Zeppelin Part 1

Zeppelin.

by Harry Vissering.

FOREWORD

"Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for civilization."

-_Macaulay._

The economic value of the fast transportation of pa.s.sengers, mail and express matter has been well proven. The existing high speed railway trains and ocean liners are the result of the ever increasing demand for rapid communication both on land and water.

Saving in time is the great essential. The maximum surface speed has apparently been attained. The railways and steamships of today, while indeed fast, have reached their economical limit of speed and it is not to be expected that they will be able, because of the enormous additional cost of operation involved, to attain much greater speeds.

The large Zeppelin Airship supplies the demand for a much faster, more luxurious, more comfortable and more safe long distance transportation.

It is not restricted by the geographical limitations of the railway and the steamship. _A Zeppelin can go anywhere_, in fact the cruising radius of a Zeppelin is only limited by the size of the ship and the amount of fuel it can carry.

Zeppelins, only slightly larger than those actually flown during the last few months of the war, are capable of safely and quickly making a non-stop flight from Berlin to Chicago and from New York to Paris in 56 hours, carrying 100 pa.s.sengers and in addition 12 tons of mail or express matter.

In November, 1917, the Zeppelin L-59 made a non-stop flight from Jambol, Bulgaria, to a point just west of Khartum in Africa and return to Jambol in 95 hours (4 days) covering a distance of 4225 miles and carrying more than 14 tons of freight besides a crew of 22, which performance remains a world's record for all kinds of aircraft, airship or aeroplane.

In July, 1919, the British Rigid Airship R-34 (copy of the Zeppelin L-33 brought down in England) crossed the Atlantic in 103 hours and after being refueled at New York returned home in 75 hours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Count Zeppelin, Doctor Eckener and Capt.

Stra.s.ser (Chief of Naval Air Service). On the occasion of the last visit of the Count to the Airship Harbor at Nordholz.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dr. Ing. Ludwig Durr, Chief Engineer. Who was a.s.sociated with Count Zeppelin from the start.]

The German Airship Transportation Company-DELAG-(a Zeppelin subsidiary) during a period of three years just before the war, 1911-14, carried 34,228 pa.s.sengers without a single injury to either pa.s.sengers or crews, and after the war, from August 24th to December 1st, 1919, by means of the improved Zeppelin "Bodensee" carried 2,380 pa.s.sengers, 11,000 pounds of mail (440,000 letters), and 6,600 pounds of express matter, exclusive of crews, between Friedrichshafen (Swiss frontier) and Berlin under unfavorable weather and terminal conditions, besides a flight from Berlin to Stockholm and return.

The U. S. Government has concluded arrangements (June, 1922) with the Allied Powers whereby the U. S. Navy will receive a modern Zeppelin as a part of America's share of the aerial reparations.

This new Zeppelin will embody the very latest improvements in airship design and will be delivered by being flown from Berlin across the Atlantic to the Navy's Airship Harbor at Lakehurst, New Jersey. It will be built by Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin (Zeppelin Airship Building Co., Ltd.), at their Friedrichshafen Works and will be a 70,000 cubic meter (2,400,000 cu. ft.) gas capacity commercial type, as it is intended that it will be flown in the United States to demonstrate the safety and practicability of long distance airship-transport. It will be delivered by a Zeppelin crew. The arrival in the United States of this strictly modern Zeppelin will no doubt create a wonderful interest as the American people have never seen a real Zeppelin and it will give a great impetus to airship activities throughout the world.

The U. S. Navy are building at Lakehurst, N. J., the ZR-1 modeled after the Zeppelin L-49. The ZR-1 will be of 55,000 cubic meters (1,940,000 cu. ft.) gas capacity and is intended for use as an experimental and training ship.

Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin is building (August, 1922) at Friedrichshafen a Zeppelin of 30,000 cubic meters (1,059,000 cu. ft.) gas capacity to be used for experimental and training purposes. It will be finished in the winter of 1922-23 and in time to take advantage of some of the worst of winter weather conditions for experiments having to do with airship navigation under the extremes of weather and temperature.

Considerable of the information contained in these pages has been furnished by Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin for which the author is greatly indebted to them.

HARRY VISSERING

[PLATE 1: Zeppelin "LZ-1" First Ascent July 2nd, 1900.

Count Zeppelin's First Floating Shed on Lake Constance (Bodensee) and the Zeppelin "LZ-1", July 1900.]

CHAPTER I

Zeppelin and His Airships

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born at Constance on Lake Constance (Bodensee), Germany, July 8th, 1838. His boyhood was not unlike that of others in Central Europe; and, as a matter of course, young Zeppelin was enrolled at a military school at Ludwigsburg, from which he in due time graduated into a lieutenancy in the Wurttemberg Army, but he was not particularly enthralled with the quiet life of a garrison in peace time.

