inability to perform the 24 hour flight, they were interested in purchasing the rebuilt LZ 3 and commissioning a new airship of the same design as LZ 4, to be accepted into service under the designation Z-2. The Emperor himself would soon visit the Reichshalle hangar to inspect LZ 3 and award Zeppelin with the Order of the Black Eagle, the highest order the Kingdom of Prussia could bestow. In a further and ironic twist, he was also invited to the Imperial War Games, or Kaisermanover, where he accompanied the Crown Prince (Robinson 41-43, Rose 113, 114).

 

Almost impossibly, Zeppelin had been propelled far further by his greatest disaster than he had his greatest success. Zeppelin had both the love of the public and  a powerful presence in the halls of Government, and with his gifted fortune, he set off to expand the horizons of what was once a personal project. On September 3, 1908 the Count founded Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Gmbh, or Zeppelin Airshipworks Inc. What was once a small, dedicated team running out of a handful of facilities along the Bodensee, was transformed almost overnight into an industrial powerhouse. In the following years and under Colman’s direction, he founded a number of new enterprises under the parent company which would include the Maybach Motor Company in 1909, Ballon-Hullen-Gesellschaft of Berlin Tempelhof in 1912, to build hydrogen cells, Zeppelin Hallenbau of Berlin in 1913, to construct hangars, and Zahnrad-Fabrik in 1915, to build gear and drive shafts (Robinson 41, 42). At the center of all of this sat Friedrichshaven, which became the hub for all of these projects, and by 1914 the small resort town would grow to become the wealthiest city in Wurttemberg. As the headquarters for the new company, it would boast new homes for the workers, along with schools, groceries, a pub, and a performance hall. On top of all of this was a generous company life insurance policy, and free room and board for the families of workers who found themselves struggling.

In the months following the new founding of Zeppelin Airship Factory in 1908, the newly christened Z I (formerly LZ 3) was delivered to the army, where it served until 1913, along with the newly built Z II, its company designation being LZ 5. Z II was completed in May 1909 and was identical to its ill fated predecessor save for the omission of the ventral fin along the gangway, the cabin, and the installation of additional fuel tanks. Before it was delivered to the army, Zeppelin wished to demonstrate its capabilities with a 36 hour flight to Berlin. The flight began in earnest after two aborts, on May 29, 1909, and the airship proceeded through a dark and squally night on the way to Ulm. From there they once again met frenzied crowds as they traveled around Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Leipzig before having to turn back as the fuel supply was inadequate, with the flight being terminated at 21 hours. It was not, however, insufficient enough to prevent them from flying around and circling Bitterfield, the headquarters of their rival firm, Parseval. Apart from the airship receiving damage from landing on the only pear tree in a field during a night landing, which punctured the forward gas cells, they returned home with little else to remark upon. Following repairs, it was ready again on June 2, though it would not attempt a second flight before the army came to accept it on July 24. In service Z II would see no true military duties, but it would be a considerable tool for generating notoriety for the service. Its high point was a demonstration at the International Aviation Exposition held in Frankfurt am Main, in September and October of that year. Generally, the army did not consider any of the airships they were provided with suitable for general service and would not procure any more until new models were built. They would largely be proven right when Z II was shredded while grounded during a storm, with Zeppelin’s outburst over the army’s carelessness bringing his relations with them to a new low (Robinson 47, 58).

Regardless, Zeppelin sought to renew military interest with LZ 6. Once again, this airship was derived from LZ 4, though the heavy lateral driveshaft gears connecting the engines and propellers were swapped with a steel band drive to save weight, it used more powerful 115 hp engines, included passenger accommodations in the cabin, and lacked vertical stabilizing fins. A short fabric ‘rain skirt’ was also installed around the hull to prevent rain water from dripping on the occupants of the gondolas, but it was removed as the crew felt it unduly lowered the airship’s top speed (Robinson 49). Its similarities to the three previous airships was likely an influencing factor in it receiving no trial flight. Instead, Zeppelin would fly the airship straight to Berlin on its first outing for the Whitsunday holidays. Unlike his attempted flight in LZ 5, he would not be able to turn back, as he was expected to arrive at Tempelhof Field where the Emperor awaited him. He was firmly reminded of this in a series of demanding telegrams from the Emperor, something the Count would have to heed now that he was in the graces of the court.

The airship departed August 24th at the command of Dürr, the Count having recently undergone surgery and unable to make the flight until after the airship stopped to refuel at Bitterfield. Trouble arose several hours after departure, as the lighter steel band drives immediately showed themselves to be less durable than the bevel gears. A former navy man, Helmsman Hacker was able to repair the drive, but several hours later a cylinder crack stopped one of the engines. The airship stopped at Nuremberg, awaiting a mechanic from Daimler, this detour leaving them unable to depart until the 28th. Similar problems persisted with the drive bands, but the airship would make it to Berlin on the 29th, though not in the best state (Robinson 50). However, the crowds assembled there took no notice and upon landing at Tempelhof, Zeppelin shook hands with the Emperor as the crowd cheered. The Count would also meet Oliver Wright, famed American aviator and co-inventor of the airplane, though the two would see very little promise in each other’s work (Rose 120,122). The Count and LZ 6 would remain on the public tour for some weeks, and it required a good deal of work to get the airship running well again. They went so far as to borrow the propellers from the army airship Z II. After giving the first aerial tours of the city to members of the Reichstag and public officials around the country, LZ-6 would return again to the hangar at Manzell before being presented at the 1909 International Aviation Exposition at Frankfurt in September. From a temporary shed built on the grounds, the airship gave passenger flights up and down the Rhine. These flights attracted little military interest but captivated the public, and to them, it seemed that the long awaited dream of air travel had been made a reality.

LZ 6’s return would see it sent to a new tent shed at Friedrichshafen, with the former floating hangars to be dismantled. With its publicity tour over, Zeppelin sought to rebuild the airship in the hopes of selling it to the military. A third engine, a Maybach 150 hp model, was added in the former passenger cabin which was geared to a pair of hull mounted propellers, allowing it to make a new top speed of 58 km/h. This was later removed for some time after it was believed to be a fire hazard, being mounted so close to the ship’s hydrogen cells. LZ-6 would also temporarily receive an experimental radio set, though the sum of these modifications would be altered again in the spring when the ship was dismantled and rebuilt. It was lengthened by eight meters, the third engine was reintroduced in the rear engine car, and the stabilizers were reworked. The biplane stabilizers at the back were combined into a single, large stabilizer, from which the elevators and rudders hung. The aft ‘barndoor’ rudder was also removed, with a fixed, vertical stabilizing fin taking its place. In all, the ship could now make 56 mk/h and was far more stable in flight. This however, was not enough to convince the army to purchase it.

With the failure to sell more airships to the military, Zeppelin was in a bind. While the extremely generous public donations could keep him afloat for the time being, he would need to find a means of consistent income for the company. Colsman, the corporation’s finance chief, had a brilliant solution. Given the public’s incredible enthusiasm for the airships, naturally they would prove the ideal customer base, and thus he proposed the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktien-Gesselschaft (DELAG), or German Airship Transport Company. In other words, the world’s first airline.

The First Airline

Zeppelin detested the idea, as he considered his airships the weapon to make the German army unparalleled in field and to boost the prestige of the country by carrying the flag, just as the expanding German navy did. While he had once considered civilian applications for the airship in the 1890’s, years in the limelight and his rehabilitation in military circles had firmly shifted his view, to him, the airship was first and foremost a weapon. However, Zeppelin Gmbh. was not the small outfit driven by one unshakable nobleman like that which preceded it. The decision went before the board of directors, who decided in favor of the airline. DELAG was founded on November 9, 1909 with the hope of beginning operations in the summer of the following year.

The shrewd and energetic Colsman proved right, and it wasn’t long until he had amassed the three million mark starting capital and the backing of the famous Hamburg-America shipping line, who would be the primary means of ticket sales and advertisement. Many larger cities soon sent requests to be included, with the mayors of Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldor, Baden-Baden, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, and Hamburg soon joining the airline’s board of directors, and with several seeing to it that airship sheds were assembled in their respective cities (Robinson 52, Eckener 15). While orders for commercial airships were placed, they proceeded to organize the first operations using LZ 6 and the newly completed LZ 7 ‘Deutschland’.

Deutschland was built along the same lines as the modified LZ-6, and was the first to carry passengers for the airline. It was a stretched design some 148 meters long with a capacity for 19,340 cubic meters of hydrogen and a useful lift of 4,990 kilograms, with up to 1,496 kilograms of that being fuel. However, its real innovations were found in the once austere sightseeing cabin. The former canvas box was now a comfortable sitting and viewing room, which was of high layer plywood construction covered in mahogany sheets with mother of pearl inlays on its pillars and ceiling beams. The carpeting and comfortable wicker furniture added to the finery, and given the length of the flights, a small galley with matching aluminum cutlery was also wisely included. Lastly, it was the first to carry a lavatory, it also being aluminum to save weight. Behind all of this were a series of aluminum struts and cables which anchored it firmly to the hull (Robinson 55, Rose 134).

It was captained by former Prussian Airship Battalion Captain Kahlenhberg, as despite the several airships flown over the years, there was no sizable pool of experienced aviators to recruit from. The foremost of these were Zeppelin himself, who could not be convinced, and Dürr, who was otherwise occupied in his role as head designer for the firm. The first flight would be to Dusseldorf, the city which managed to complete their hangar first. It was scheduled for June 28 with a passenger list of 23, mostly journalists who had been invited by Colsman. The expectation was a flight of three hours, which began after a breakfast of caviar and champagne. Unfortunately, the crew had departed without a weather report. After the failure of an engine, the ship was left floundering in higher than expected winds. Deutschland struggled for hours through turbulence, violent gusts, and rain with one officer making the mistake of telling a concerned passenger ‘we do not know what will happen.’ Captain Kahlenburg was unable to prevent the underpowered, unbalanced airship from making a crash landing in the Teutoburg forest. Thus ending the short stopover flight that became a nine hour endurance test for everyone aboard. Apart from a crewmember who made a dramatic leap from the rear gondola, and fractured his leg, there were no injuries. Understandably, the journalists’ impressions were quite poor and the airship was disassembled and shipped back to Friedrichshafen where it would be rebuilt (Robinson 56 Rose 136).