His creative faculties demanded something more of life than the routine of inspections, drills and dress parades. When he died on March 8, 1917, in Berlin, the whole world mourned the loss of one whose genius and vision had developed the rigid airship into a practical vehicle of the sky, proved of inestimable value in peace and war. Zeppelin had lived to see _more than a hundred rigid airships built_ from his designs and under his personal supervision. And so completely was his personality interwoven with the creation of these aerial giants that throughout the world all dirigible lighter-than-air craft are looked upon as the noted Zeppelins, and are referred to as such. It is an unconscious but none the less fitting tribute to the man who, starting when he was past the half century mark, has made possible the greatest of all vehicles for us to use in our new dominion-the air.

An Officer in the American Union Army

[PLATE 2: Zeppelin "LZ-3" Over Count Zeppelin's First Floating Shed October 1906.

Zeppelin "LZ-3" in First Temporary Land Shed.

Which was erected and used while the new double shed, completed in 1908, was being built at Friedrichshafen.]

Here in America the Civil War was attracting the adventurous from all parts of the world and shortly after it started, Zeppelin came over to join the Union Army as a volunteer officer and thus to add to his military education, but Zeppelin was not only the officer. He loved to roam in out of the way places and whenever opportunity afforded he organized hunting parties and went off on long sojourns in the then spa.r.s.ely inhabited regions of the Mississippi Valley. Here he played the explorer and wrote letters back home dwelling on the pleasures of exploration and the possibilities in store for him who could invent something that would take one to the far and inaccessible parts of the earth.

Zeppelin's First Rigid Design

His impressions gained during the American Civil War, where he had the opportunity of making captive balloon ascensions, and also in the Franco-German War where he had the opportunity of watching the numerous balloons leaving Paris during the siege, no doubt, first originated in Zeppelin's mind the thought of developing a large rigid airship. In fact, as early as 1873 he designed a large rigid airship, sub-divided into single compartments and he emphasized the importance of such aircraft for long distance transportation in order to help in the civilization of mankind.

In 1887 Zeppelin submitted a memorandum to the King of Wurttemberg in which he explained in detail the requirements of a really successful airship and stated many reasons why such airships ought to be large and of rigid construction. However, nothing of importance was actually accomplished until he resigned as a General in 1891 in order to give his full time to his invention.

[PLATE 3: Zeppelin "LZ-4" Starting From the Floating Shed on a Twenty-four Hour Flight, June 1908.

Count Zeppelin's Second Floating Shed With Zeppelin "LZ-5".

Lake Constance (Bodensee) 1908.]

In 1894 at the age of 56 years, with the a.s.sistance of an Engineer, Kober, he had completed the design of a rigid airship, and the modern rigid airship of today is not essentially different from Zeppelin's first design. He submitted these designs to a special committee that had been appointed by the most famous of the German scientific authorities and was greatly disappointed over the decision of the committee which, although they could not find any essential faults in the Count's design, could not recommend that an airship be built in accordance with Zeppelin's plans. Admitting that he was not the first to conceive the idea of rigid airships, Count Zeppelin, however, insisted that he had arrived at new principles and that these principles were sound. There had been several attempts to build rigids, but there always had been too much weight of the necessarily voluminous framework, which so anch.o.r.ed the craft with its own weight that it could not lift itself. The discovery of aluminum made this problem less difficult, however, and many models were designed with the framework of this light material.

Two years after Count Zeppelin had completed his first designs and while he was still endeavoring to arouse enough interest to warrant the construction of a rigid ship, an aluminum framework rigid ship was built by another group near Berlin. This ship was of approximately 150 feet in length, but of an essentially different design from Zeppelin's. The outer cover was made of metal. On its first trial flight it was compelled to land, due to engine trouble and the fact that the framework of the ship was not strong enough to stand the stresses of the landing, caused it to go to pieces and this failure was quickly seized upon by the then existing adversaries of the rigid airship as an argument against the construction of rigid airships with a metal framework. This was unfortunate to the cause of rigid airships, because while Zeppelin had not been identified with that attempt, all experimenters were included in the popular condemnation.

Zeppelin's improvements were beginning to be recognized and admitted, but the money necessary for the development was not forthcoming.

Financing the First Zeppelin Company

[PLATE 4: Zeppelin "LZ-5" On an Excursion With Members of the German Parliament Aboard. Autumn 1908.

Zeppelin "LZ-6" and "Deutschland" in the First Double Shed at Friedrichshafen.]

Zeppelin, in spite of many difficulties, succeeded in enlisting the necessary private capital and in 1898 organized a stock company (Aktiengesellschaft zur Foerderung der Motorluftschiffahrt) to promote motor airship flights. It had a paid in capital of one million marks ($238,000).

With his characteristic sound judgment and thoroughness of purpose, Count Zeppelin chose the Lake Constance (Bodensee) country for his initial efforts. He had known the lake and local weather conditions from boyhood and was convinced that the smooth ample surface of this beautiful lake offered the best facilities for the handling, starting and landing of these extremely large craft, though it was not long before enough had been learned to alight with them on land.

Now the giant Zeppelins can land at will with perfect safety on either land or water.