Kahlenburg was laid off, and in his place Dr. Eckener became both a pilot and head of flight operations for DELAG. His first action was to familiarize himself with airship piloting on LZ 6, making some 34 flights, though this airship was soon damaged beyond repair after a fire in its hangar. With this accident, hopes were placed on the up and coming LZ 8 Deutschland II, made mostly from the reclaimed material of the previous ship. LZ 8 was identical to its ill-fated predecessor, and was likewise as ill-fated. With Eckener at the helm on its first passenger outing, he allowed himself to be pressured by the crowd to bring out the airship in a dangerous crosswind. Deutchsland II was subsequently knocked alongside the hangar and bent out of shape. Eckener claimed this cured him of all recklessness thereafter, and he subsequently went to completely reform flight operations at DELAG (Eckener 16).

Dr. Eckener isolated the causes of accidents that had plagued operations thus far, and focused on ensuring that DELAG airships would be crewed by veteran airmen who would have the benefit of extensive weather reports and more reliable equipment. The board was willing to give it another try, and authorized the construction of a new, modern airship. This new ship was LZ 8 Schwaben, which was shorter, more maneuverable, had a useful capacity of 6486 kilogram, and used new 145hp Maybach engines which would prove far more reliable. It made its first, and very promising, trial flight on June 26, 1911 where it made for 75 kilometers an hour (Robinson 59). Many of these advancements came as a result of Dürr accepting a variety of new concepts from junior designers, key among these was in rejecting the continuous lengthening of airships to boost their lift, and placing a greater focus on theoretical testing and problem solving, rather than building a ship and continuously modifying it as difficulties arose.

Along with the new airship came a series of reforms to DELAG’s flight guidelines. Crew training was standardized and captains in particular were required to have a thorough understanding of their vessels and to have participated in 150 flights before they would be allowed to command an airliner. The training program would be so successful that the military would send their crews to train with DELAG during their off season. Some would even fly passengers during the airline’s regular service (Rose 138). These procedural improvements were to extend to the ground crews, both to improve the tricky process of moving an airship in and out of its shed, and to avoid the kinds of accidents such as the one which claimed LZ-6. In that case an unmarked can of gasoline was thrown over a fire in the hopes of dousing it. Facilities were thus overhauled and staffed with thoroughly trained professionals. Perhaps most importantly of all were the stations for meteorological reporting. Unlike Kahlenberg, future DELAG captains would benefit from near nationwide weather reports from the series of meteorological stations which captains could contact at any time over the radio. Even without the radio they would have access to wind maps which charted the typical currents over Germany and allowed captains to safely determine new courses should their first choice be unavailable. Should all else have failed, emergency depots were established along common routes where airships could stop for repairs and fuel.

With these improvements, Schwaben was well equipped when it began passenger service in the summer of 1911. With all the methods worked out and potential dangers addressed, passenger flights went off without a hitch. A typical flight saw passengers assemble early in the morning, when winds were at their weakest, and allowed them to see the airship as it was serviced and brought out. When they departed the airship was almost impossibly smooth as it pulled away from the ground and began its journey. While the passengers traveled to a variety of locations and took in the view they were provided with a series of refreshments. The meager provisions aboard Deutschland paled in comparison to what Schwaben’s passengers enjoyed. Along with a considerable wine list that boasted a selection of Rhine, Moselle, and Bordeaux along with champagne, passengers were served a selection of cold dishes such as caviar, Strasbourg pate de foie gras, and Westphalian ham (Robinson 59). All of this was enjoyed in relative silence as the canvas skin and hydrogen cells dampened the sound from the propellers.

The main attraction beyond all of this was the view of the country from the air, as while this was a passenger service, its lack of fixed schedules could mean a wait of several days as weather cleared or repairs were made. Tickets too were steeply priced, owing to the limited number of seats aboard and high operating costs. A ticket could cost between 100 to 600 marks depending on the destination, though many passengers didn’t pay for their own seats as they were invited to garner publicity for the service. It was very common for periodicals and newspapers to send their own aboard to gather material. Along with journalists were VIPs, such as notable public figures, and foreign dignitaries the state wanted to impress. Those unable to purchase a ticket had the option of watching one of the many films made aboard the airliners or visiting one of the many DELAG airports located across Germany.

In the several weeks following its entrance to service, Schwaben was a hit. After the miserable year of 1910, it seemed as if the airline had not only been improved, but practically perfected.

The Golden Years

As Schwaben was refitted following its stowage in the previous winter, it was joined by a slightly larger airship, LZ 11 Viktoria Luise. Named for the Emperor’s daughter, its design and performance were nearly identical to the Schwaben, save for its redesigned elevators and rudders. The year would start well, though an accident would leave Schwaben burned on June 28. It was traced to a static discharge caused by the rubberised fabric which formed its hydrogen cells. No one was aboard the grounded airship, though the public was momentarily disquieted. To allay fears, the Dusseldorf maintenance team took the blame while Colsman quietly shifted to the use of cells made of cotton and goldbeater’s skin. This material was a finely woven cotton fabric laminated with chemically treated sheets of cow intestine, which while unpleasant to produce, was lighter than the rubberized fabric while remaining just as durable, and removed any chance of static discharges (Chollet 6). Apart from the loss of Schwaben, operations continued without trouble for the remainder of the year.

Operations were expanded by a new airship, LZ 13 Hansa, named for the medieval Hanseatic league of merchants which spanned the Baltic. Identical to the Viktoria Luise, it was completed July 30 and took Schwaben’s place. For the remainder of the year Viktoria Luise and Hansa operated out of the double hangar built in Hamburg, where at the end of autumn, they were used to train the first Naval air crews. At the end of this training period, Hansa was flown over the High Seas Fleet Parade and the naval maneuvers that followed it. Ironically, Zeppelin’s civilian operation had managed to capture the military’s interest more so than any direct appeal.

By the start of the 1913 season, DELAG was an international sensation, and in Germany, a technological achievement of immense pride. Shortly after Hansa and Viktoria Luise had entered service, they were joined by LZ-17 Sachsen. This ship, named for the region it would service, was slightly shorter than its contemporaries though built with a wider diameter, and held the highest lifting capabilities of the three . It was completed on May 3, 1913 and was sent to a shed at Leipzig where it operated from thereafter (Robinson 333). During the summer season all three ships were in service, and each operated out of its own region. Hansa left Hamburg for Potsdam, to service Berlin, and Viktoria Luise was sent to Frankfurt.

These regional flights would ensure the airships were seen over and around most of Germany’s largest cities. What was once a curiosity that rarely strayed from the Bodensee was now a common sight for millions of Germans, one that stirred both patriotic fervor, and a curiosity and optimism for what the future held. While a relatively small proportion of Germans would ever fly aboard these airships, they drew massive crowds around the cities they visited and at the sheds where they were stored. Sadly, the entire enterprise was cut short by the beginning of the Great War, and the airships were turned over to the military during the period of general mobilization. Practically overnight, DELAG had ceased to exist, and in the end, it’s difficult to know how successfully DELAG would have been had it continued to operate its three airships. When its airships were pressed into military service, the company was still operating in the red, though its operating costs were plummeting and the proportion of paying versus invited passengers had climbed steadily. Regardless of its financial forecast, DELAG’s technical achievements would not be rivaled again for over twenty years. Its airships carried a total of 34,208 passengers over a distance of 1,172,529 kilometers, nearly five times the Earth’s circumference (Rose153).

The Zeppelin at War

Despite the Count’s enthusiasm that his airships would prove a decisive weapon in any war to come, this would not prove to be the case. In the years DELAG was operating, the German military had received a number of airships, though they never effectively developed their offensive capabilities. Both the Army and the Navy possessed a small fleet of Zeppelin airships, each with very different missions in mind, with the Army placing an emphasis on bombing, and the Navy on reconissance. In contrast with the well coordinated and professional civilian operation, both the Army and the Navy would suffer numerous accidents, the worst of which befalling the Navy’s L.2. The ship burned as a result of design choices from the Naval representative, Felix Pietsker, who was at Friedrichshafen to oversee its construction. He demanded the airship’s keel be placed within the hull to streamline it and bring the engines in closer to the hull, both choices being strongly criticized by Dürr as being unsafe. During a test flight, the inner keel collected leaking hydrogen, which otherwise would have exited through the top of the airship, and was subsequently set alight by the heat of the engines. All 28 aboard would be the first to die on a burning airship, and with the war on the horizon, they would not be the last (Rose 151).

Most surprisingly, no specialized weapons were developed for the airships, which as bombers first carried 15 and 21cm artillery shells which were ejected from the airship over the target. These were used by the Army’s Zeppelins in the opening weeks of the war, but it soon became clear that these low flying airships were too vulnerable to groundfire to be of any real use (Robinson 86). This realization would push airship design evolution faster than any previous motivator. Among the first major new additions were the cruciform tail sections added to the M-Class airships. This feature had been pioneered by the rival Schuttz-Lanz airship company, and would markedly improve the handling and aerodynamics of the airship. Previously, Zeppelin’s had blunt tail sections, which were initially believed to be aerodynamically superior, but the taper on the newer models allowed for far better stability at speed. Enclosed gondolas were also added, being more or less essential for long patrols over the sea. Perhaps the most important of all was the introduction of duralumin on LZ 26 which enabled the construction of larger and stronger airship hulls (Robinson 89). The first airships to combine all of these features were the P-Class ships, which were very capable maritime patrol aircraft and were used on the first raids on London.

As strategic bombers, the Zeppelins were ineffective. While at first they were surprisingly resilient to bullets and artillery splinters, the introduction of better training for anti aircraft crews and special phosphorus-core bullets for aircraft would see them fight a losing battle that would only end weeks before the war itself did. Zeppelins were built to fly ever higher to try and avoid these threats, and they flew their raids at night to try and avoid detection and artillery spotters. They would fail, but they would produce much more robust and versatile airships which remained very capable maritime patrol aircraft. The prime of these being the R-Class.

These ships entered service in 1916 with a host of new improvements. The new class did away with the long, inefficient cylindrical sections in favor of a teardrop shape which both reduced drag and vastly increased internal capacity. They were also the first to carry six engines, these being Maybach HSLu motors capable of producing 240Hp which gave them a trial speed of roughly 60 kilometers an hour. The hydrogen controls too were improved, with a responsive electric control system allowing for more precise and sensitive inputs, which were necessary when the airship operated at or above its maximum loaded ceiling of 3962 meters. In all, virtually every aspect of these ships had been improved (Robinson 120. Stahl 84-89). Unbeknownst to the German Navy, who were looking for better bombers to wage their ineffectual nightly war, Zeppelin had built a truly exceptional intercontinental aircraft.

On the night of July 26, 1917, Captain Ernst Lehmann set out on the longest patrol of the war thus far. With the standard R-Class airship, LZ 120, he patrolled the Baltic Sea for 101 hours. This ‘experiment’ was conducted with a considerable load of 1202 kilograms of bombs, 16918 kilograms of fuel, with a crew of 29. With his men divided into three watches, and running only three engines at a time, LZ 120 endured poor weather and successfully enacted engine repairs, all while dodging thunderstorms. When they returned to their base at Seerappen, the airship remained in good condition with enough fuel in its tanks for 14 more hours (Robinson 251, Stahl 89). As astounding as this feat was, it would soon be outdone.

In light of Lehmann’s record setting patrol, the German army now looked to the Zeppelin to undertake a truly groundbreaking mission. It seemed to all that General Lettow-Vorbeck’s troops, alone in Africa and low on supplies, were fighting on borrowed time. It was clear that the only way to reach them, and deliver vital supplies, was by airship. Thus a specially modified R-Class airship was prepared, L-59, which was lengthened and lightened to carry out the special mission. The 750 foot airship was to fly to Lettow-Vorbeck from Jamboli, Bulgaria, to the beleaguered general some 7000 kilometers away. It carried approximately 16,238 kilograms of cargo, and would be disassembled with its aluminum and fabric repurposed into radio towers and bandages. KorvettenKapitan Ludwig Bockholt set off from Jamboli on November 21, 1917 under strict radio silence. They passed through thunderstorms over the Mediterranean before crossing into North Africa, which would prove even more treacherous due to the updrafts which threw the ship about over the deserts. The heat too caused excessive hydrogen loss which had to be offset by dumping large amounts of ballast. They would cross the desert and receive a signal from Berlin, advising them to turn back as Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces had been defeated. In reality, the guerrilla general had pressed on into Portuguese Mozambique, where he had gathered the supplies he needed. Bockholt ordered the ship back with some arguments among the crew, and was back in Jamboli on November 25. In all his ship had been airborne for 95 hours and had traveled some 6760 kilometers, and upon its return still carried enough fuel for 64 hours more (Robinson 253-255, Stahl 90-91). Theoretically, L59 could have traveled to Chicago one way from Friedrichshafen, or potentially to New York and back.

The rapid advancements in airship design during the war were incredible, though their use against civilians would leave a black mark which they could never truly wash away. England in particular bore deep scars as a result of the ‘baby-killers’, and as if to mark the end of an era, Zeppelin had passed away in March of 1917 at the age of 78. Despite the dark turn his invention had taken, many still viewed the count favorably, and in a May 1917 edition of the New York times he was placed as an equal alongside the Wright Brothers and praised for the years of dedication and disappointment he had spent honing his creation (Rose177). In the end, the war would cripple airship production and design in Germany, as the state was subsequently banned from operating large airships, and many of its Zeppelins were turned over to the Allies or destroyed by their crews. Many airship veterans, and even historians, would continue to state decades after the war, that the raids over England held down ‘a million men’ from being deployed to the continent. In reality, by June of 1918, Britain had exactly 6,136 men devoted to home air defense, and the total wartime damages from strategic bombing amounted to 1.5 million GBP. This compares rather poorly to the equivalent of 13.25 million GBP spent on airship construction, to say nothing of the hundreds of Gotha and Zeppelin Staaken biplane bombers built (Rose 173).

 

The Crossroads

Without their primary customer, and more or less totally banned from building their main product, the Zeppelin company was seemingly at the end of the line. Colsman, seeking to rapidly increase revenue, attempted to pivot the enterprise away from airships towards cars and consumer goods, regardless of the anger from the true believers in the firm. However, the economic crises that emerged in Germany after the war rendered the plan hopeless; there would one day be a market for luxury Maybach cars, but it was very far off.

A brief power struggle in the company ensued with Dr. Eckener becoming its head over the firebrand Captain Lehmann, who had taken part in destroying several Navy airships which were to be turned over to the Allies. Dr. Eckener found a loophole in the treaty which threatened to destroy the company; while Germany wasn’t allowed to possess an airship, the Versailles treaty did not explicitly prevent any private enterprise from building or operating airships of their own (Rose 194). With this in mind, Eckener approached Dürr and his engineers to design a new airship, one which could in no way be used for military purposes. Thus it seemed that DELAG was poised to return almost as suddenly as it had vanished back in 1914. Initially, there were plans for a trans-atlantic airliner based on a massive wartime X-class airship, but its proximity to a military design was too problematic, not to mention expensive. They accordingly settled on a small design with regional ambitions.

The design work for LZ-120 Bodensee, named for the lake from which the first Zeppelin’s flew, was completed on March 10, 1919 and first flew that August. Its design was the most efficient of any airship built up to that point, as despite being considerably shorter than the airliners that preceded it, at around 120 meters, it possessed an incredible useful lift of 44,678 kilograms and had a trial speed of 132 km/h, thanks to its four 245hp Maybach IVa motors. Perhaps most impressively of all, it could fly in all but the worst weather (Eckener 201). When fitted out for service, it was laid out in a manner similar to a passenger train within the combined cabin and control car. It possessed five compartments seating four, and one VIP cabin in the front who paid double fare. Six more seats could be fitted if the partitions were removed. As with the previous airliners the cabin was well furnished with a fine wood paneling over the structural elements and specially made aluminum and leather chairs for the passengers. At the rear of the gondola were the washroom and buffet (Robinson 258 Rose 196).

When DELAG resumed service in the fall they began operating on fixed scheduling, which was made possible owing to Bodensee’s reliability and ability to fly through rain and wind. The sightseeing flights were done away with and replaced with a regular passenger route which ran from Friedrichshafen to Berlin with a stop in Munich. Generally speaking, the lax margins for luggage that existed in the pre-war DELAG were also done away with fees being added after 13 kilograms. On one occasion, a woman wearing extravagant furs brought nearly a dozen trunks aboard and tried to protest the fees which greatly exceeded that of the original ticket. In order to make up for slack during slow periods, mail was carried in place of passengers. Overall, Bodensee proved very effective, earning 500,000 marks in its first month, placing it on the road for long term profitability (Rose 196). Typical passengers were state officials, Zeppelin company personnel, and foreign visitors who could not depend on the rail network, which had been racked by strikes, coal shortages, and damaged infrastructure during the revolutions of that year.

Eckener saw these routes as only the beginning and traveled with the airship to Stockholm in October. There he received an enthusiastic reception where he sold tickets for flights on the yet-to-be completed LZ 121 Nordstern. This was to be just the start, for the real destination for his airline was Spain. In the long term, however, his hope was in crossing the Atlantic. The Zeppelin’s long haul capabilities were well proven and shorter flights could be serviced by more modern planes, which by the mid 20’s could be flown with some semblance of safety and comfort. With long term plans seeming coming to fruition, DELAG completed the season’s operations in December, having flown on 88 out of 98 days for 532 hours, over 51,981 kilometers, and servicing 4,050 passengers. LZ 120 was placed in maintenance to be lengthened and have its control surfaces altered to compensate for its oversensitive yaw characteristics (Eckener 200, 201 Rose 198). However, these plans were not to be, as the loophole that allowed these operations was closed.

The Allied commission had ruled in January of 1920 that DELAG was not authorized to fly airships under the Versailles treaty, and they were instructed to turn their two airships over to France and Italy, who were to have received Navy Zeppelins that had been destroyed by their crews. Dr. Eckener would claim this was a protectionist ruling, given that the Allied commissioner, Air Commodore Masterman, was also in charge of Britain’s own flagging airship program. In any case, LZ 121 was christened Mediterranee in French service, and subsequently dismantled in roughly a year. Bodensee however, would spend many years in Italian service as the Esperia. While it never returned to regular passenger service, it made flights from time to time at numerous civil and military events from its shed in Ciampino near Rome. Most notably it accompanied the polar exploration airship N1 as it traveled to Barcelona, Spain, flew from Rome to Tripoli and back in 24 hours, and was shown to Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito during his visit in 1921. While most reparation airships were neglected and dismantled in the years following the Great War, Esperia seems to have been well maintained until it was decommissioned on July 18, 1928 (Robinson 350).

 

With Bodensee and Nordstern out of their hands, Zeppelin seemed to be running on borrowed time once again.

The Zeppelin, Banned

Zeppelin was in trouble, but there would soon be an opportunity for them to get back on their feet. While the British airship program was largely dysfunctional, it had managed to garner interest in the technology. Their own R.34, which was largely a reverse engineered R-Class Zeppelin, had managed to cross the Atlantic, though with worrying slim margins for fuel. For the time being, the British built on this achievement with the pending sale of R.38 to the US, which subsequently was renamed ZR 2. Given American interest in the technology, Dr. Eckener offered to build the United States an airship to compensate them for the one which was promised to them under the Versailles treaty, but which its crews destroyed. The US Navy jumped at the offer and offered to pay 3.56 million gold marks for the airship, though they were stopped by Air Commodore Masterman who refused to allow the construction of the airship in Germany. This block would remain until the US Navy was preparing to receive the ZR 2.

While the British were able to replicate German airship technology, they understood it exceedingly poorly. R.38/ZR-2 was based on a high altitude airship design with a hull that was designed to be maneuvered only at high altitudes, as its beams were made thin to reduce weight. While ZR-2 was proceeding with its final trial flight, its hull shattered during a low altitude turn at 99 kilometers an hour and it exploded. Of its 42 crew and passengers, only 5 survived. The US Navy was outraged. They directly accused the British of protectionism with the intent to force them to purchase their dangerous aircraft, and in the maelstrom of backlash, the German airship ban was lifted. The US Navy and Dr. Eckener soon agreed to an airship specified to be only used for civilian purposes, and that Zeppelin would shift production to consumer goods after it would be completed. All involved knew that neither clause would be observed, but Masterman was forced to accept their terms regardless (Rose 221, 222).

The US Navy soon sent representatives to Friedrichshafen to oversee the design and production of LZ 126/ZR-3. The partnership between Zeppelin and the US Navy proved amicable in 1922, and eventually it was agreed to establish a US based entity for airship production, Goodyear-Zeppelin, the following year. Work on the new airship progressed as smoothly as one could have hoped during such difficult times.

ZR-3 was launched in 1924, the large airship looking akin to a much larger, and stretched LZ 120. The airship was not merely a means of keeping the company afloat but to test the new technologies that could very well make trans-Atlantic air travel safe and reliable. Eckener himself flew ZR-3 out of Friedrichshafen on October 12, 1924, and despite some concerns about the airship’s maximum range, ZR-3 made the flight from Germany to the U.S. handily, despite running into a storm and encountering a headwind which slowed the ship down to 48 kilometers an hour. The airship flew over New York for several hours before proceeding to its shed at Lakehurst, New Jersey where it was met by a tremendous crowd. The ship would soon become the USS Los Angeles, and its success did more than save the company, it proved intercontinental air travel was more than achievable, it could be done safely and comfortably (eckener 27, 28).

ZR-3 also proved to be somewhat of a political litmus test. In the early Weimar period, its politics were especially volatile and Eckener had to brave these winds in order to accomplish anything. Whereas Count Zeppelin played the Imperial Court, Eckener faced liberals, conservatives, and political extremists of almost every variety. He did exceedingly well. The Zeppelin itself, a symbol of ‘the good old days’, played well with conservatives, liberals were satisfied with his ability to reinvent and grow the company in hard times, and the company’s large industrial workforce and generous benefits saw him receive congratulations from socialists and some communists. In terms of the far-right, he ranged from disinterest to outright hostility. Among the Nazis there was little interest in airships in general. Herman Goering, one of the movement’s leaders and former ace fighter pilot, saw airships as quaint and dated, with most in the party sharing his sentiments. Some members of even more extremist organizations claimed Eckener and Zeppelin had sold Germany out by giving ZR-3 to the US. Ultranationalists would go on to accuse the company of being controlled by a Jewish cabal and Eckener himself was the target of a young man with a rifle who had sworn to kill him, who was subsequently arrested (Rose 232). Eventually, some nationalists would be satisfied by Zeppelin’s all German operation and the ZR3 “controversy” would be left in the past. Despite this, the work at Zeppelin would proceed apace, especially as the German economy stabilized in the mid 20’s and many of the most dangerous fringe political groups had burnt out or had fallen out of public view, if only for the time being.

With a more or less stable political footing, and as the US Navy began to work their new airship into service, Dr. Eckener planned the next major step for Zeppelin.

The Graf

Eckener wanted an airship to build on the promise ZR-3 showed in its cross Atlantic outing. However, a roadblock appeared between Eckener and his new airliner, he hadn’t the money. The start-up capital to build and operate a new airship amounted to some 7 million marks, and to try and reach this figure he would attempt to repeat the miracle of Echterdingen. The press campaign began in July of 1925, and through donations and the sale of memorabilia, he was only able to amass 2.5 million marks, suitable enough for only the ship’s construction and nothing more. In short, the average German was far less secure in their finances, while the affluent noble class, once patrons of the old count, were gone (Rose 249). To make matters worse, airplanes had made significant strides in both safety and passenger capacity. Gone were the temperamental and fragile canvas and wooden biplanes, now in their place were solid plywood marvels like the Fokker F.VII and the all metal Junkers F.13, which rapidly took over intercity air travel during the mid 20’s.

Regardless, Eckener pressed on, and between 1925 and 26 he gave nearly a hundred lectures on a press circuit which bolstered fundraising efforts. Once it was clear appeals to the public had reached their limit, he would make a personal request to President Paul Hindenburg, which brought a state contribution of 2 million more marks. The last of the money was found in selling assets from Zeppelin’s subsidiary companies (Eckener30, Rose 287). With the funds in hand, the design work was finalized with the new airship being what was, more or less, a larger derivative of LZ 126 with some cutting edge features. However, the new LZ 127 would not be the largest and most efficient airship the company was capable of building, but rather it was a proof of concept that would show that commercial, oceanic air travel was possible. While they had the funds for a new airship, they were still restricted by the size of their hangar at Friedrichshafen, which would prevent them from building airships much larger than the wartime X-Class for years to come.

By early 1927, LZ 127’s design work had been completed, and while built along the same lines as ZR3, it was fully furnished for passenger comfort. The combined gondola would contain the control and navigation facilities, along with the passengers rooms and amenities. The fore section contained the control room, a radio room, and a navigation room for use for the crew, and behind it was the kitchen, dining room and lounge, and passenger quarters. At the rear of the gondola were the stairs which led to the main crew quarters which contained mostly the same amenities, though with none of the fineries which existed below. The style of the passenger quarters evoked that of the famous and luxurious American Pullman railcars, though with some clever features. The passenger berths served dual purposes, by day they were lounges where passengers could take meals and relax in private, and by night they could be converted to a two bunk cabin.

While LZ-127 could mostly be described as an enlarged version of the company’s previous airship, it did feature a number of innovations. Chief among these were its new Maybach VL2 engines, which in addition to producing a respectable 530PS, were multifuel engines that could run on either gasoline or Blaugas. The former was a fuel specially designed for airship use, as it possessed a density very close to air and could be stored in its own gas cells below the hydrogen. This enabled them to cut weight and conserve ballast hydrogen over long trips, as unlike gasoline, when the Blaugas was burned it did not significantly alter the weight of the airship and did not require the venting of hydrogen to regain equilibrium. Gasoline usage was kept to a minimum and would typically be reserved for takeoffs. Despite much of the design being brought over from a previous project, the airship was far better equipped for long flights. Its 37 tons of Blaugas could provide fuel for around 100 hours of flight, with a similar weight of gasoline providing only 67 hours (Rose 289).

The airship was completed in early July 1928, it being brought into service on the 8th and named Graf Zeppelin, in honor of the late Count. Shortly after a series of shorter test flights, Eckener arranged for a thirty six hour endurance flight across Germany on September 18th. The original course took the ship over Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin, before proceeding to Hamburg to practice oceanic navigation at night over the North Sea. However, the low cloud cover would have prevented the public from seeing the airship along that route and so they diverted to Frankfurt and Mainz before heading on to Cologne and Dusseldorf before reaching the North Sea via the Rhine valley. As was the case so many years ago, they were met by massive crowds as they passed these cities before finally heading out to sea. On the next day their course home took them over Hamburg, Kiel, and Berlin before they proceeded south back to Friedrichshafen (Eckener 32). However, not all were pleased. During further flights in October, French authorities protested the flight over the politically contentious Rhine territories, and subsequently provided directions for the use of airships over their own territory, forcing LZ 127 to fly at night and away from any military installations. The airship’s flight over southern England would also prove rather unsettling to those living there as it brought up unpleasant memories, and the airship would only rarely travel to Britain thereafter (Rose 289).

These early flights would prove extremely promising, the only major issues which arose were political in nature, and the airship itself proved superb. Naturally, Eckener pushed for a flight to Lakehurst, New Jersey.

To Lakehurst

Eckener was prepared to fulfill the promise long dreamed of since the invention of the balloon and kindled during DELAGs best years, he was going to prove air travel could deliver passengers anywhere across the world. 40 crewmen and 20 passengers were assembled for the flight, though few paid for their tickets as they were mostly there to drum up publicity. This included journalist Lady Drummond-Hay, who had come on behalf of the media mogul William Randolph Hearst, who had exclusive reporting rights in the US for the voyage. One of the four who did pay the small fortune of $3000 for a ticket was one Frederick Gilfillan, an American financier who had a plane crash and two shipwrecks under his belt (Rose 295). To add to the foreboding, the weather reports were bleak. Storms and strong winds pervaded most of the approach to New York and numerous older steamships were in distress, while more modern liners were reporting considerable delays to their arrival (Eckener 34).

Eckener took the airship out of Wilhelmshaven on October 11, 1928, opting for a longer, but hopefully calmer Southern approach. The other captains, Fleming and Schiller, agreed to take a course South to the Mediterranean via the Alps, then to Gibraltar, followed by the Azores, and finally proceeding across the Atlantic to the airfield at Lakehurst. This earliest section of the voyage proved the most enjoyable as passengers and crew overflew the scenic Northern Mediterranean with largely agreeable weather. This however, was not to last. As after they flew west off the Azores, they ran into a storm front, and in the midst of exchanging the deck crew for the most experienced members, the nose dipped. Pots and pans clattered to the floor, the breakfast table settings slid from the cloth, and thunder rang out. While the crew remained in control through the rough weather, the passengers were no less terrified (Eckener 39). However, more shockingly, the crew would discover a wide swath of fabric had been torn from the lower port elevator and stabilizing fin, and threatened to jam the controls. By the time this was recognized, the Graf Zeppelin was in the middle of the Atlantic and three days from US navy assistance. After Eckener reported the incident to the Navy, he dispatched a repair team, which included his own son, and informed the passengers of the situation.

The repair team luckily found the damage to be less threatening than they had worried, and that they would be able to reattach the third of fabric that had remained , while cutting away the fluttering edges. The repairmen wore safety tethers while they clung to the outside of the airship and endured the roughly 80 kilometer an hour slipstream as the ship bobbed up and down as the control crew compensated for the increase in weight brought on by the rain. The repair crew worked for around five hours until the ship could rely on the fin once more (Eckener 41).

While the ship was no longer in danger, the new problem became boredom and discomfort. Safety precautions prevented the kitchen from using its electric stoves, lukewarm coffee was served in glasses, as all the china cups had broken in the morning, and, perhaps most distressingly, the beer and wine had run out. The passengers, with the exception of Lady Drummond-Hay who brought plenty of warm clothes, learned just how chilly the Atlantic could get, as the airship had little insulation. Though, the passengers discomfort was eclipsed by the elation of the crowd that gathered to see the ship as it flew over Washington DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia before it went on to New York. This would prove prudent, as it showed the public that despite the damage it had taken, it was in no danger and capable of traveling wherever its crew saw fit (Rose 299, Eckener 43).

The discomfort of many of the passengers was quickly overshadowed by the Graf Zeppelin’s arrival at Lakehurst. Some 150,000 people had traveled to Lakehurst, where they were policed only by some 76 marines, 50 sailors, and 40 state troopers. While Eckener received congratulations from President Hindenburg via telegram, he embarked on a number of press ventures and all manner of celebratory events in New York. All the while, he was kept informed of the repairs being made to the airship, which would take 12 days and delay their return to Freidrichshafen until October 28.

In all, the trip was successful but with mixed results. On a financial basis, the trip was successful in that it was profitable going one way. The operating costs were judged at $54,000 one way, with cargo and passenger revenues bringing in roughly $70,000; beyond that were the press deals which saw Zeppelin receive some $83,000, though these were likely to be considerably reduced for a regular commercial route. Eckener would claim a profit of $100,000, which considering the one million plus price of the airship, meant long term profitability was feasible.

The performance of the airship in the press was seen as both groundbreaking, yet unimpressive. From Germany to the US, the cross Atlantic voyage took some 111 hours, which actually compared poorly to the world’s fastest ocean liner, RMS Mauretania, which managed the crossing in 107. However this would be dispelled when Graf Zeppelin made the return trip in better weather, without detours, and arrived 72 hours later (Rose 301). Passenger comforts too were an issue compared with the ocean liner, though with a larger liquor cabinet and a gramophone with an ample selection of records, things were markedly improved on subsequent voyages.

Chief of all were safety concerns, as despite the airship being capable of handling the storm and subsequent damage better than any plane, it was still extremely concerning to any serious customer base. There was however, one feat which could allay these concerns for good, a world tour. However with the winter fast approaching, such a trip would be put off until a more favorable season.

Egypt Bound

While a world tour was not feasible for several more months, a trip eastward was planned to raise publicity and bring in much needed capital. To promote the airship, a number of high level government officials and members of the press were invited. The choice of location would be Eastern Mediterranean, and much like the pre-war DELAG flights, the emphasis was on sightseeing. A particularly frigid winter would delay the flight four weeks until March 21, 1929, whereafter the Graf Zeppelin flew to a more hospitable region. It made its way down the French Riviera, after which it passed over Corsica and Elba on its way to Italy.

As they over flew Rome, with its ancient and modern sights alike, they sent a telegram to the head of Italy, Benito Mussolini. “Filled with admiration as we look down on Eternal Rome with its timeless remembrance of a glorious past, and its lively activity as a flourishing modern metropolis, we respectfully send our greetings and our good wishes to the genius of this splendid city.” Eckener would derisively say that he wondered if Mussolini would believe himself to be the “genius” of the city. The response would read “Many thanks for your friendly greeting! I wish you a happy journey. Mussolini.” (Eckener 59). From Rome it was on to Napoli, then Eastward across the sea to the Isle of Crete. Their arrival in the Eastern Mediterranean came with the end of the chill that had followed them since their departure from Friedrichshaven. With the last of the coats coming off, the airship made its way to Tel Aviv, and on to Jerusalem with the ship spending the night above the Dead Sea.

Unfortunately, the Graf Zeppelin was denied passage over Egypt by the British Foreign Office. This was likely because they wished to be the first with their own airships, which in a few years time were to fly from England, to Egypt, and then on to India. Eckener would be forced to tell King Fuad of Egypt that the weather prevented any landing there. However in 1930, the Graf Zeppelin would repeat this flight and would carry aboard a number of distinguished Egyptian passengers who were flown over the Pyramids and north, over the coast to Palestine.

During the first flight however, the airship overflew the coasts before heading Northward to Greece. They reached Athens at 6 am, there flying over the ancient Acropolis and then on to Mount Olympus. The planned overflights of Romania and Istanbul were canceled after deep cloud cover was reported over much of the region, and thus they returned to Athens, to the enthusiasm of those who slept through the airship’s first visit. From there it was West to Corinth before making the return trip to Friedrichshaven. The route home was to be over the Dinaric Alps, on to Pressburg and Vienna, before heading west and home. Apart from some passes through narrow clearings, and a blizzard which came on as they passed over Vienna, the return trip was uneventful. In fact, Eckener himself was glad for the poor weather as he was able to impress upon his passengers the safety of the airship and its ability to handle the elements (Eckener 65).

The Egypt flight of 1929 would prove an incredible and undeniable success in comparison to the admittedly rough Atlantic voyage. In addition to the views of some of the most ancient sites across the region, there were no hiccups in regards to lapses in comfort or entertainment, as the ship passed over the less exciting spaces in the dead of night. Perhaps most importantly of all, the ship’s reliability shone through with no major mechanical issues being reported during the flight.

Around the World

With the sight seeing trip behind him, Eckener now had the ideal Autumn weather to prove once and for all the safety and reliability of his airships. The route was largely predetermined as the Graf Zeppelin would need to stop at suitably sized hangers to take on new supplies and undergo any serious maintenance should trouble arise. The ship could take on fuel, ballast, and hydrogen at a simple airship tether, but there it would also be at the mercy of the weather. As such, Graf Zeppelin would fly East over the Soviet Union and make a brief appearance in Moscow, then proceed to Kasumigaura Air Base near Tokyo, where a former wartime zeppelin shed had been transferred and rebuilt. From there it was across the Pacific to America, then to Lakehurst outside of New York, and home again after crossing the Atlantic. However, a wrinkle formed in this plan when William Randolph Hearst, who would pay $100,000 for exclusive media rights in the US and Britain, requested that Eckener begin the journey from Lakehurst. His deal covered a good amount of the overall operating expenses of the trip, valued at around $225,000, much of the sum being spent on shipping 25,003 cubic meters of blau gas to Tokyo. Eckener’s solution was simple: fly Graf Zeppelin to Lakehurst, announce the voyage to the English speaking press there, and then fly back to Friedrichshaven and announce it again to the German press. In doing so he placated Hearst and the more nationalist elements within his own country.

The rest of the expenses were largely paid through passenger and mail fares, though again, few bought their own tickets. The overwhelming majority of passengers were there on behalf of newspapers and a variety of media groups whose focus was on travel, though a single ticket could cost upwards of $2,500. Beyond that was a hefty $50,000 gained through German media deals, and a number of limited postage stamp sets which sold very well among collectors. Despite the record setting nature of the flight, it was to bring in some $40,000 after covering the considerable supply hurdles (Eckener 68, 69).

The Graf Zeppelin departed for Lakehurst on August 1, 1929. This was to be a fairly unremarkable flight save for its two special passengers, Sue, a baby gorilla, and Louis, a chimpanzee, who were being brought to their new home in the US. 95 hours later, they were in Lakehurst and the true voyage began (Rose 307). Graf Zeppelin would return to Friedrichshafen after an overflight of Paris. The trip so far would prove to have a markedly different atmosphere, as in addition to the card games, conversations, and the record player, which often hosted Eckener’s own collection of Beethoven and Mozart, the air was busy with the clatter of the reporter’s typewriters.

The airship would spend five days in Friedrichshafen preparing for the journey ahead, which was to cover some 20,116 kilometers. During the layover, a number of new passengers boarded including Commander Rosendahl of the US Navy, Professor Karlkin, a Soviet meteorologist, and Commander Fuiyoshi of the Imperial Japanese Navy who was accompanied by two members of the Japanese press. With a crew of 41, and 20 passengers on board, Graf Zeppelin flew east (Eckener 72, Robinson 272).

Now prepared for the flight ahead, they departed and flew north east over East Prussia and the Baltics. The approach to Moscow saw the trip’s first real challenge, a low pressure area developed north of the Caspian sea and was moving north. This would create strong headwinds along the original route and could potentially strain the airship’s fuel supply, however if they chose to fly on a more northerly course they would have a favorable westerly wind. To the anger of the Soviet representative, and to the disappointment of the crowds that had gathered in Moscow, Graf Zeppelin flew north. Upon flying past the city of Perm and past the Ural mountains, it quickly became clear why they had to bypass Moscow. The immensity of the far east would have proven disastrous had they run out of fuel, it was a land which was mostly untouched and beyond human civilization. Regardless, the frustrated Soviet Press devoted a good deal of energy criticizing Eckener and leveling a number of conspiratorial allegations at his decision (Rose 309).

Beyond Central Russia was the expansive taiga which Eckener described, “Like an extraordinary, decorative carpet it blazed up at us in all its colors-green, yellow, blue, red, and orange-horribly beautiful when we thought we might have to land on this carpet and be trapped helpless and lost amid the swamps and countless criss-crossing little streams” (Eckener 75). Navigation here and across Northern Asia would prove difficult owing to the few landmarks, even the smallest villages were noted and used to chart a course, the smallest being made up of a number of tents. Among the many incredible sights on those northern latitudes were the distant villages of the Yakut people and the aurora borealis which shone over the horizon. As they neared edge of Siberia they visited the city of Yakutsk, where they dropped a wreath over the cemetery where German prisoners of the Great War were buried. From there they proceeded to the sea of Okhotsk where their trek through Siberia ended (Eckener 76-81).

Graf Zeppelin reached Hokkaido, Japan at dawn, and with good weather proceeded southward on to the Japanese mainland. The airship overflew Tokyo for some time and performed a series of maneuvers over Yokohama Harbor above the massed onlookers. When they came in to land at Kasumigaura, they were met by an immense crowd, as thousands had traveled across the country to see the airship.

While the airship was impressive to crowds on both sides of the Atlantic, it hardly compared to the fanfare it received in Japan. While Graf Zeppelin shaved roughly two days off the next fastest way across the Atlantic, it had bridged Japan and Europe in less than four. The next fastest, and still rather exclusive method, the Trans-Siberian Railway, took two weeks. Otherwise, by fast steamer, it took nearly month. One local newspaper would claim the trip as one of mankind’s finest achievements, and the event would receive more column space than any other event in Japanese history until that point. Those aboard the airship would spend six days in Tokyo, with key members of the crew being invited to a series of events hosted by the Japanese government. Eckener and his officers would attend a lavish state banquet at Tokyo’s grandest hotel along with Japan’s highest ranking ministers and the Chief Admiral of the Navy. This however, could not compare to Eckener joining Emperor Hirohito for tea at the Imperial palace, after which he was presented with a pair of silver cups, a ceremonial sword and dagger, silk embroideries, and porcelain vases. The stay in Japan culminated in the entire crew having afternoon tea at the German embassy, with nearly every German in Japan being in attendance (Eckener 83, Robinson 273, Rose 309).

With their stay over, the crew prepared for the flight across the Pacific, though an accident in removing the airship from its hangar resulted in a delay until the following morning on August 23, 1929. The airship would depart minus its Soviet representative, and its Japanese contingent would be rotated out for Naval representatives Lt. Commander Ryunoske Kusaka, Major Shibata, and a reporter. The journey across the Pacific was fairly unremarkable apart from the distance traveled, and the views were often obscured by clouds and fog. Graf Zeppelin reached San Francisco on the early morning of August 25 where it was greeted by a number of airplanes and ships which had come out of the harbor to meet it. They then proceeded South to Los Angeles where it would land at Mines Field, the airship arrived late at night and went largely unseen, save for those who traveled to see it the following morning. Interestingly, the landing was made difficult due to a low altitude temperature inversion which required they valve off hydrogen as the denser layer of air otherwise prevented the ship from descending (Robinson 273). This effect is partially responsible for the region’s agreeable climate, and its smog.

Unlike Tokyo, the stay would not be a long one, and after an evening with Mr. Hearst, whose massive mansion was in Los Angeles, the airship was preparing to leave again. However, upon trying to leave they were short on hydrogen and were forced to proceed at very low altitude with very little ballast, southward around the Rocky Mountains. Initially, it flew so low that it nearly struck power lines as it departed the airfield. From San Diego they traveled through New Mexico and, like the crew of the L 59 almost ten years earlier, experienced extreme updrafts which could drag the ship over a 300 meters upward. Eckener considered this the most difficult point in the journey, and he believed the region made traversing America by airship a serious gamble should one wish to travel from coast to coast. Apart from the Texas homesteader who took potshots at the airship, the flight proceeded smoothly after they reached El Paso, after which they swung north on a course that would take them over Kansas before reaching Chicago. While the airship was greeted by crowds wherever it went, Chicago’s excitement rivaled San Francisco’s as a handful of planes joined it in the air and massive crowds cluttered the roads and gathered in parks to see the airship overfly their city. On its departure, it visited the Goodyear-Zeppelin headquarters at Akron Ohio before making its way to New York to complete the journey (Eckener 90).

The world flight was completed when Graf Zeppelin returned to the hangar at Lakehurst on August 27, 1929. While the airship had visited the city several times before, its reception on that date surpassed all the rest. On that day New Yorkers shredded more phone books for confetti than ever before, and after a massive reception at city hall, Eckener was invited to a meeting with President Hoover. There Hoover would tell him “I thought that the day of the great adventurers, like Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Magellan, was in the past. Now such an adventurer is in my presence. I am happy, Dr. Eckener, that the American people have greeted you so warmly, and today would like to extend my personal good wishes for your enterprise.” (Eckener 93, 94)

Graf Zeppelin had made the 11,104 kilometers from Friedrichshafen to Tokyo in 102 hours, had crossed the 8851 of the Pacific in 79, and crossed the 5,632 of America in 52 (Rose 314). All of these were new records, and the lack of any major mishap would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the safety and reliability of Eckener’s airship. With it completed it seemed it would be simple enough to begin a regular passenger service, though this was not to be. A massive stock market crash in the US in just a month’s time would spill over and leave the entire world economy in shambles, aviation in particular would be hit hard. All but the largest aircraft manufacturers were out of business, and what few fledging airlines existed were hit equally as hard.

The Desert and the Future

With the world in the grips of an economic catastrophe, Eckener had to redress his plans. Further airship construction would need to be put on hold and new streams of capital would need to be established. The admittedly lackluster successor to Graf Zeppelin, LZ 128, was canceled. With its cancellation also went the hope of a triangle airline scheme by which DELAG was to sell tickets which granted passengers access to North and South America and Germany. However, Graf Zeppelin completed a trial run with a complement of paying passengers and freight in 1930, flying from Friedrichshafen to Recife Brazil, and then to Lakehurst. It proved impractical, as the volatile and unpredictable North Atlantic weather made comfortable passenger travel impossible without a specially designed airship. While no additional triangle flights were conducted with Graf Zeppelin for some time, it made a profit of over $100,000. Owing to having only 11 passengers aboard, air mail and stamp sets made up most of the earnings (Rose 350).

In 1930 Graf Zeppelin made a number of publicity flights across the UK where tickets were offered for short sightseeing flights. By this point the British aversion to the Zeppelin had clearly run its course, perhaps this can be seen no clearer than when the Graf Zeppelin overflew Wembley Stadium during the FA Cup. Beyond this the Egyptian tour was revisited again, and with the tragic demise of the British Imperial Airship scheme after the crash of R-101, Zeppelins were allowed full reign over the region.

In the meantime, Graf Zeppelin was hired out to complete a scientific survey of the North Pole in 1931. Without passenger fare, reporting rights and stamp sets would bring in most of the profits. Incredible concerns were raised over the Arctic weather and icing, which could disturb the airship’s equilibrium. Despite being seriously damaged by a hail storm, Graf Zeppelin completed the survey along with the Soviet icebreaker, Malygin.

Zeppelin survived these financially tumultuous years by very narrow margins, and oddly enough, was kept afloat by stamp collectors who drove up the price of the limited edition sets the company commissioned. However, in 1931, there were bright spots on the horizon for DELAG. Graf Zeppelin was to begin a regular international service to South America, and a new airship was being developed for cross Atlantic service.

Regular Service to South America

While regular triangle passenger flights between the three continents were well beyond the capabilities for Graf Zeppelin, it could chart a service to South America with ease. While the North Atlantic was frigid and temperamental, and had previously proven extremely uncomfortable for passengers, the tropical and relatively warm waters of the South were ideal. After the Arctic flight, three passenger flights to South America were conducted in the late summer and autumn of 1931. These early flights were fairly limited, after leaving Friedrichshafen they proceeded over Southern France, Spain, the South Atlantic, and arrived in Recife, Brazil where an airship mast allowed them to service their vessel. This sole mast and its fairly remote location required DELAG to partner with the German Condor Airline to service other major cities across South America (Robinson 279). In spite of this, these initial flights would prove so successful, that all publicity flights were terminated so that all efforts could be taken to focus on the South American line.

The following year would see nine passenger flights, the last three of which saw the airship fly down to Rio de Janeiro in order to draw interest to build a hangar there. Beyond this the flights were improved in the choice of view. When the airship departed or returned to Europe, it often did so through the French Rhone Valley and over the Bay of Biscay, or it proceeded south over Spain and then to the Cape Verde Islands off of Africa. Occasionally, there were also scheduled stopovers in Barcelona and Seville, where the excellent weather often permitted the airship to remain outdoors for sometime (Robinson 280). While the 1931 flights were more or less experimental, those of the following year were routine, all of which sold out, and beyond ticket sales the revenue from freight and mail was not inconsiderable (Ecekener 115).

As successful as these flights were, they were overshadowed by events in Germany. The Nazis were gaining greater prominence, with the regime exerting an ever more dominating force over the country, though Zeppelin and DELAG remained independent for the moment. In the backdrop of such developments, Eckener was able to see that the Rio hangar was built. The year would see another nine trips, the last being a triangle flight that would take the airship to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.

By the summer of 1933, the aviation authorities in Germany required all registered aircraft to display the Nazi swastika. The Graf had swastikas painted on the port side of its vertical stabilizers, the other emblazoned with the older Imperial style flag. Displeased with having to carry the symbol, Eckener flew the airship around Chicago on a clockwise course which hid the swastikas from crowds. He was, however, unable to prevent it being photographed by circling planes, with the subsequent images being printed in newspapers images world wide. This would not be the first time he attempted to act against the new regime. Prior to this, he forbade the Nazis from holding events at the new massive hangar at Freidrichshafen (Rose 357, 364). These marked the first in a number of protests Eckener had against Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels, who wished to use the Zeppelins to carry the flag of the new regime. Beyond this, Goebbels often took to chartering the airship for political events and publicity flights, much to the annoyance and displeasure of Eckener and many airship crewmen who hated the politics of the new regime and saw these “circus flights” as a waste of time.

In spite of the ongoing feud, DELAG continued to improve its services to South America. Graf Zeppelin flew twelve round trips to South America in 1934, the third flying as far as Buenos Aires where Eckener unsuccessfully tried to convince the Argentinian government to build an airship hangar. Buenos Aires was to be a major hub for DELAG, as it was hoped that they would be able to make sales amongst the sizable German enclave there. However this was not to be, and instead they bolstered their partnership with the Condor Airline which could fly the airship’s passengers from Rio de Janeiro by seaplane.

The political environment became more contentious during this time, as Goebbels’ propaganda ministry and Goering’s Air ministry began to feud over the airships. Both offices devoted large sums to the production of LZ 129 and chartered increasing usage of Graf Zeppelin. Despite his long standing personal disinterest in the airship, Herman Goering recognized it as an important and internationally recognized symbol of German aviation. A symbol which he knew improved the standing of his new office, in contrast with Goebbels ideological zeal. In any case, both men knew they could force Eckener’s cooperation through the resources they devoted to his company, despite what trouble he would occasionally cause them.

The year 1935 would continue to see a business boom for the Brazil route, and saw 16 round trip flights across the Atlantic. There was also considerable growth in passenger travel which peaked in that year at 720 with an additional 14,061 kilograms of freight carried, including some 900,000 letters (Eckener 116). In short, DELAG had pioneered the international airline just as it had in 1919 when it achieved regular air service with Bodensee. However, just as it had been in 1919, DELAG would be dissolved again.

Political Troubles and the End

Just as DELAG was honing its international air service, it was dissolved. Air Minister Goering would reorganize most German airlines, and he would visit this on DELAG on March 25, 1935. The new Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei (DZR), or German Zeppelin Shipping Company, would take its place, this new entity being state owned. In doing so, Goering would have final say on airship use, largely putting an end to the quiet feud with Goebbels.

With this change came a transfer of command, Eckener was replaced with Lehmann, of Great War fame. Lehmann was an able commander and fiercely nationalistic, which made him a far more palatable choice over the decidedly liberal and world trotting Eckener. The former became chairman of the Board of Directors and still held some influence, but his control over the airline and the Zeppelin company, which he still presided over, slackened. Eckener continued to work for the airline in order to ensure safe operations, and to do his best to keep the Nazis from becoming too intertwined with the business. Initially, he was successful, as LZ 129 entered service to become the second airship on the South American route, after he had first flown it to the United States. Its name too, Hindenburg, was chosen for its lack of ties to the new regime.

This state of affairs was not to last as the political tides grew more volatile. As a result of Ecekener’s open and continued complaints about Goebbels’ use of the airships, the Reichsminister would issue an order to remove all mention of Eckener in any future news publications. This would backfire spectacularly when President FDR assumed and looked forward to Eckener being the captain of the Hindenburg on its first Atlantic voyage to the United States. Rather than admit a blunder on the world stage, the publication moratorium was lifted temporarily, with Goering subsequently intervening between the two and meeting with Hitler to have the moratorium lifted entirely (Rose 393, 395). In any case, and in spite of his own convictions, Eckener’s work would continue to benefit the Nazis and he would continue to stay, and work in Germany.

The final straw came a year later in 1937, when Hindenburg caught fire over Lakehurst in the most infamous airship disaster. While accidents were common in air travel at this point, never had one so spectacular been caught on film and so publicized. In spite of DELAG never having lost a passenger in its decades of operation, passenger airship travel would end there. As a result of a flashy landing stunt to bring the airship in quickly, Captain Lehman overstressed one of the rear structural rings and snapped a bracing wire. The wire tore a hydrogen cell, and a static discharge ignited the air mixture near an aft ventilation shaft (Rose 440, Eckener 173). Following the accident, what interest the state and public had in the airships quickly dissipated, and Graf Zeppelin, after nearly ten years in the air, was decommissioned and later dismantled. Eckener himself would largely go into retirement, though on paper he remained a key figure at Zeppelin and some of its subsidiaries.

Conclusion

The airships built by Count Zeppelin and the airlines which operated them can be said to be among the most groundbreaking endeavors in the history of aviation. In terms of long range aviation, many of their efforts would outpace their competitors for upwards of a decade. In regards to air travel, nearly every major milestone was achieved first using their airships. DELAG would be the first to pioneer passenger air travel, establish regular, scheduled transportation flights, and build the first transcontinental airline. While the passenger airship was dealt a fatal blow with the destruction of the Hindenburg under the DZR, ironically, few endeavors can claim to have done so much with so few injuries as the DELAG airline.

Advanced Technical Descriptions

LZ 1-1900

LZ 1 had a symmetrical, cylindrical hull formed from 16 transverse, wire braced, rings composed of 24 polygons that were connected by 24 longitudinal beams. The rings were spaced 7.98 m apart, save for those around the two control gondolas, which were 4 meters apart. The hull was made from unalloyed aluminum, and thus was very soft and contributed to the airship’s structural issues. The beams, which comprised the hull were practically openwork I-beams and offered little resistance to compression or bending loads, resulting in the center hull bending downwards during its test flights. The hull measured in at a length of 128 m with a diameter of 11.74 m. (robinson 23)

There were 17 cylindrical hydrogen cells made from rubberized cotton. This material was composed of thin laminated sheets of lightweight cotton and rubber. Each cell was fitted with a relief valve, with 5 being fitted with control valves which allowed the crew to adjust for lift. The airship was covered in cotton treated with pegamoid to reduce drag and friction within the hull. Pegamoid was also used as a basic waterproofing material, its use was continued on Zeppelin’s until more suitable doping materials were employed during WWI.

The airship lacked large control surfaces, there being only a small pair of rudders above and below the nose, and a rear set which were connected to the sides of the hull. Pitch was changed by means of a 100 kg lead weight that was moved along the rail between the gondolas. This proved to be a very cumbersome and unreliable system, with the weight jamming on at least one occasion.

LZ 1 was controlled from two cars along the underside of the airship. These were both made of aluminum and designed to float in case of emergency. These were connected via metal piping which served to act as a walkway. Each carried a Daimler 4 cylinder engine which produced 14.2 horsepower at 680 rpm, with a weight of 385 kilograms. These each drove a pair of propellers on the upper hull above the cars, which they were connected to via bevel gears and shafts. These turned at a maximum RPM of 1200, considerably faster than the engine, in order to follow one of the Count’s theories. He would later find large diameter propellers operated at lower RPMs to be more efficient. The propellers themselves were made of simple flat sheets of aluminum and had four blades with a diameter of 1.22 meters(Robinson 24, Eckener 191).

 

 

Golden Years Airliners 1911-1914

LZ 10 Schwaben-1911

LZ 10 Schwaben was the first specially designed airliner and almost fully divorced from the LZ 3 derivative airships. It was shorter and carried less hydrogen than the initial, and very unsuccessful Deutschland, but was far more efficient. The framework was made of a strengthened aluminum alloy, and used the tried and tested triangular girders that Dürr developed for airship use. The hull was 140.2 long and 14 m in diameter, containing 17 rubberized cotton hydrogen cells. This would be the last Zeppelin airship to use them, as they constituted a fire hazard and were responsible for the loss of this airship.

Schwaben was powered exclusively by three 6 cylinder inline Maybach C-X engines, these being developed specifically for airship use. Each engine provided up to 145 horsepower and weighed 652kg. These water cooled motors had a displacement of 20.5L, and had a bore and stroke of 160 mm x 170 mm. Overall, they measured 129.5 x 182.9 x 86.4cm (Smithsonian). The forward engine was coupled to a pair of two bladed hard aluminum propellers, with the rear two being coupled to a pair of four bladed propellers. The rear propellers were a pair of two bladed propellers affixed to one another on the same drive shaft. They could propel the airship to a trial speed of 76.6 km/h.

The airship was controlled from the forward car which contained one of the three engines. Controls were improved as all the control surfaces had been moved aft, with the rudders and elevators being installed in a box like configuration at the rear of the airship. Ballast bags were installed fore and aft.

As with all DELAG airships, it did not lack for amenities and comforts. The passengers were seated in a gallery amidships. This compartment was composed of an outer frame sheet aluminum with inner wood supports and decorative framing. The inner compartment was covered in wood paneling that consisted of high layer plywood covered in mahogany sheeting. Pillars and decorative elements were decorated with mother of pearl inlays and the floors were carpeted. Ahead of the gallery was a small space for the attendant and an ice box with an accompanying liquor cabinet. To the rear of the gallery was a lavatory with a latrine made from aluminum fittings to save weight. The entire compartment was affixed to the hull with reinforced aluminum girders and cables.

LZ 11 Viktoria Luise & LZ 13 Hansa- 1911&1912

These two airships were built roughly to the same specifications though Hansa was the heavier of the two owing to some minor difference in construction. These were very similar to the Schwaben in their overall layout, though they differed markedly in that they used goldbeater skins in place of rubberized cotton for their hydrogen cells. This material was a finely woven cotton fabric laminated with chemically treated sheets of cow intestine. It proved to be both lighter and could not accumulate a dangerous static charge and was used on all subsequent airships (Chollet 6).

The two also featured a crude cruciform tail section, from which the elevators and rudders hung. These were smaller than those mounted on Schwaben, but were no less effective. These evidently reduced drag considerably, as despite being 7.90 meters longer than Schwaben, both airships made for a trial speed of approximately 80 kilometers an hour. This added length allowed for an expansion of the passenger compartment (Stahl 66).

LZ 17 Sachsen-1913

This airship was built much to the same standards as the previous two but it was built to a shorter length and wider diameter. When designing previous airships, or in enlarging existing models, the common technique was simply to add a lengthening section. It was initially believed that nearly all drag was created by the frontal cross section, with very little being induced by the surface area of the rest of the vessel. The aim with Sachsen was to increase the volume of its gas cells, and thus its cargo capacity, while also keeping drag to a minimum. It was quite successful, but it entered service only a year before DELAG was dissolved at the start of the Great War, and thus had the shortest passenger service of these early airliners.

LZ 120 Bodensee-1919

Bodensee was built with a number of new design features which had become commonplace during the war. Chief of these were its teardrop shape, which cut down on drag while retaining a large hydrogen capacity; and its cruciform tail section, which improved stability and maneuverability. Despite having roughly the same hydrogen capacity as the Sachsen, built years earlier, Bodensee boasted a much higher top speed and lifting capacity, all while being considerably shorter.

The hull of the Bodensee was constructed of 17 sided rings of various dimensions, the largest being 18.6 meters in diameter. The hull was made of a more modern duralumin which made it far more resilient, and likely contributed to the long service life of the airship. Along the underside of the hull was a catwalk which gave the crew access to the engines and command gondola. Above the catwalk were the ship’s 11 hydrogen cells. The entire airship, including the gondola, was skinned in a doped cotton fabric which gave excellent weatherproofing.

The gondola itself was divided into a forward command section and a rear passenger section. The command section featured modern controls which had been commonplace for some years, most notably an electric control panel for hydrogen release. Its passenger space could be divided into five compartments seating four, with one VIP cabin in the front who paid double fare. Six more seats could be, and often were, fitted if the partitions were removed and the space was consolidated. As with the previous airliners, the cabin was well furnished with a fine wood paneling over the structural elements and specially made aluminum and leather chairs for the passengers. The decor was fairly subdued compared to the more lavish furnishings of past DELAG airships. Aft of the passenger compartment was a buffet staffed with an attendant who prepared meals with an electric hotplate. The last gondola compartment contained the restroom. (Robinson 258 Rose 196). Flights typically lasted seven or eight hours on its typical Friedrichshafen-Berlin Route. Owing to the short nature of the flights, the airship was crewed by only a dozen or so men.

The airship was propelled by four Maybach Mb IVa engines which were high altitude motors and were mass produced during the Great War for the R-Class, and later “height climber” Zeppelins. Owing to the lack of superchargers, they instead used incredibly high compression ratios, which meant they could not be run at high throttle below 6000ft. Some examples approached 300hp at high altitudes, but in the case of the low altitude Bodensee, they could be expected to top out at 245 hp under normal conditions. These were water cooled 23.1L inline 6’s with a bore and stroke of 165 mm and 180 mm, and a weight of 417.8 kg (Smithsonian, Robinson 258). Two motors were mounted in their own individual cars on each side of the hull, with a rear, centerline car containing two motors, side by side, and were geared to the same propeller. These were geared to a wooden 5.2 meter propeller with a reverse gear that could be used slow and maneuver the airship as it came in to land. Each engine car had a skeletal aluminum frame that was fabric skinned. The engineers worked in the cars to adjust their output, with commands being telegraphed from the control room, and to maintain them throughout long flights. In most cases this amounted to supplying them with more oil. The engines could propel Bodensee up to 132km/h, making it the fastest airship thus built. They also made it considerably overpowered and the crew had to be wary of oversteering when the engines were running near their highest output. The ship was later lengthened to extend its range and help compensate for this issue.

LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin 1928

Graf Zeppelin was the largest and most advanced airship to serve with DELAG, with most of its features being tested and tried aboard the ZR 3. Graf Zeppelin’s hull was built to the restrictions of its hangar in Friedrichshafen with the 236.6m long and 30.5m airship having the familiar teardrop shape of its predecessors. Its structure was conventional, though made use of improved duraluminium and had built up sections around the gondola and the struts supporting the engine cars. The hull included two catwalks, one along the bottom, to give access to the engines, crew quarters, and gondola; and a center catwalk which gave access to the gas cells and the exterior of the airship should repairs need to be made. There were 17 hydrogen cells with a volume of about 85,000 cubic meters set above the fuel gas cells, which contained some 26,000 cubic meters of blau gas. Depending on the configuration of the airship, the combined gas capacity of hydrogen and fuel was normally 105,000 cubic meters (Robinson , Eckener 207). The use of blau gas meant a lower lifting gas capacity, but it freed up several tons of weight by eliminating the use of gasoline, and meant the airship needed less water ballast to offset the burning of a denser fuel source. The lower ballast requirements also made the airship easier to fly over long distances, as it meant the crew needed to make only minor adjustments to the airship’s trim and ballast. A small amount of liquid fuel was carried to bring the airship out of its airport, as burning it lightened the ship and aided in climbing without sacrificing any ballast water. The entire airship was skinned in treated fabric, its waterproofing treatment now containing aluminum, which gave the airship its iconic metallic sheen.

The lower hull contained the amenities for the crew, including the bunks, which were spaced out along the lower corridor, their restrooms, and a small lounge space where they rested and took their meals. The gondola itself was divided among the forward control rooms, and rear passenger quarters. The forwardmost was the control room, followed by a navigation room, the radio room, and kitchen. Control of the airship was managed through similar, but improved means compared to the LZ 120. The elevator controls in particular were improved by the use of a boost motor to make the difficult and physically straining job of the elevator man easier. A fully automatic gyro for rudder control was also installed, but often went unused as it was felt its impulses were too heavy and clumsy, in comparison to hand control from an experienced helmsman. Landing was done without the use of either system but was aided by the use of bubble pointers geared to both controls which accurately displayed the inclination of the airship relative to the inputs of its controllers ( ONI Lt. Cmdr. Kenworthy 3). In practice, both systems were typically only used when controllers were changing course against the wind. Navigation aboard the ship was often done through dead reckoning and star sighting, though it was also capable of radio direction-finding as well. A powerful 3 million candlepower searchlight was mounted aft of the passenger section which enabled altitude checks and drift readings in the dead of night (ONI Fulton 3,4). These systems were powered by a pair of auxiliary power units which took their fuel from the Blaugas reserves.

The kitchen was well stocked and the cook and his assistant prepared meals through the use of electrical stoves. Food was served on the airline’s own signature dishes and cutlery. There were ten two-passenger cabins, a pair of washrooms, and a lounge area that could be rearranged for dining or leisure. The original decor evoked the luxury of Pullman railcars, though the traditional, and fairly dated, wallpaper was later replaced with a coat of white paint to give the airship a more nautical feel. Passengers were less than thrilled over the fairly confined nature of their quarters and the lounge, though the annoyance of not being able to smoke was the chief complaint. After the first several voyages, the airship began to stock a larger liquor cabinet, impromptu tours of the airship were given, and a gramophone, which often played Eckener’s own extensive collection of Beethoven and Mozart, was brought aboard. Smoking however, was never allowed and the lack of insulation required passengers wear coats in cold weather.

Graf Zeppelin was propelled by five Maybach VL-2 motors, these being multifuel 33.3L V-12s which could run off gasoline or Blau Gas. The VL-2 was a specialized engine designed to run for long periods and to be easy to repair in flight by airship engineers. Each engine produced up to 570 hp at 1,600 RPM and weighed 1,148 kg. They had a bore and stroke of 140 mm and 180 mm. These were water cooled engines, with their radiators being at the front of the engine car where a pair of shutters controlled air flow. They were all geared to propellers via planetary 2:1 reduction gears, and like Bodensee, were reversible. They were initially all geared to two bladed wooden propellers, though all but the lower gondola would be fitted with larger four bladed 3.4 meter propellers. The lower car retained the shorter propeller as it would have otherwise run into ground clearance issues. The engines also had the benefit of a silica absorber which reduced moisture exposure and allowed them to reclaim fresh water, which proved very useful as the airship frequently crossed oceans (LT. Cmdr. TGW 3). These engines overall proved very reliable for their day, though on occasion they would encounter minor breakdowns which required a brief stoppage of all engines to fix it. They could propel the airship as fast as 128km/h, though the airship typically traveled at 112km/h which was ideal for fuel economy.

For any considerably long voyage, a crew numbering at least thirty was required, and for regular passenger service, some 40 crewmen were aboard. On a flight from Germany to Pernambuco, Brazil on October 9, 1932, Graf Zeppelin was commanded and flown by the following: 1 commanding officer, 3 watch officers, 3 junior officers, 1 chief engineer, 1 assistant engineer officer, 1 leading engine man, 15 engine men, 2 electricians, 3 riggers, 3 radio men, 3 rudder men, 3 elevator men, and 3 stewards, these being a flight attendant and the two cooks. The longest watches belonged to the watch officers, the radiomen and riggers, and the leading engineering officers who all had a watch of four hours. Every crewman had their own bunk by the time of the regular South America flights (ONI Lt. Cmdr. T.G.W 1,2)

Specification:

Illustrations:

 

 

Gallery

Personalities

Early Airships

 

 

Graf Zeppelin

 

 

 

Credits

• Written by Henry H.
• Edited by Ed Jackson & Henry H.
• Illustrations by Ed Jackson

Sources

Primary:

Eckener, Hugo. My Zeppelins. Putnam & Co. Ltd, 1958.

Von Zeppelin, Ferdinand. Die Luftschiffahrt Und Die Modernen Luftfahrzeuge. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1909.

Capt. Chollet, L. Balloon Fabrics made of Goldbeater’s Skin. NACA, 1922.

Curtis, Thomas E. The Zeppelin Airship. Smithsonian Report for 1900. 1901.

Dr. Dürr, Ludwig. The American Airship ZR-3. Zeitschrift des Vereines Deutscher Ingenieure. May 31, 1924, Vol. 68, No. 22. 1924.

Fulton, G., J. L. Kenworthy, James L. Fisher, and Edwin F. Cochrane. “LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin: Flight Reports by US Navy Officers,” October 1933, November 1934.

Mills, George H, Meister Von F.W. LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin correspondence relating to George H. Mill’s flights. 1934.

Ebner, Hans. The Present Status of Airship Construction, Especially of Airship Framing Construction. Zeitschrift fur Flugtechnik und Motorluftschifftfahrt Vol. 24, Nos. 11 and 12, June 6 and June 28, 1933 Verlag von R. Oldenbourg, Munchen und Berlin. 1933.

Stahl, Friedrich. Rigid Airships. NACA Technical Memorandum, 1920-1921.

Munk, Max M. The Drag of Zeppelin Airships. NACA. 1923.

Maybach VL-2, V-12 Engine. National Air and Space Museum. A19350052000.

Maybach AZ, In-line 6 Engine. National Air and Space Museum. A19791399000.

Maybach MB IVa, In-line 6 Engine. National Air and Space Museum. A19710882000.

Secondary:

Rose, Alexander. Empires of the Sky. Random House. 2020. (Ebook).

Maiersperger, Walter P. Design Aspects of Zeppelin Operations from Case Histories. NACA. 1975.

Robinson, Douglas H. Giants in the Sky History of the Rigid Airship. Billing and Sons Ltd., London. 1973.

Vissering, Henry. Zeppelin The Story of a Great Achievement. Chicago. 1922.