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Born on this day
Wisława Szymborska-Włodek
Wisława Szymborska-Włodek was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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2 July 2024

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The first Zeppelin flight takes place2.7.1900

Wikipedia (27 Jun 2013, 07:49)

A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. Zeppelin's ideas were first outlined in 1874 and formulated in detail in 1893. They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States on 14 March 1899. After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships. Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 34,000 passengers on over 1,500 flights. After the outbreak of World War I, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts.

The World War I defeat of Germany in 1918 temporarily halted the airship business. But under the guidance of Hugo Eckener, the deceased Count's successor, civilian Zeppelins became popular again. In 1919 DELAG established scheduled daily services between Berlin, Munich, and Friedrichshafen. Their heyday was during the 1930s when the airships LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and LZ 129 Hindenburg operated regular transatlantic flights from Germany to North America and Brazil. The Art Deco spire of the Empire State Building was originally, if impractically, designed to serve as a mooring mast for Zeppelins and other airships to dock at. The Hindenburg disaster in 1937, along with political and economic issues, hastened the demise of the Zeppelins.


The first generations

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's serious interest in airship development dates from 1884, when he was inspired by a recent lecture given by Heinrich von Stephan on the subject of "World Postal Services and Air Travel" to outline the basic principle of his later craft in a diary entry dated 25 March 1874. This describes a large rigidly-framed outer envelope containing a number of separate gasbags. He had previously encountered Union Army balloons in 1863, during the American Civil War, where he was a military observer.

He began to seriously pursue his project after his early retirement from the military in 1890 at the age of 52. Convinced of the potential importance of aircraft designs, he started working on various designs in 1891, and had completed detailed designs by 18932] These were reviewed by an official committee in 1894, and were the subject of a patent granted on 31 August 1895, with Theodor Kober producing the technical plans.

Count Zeppelin's attempts to secure government funding for his project were unsuccessful, but a lecture given to the Union of German Engineers gained their support. Zeppelin also sought support from the industrialist Carl Berg, then engaged in construction work on the second airship design of David Schwarz. Berg was under contract not to supply alumnium to any other airship manufacturer, and subsequently made a payment to Schwartz's widow as compensation for breaking this agreement. Schwarz's design was fundamentally different from Zeppelin's, crucially lacking the use of separate gasbags inside a rigid envelope and in December 1897 Zeppelin stated that the Schwarz design could not be developed. Sean Dooley speculates on the indirect benefits Zeppelin gained from Carl Berg and Schwarz's work. In 1899, Zeppelin started constructing his first airship to his own designs.

One unusual idea, which never saw service, was the ability to connect several independent airship elements like train wagons; indeed, the patent title called the design Lenkbarer Luftfahrzug (steerable air train).

In 1898, he founded the Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Luftschiffahrt (Society for the promotion of airship flight), contributing more than half of its 800,000 Mark share capital himself. He assigned the technical implementation to the engineer Theodor Kober and later to Ludwig Dürr.

Construction of the first Zeppelin began in 1899 in a floating assembly hall in the Bay of Manzell on Lake Constance, Friedrichshafen. This was intended to facilitate the difficult launching procedure, as the hall could easily be aligned with the wind. The prototype airship LZ 1 (LZ for Luftschiff Zeppelin, or "Airship Zeppelin") had a length of 128 metres (420 ft), was driven by two 14.2 horsepower (10.6 kW) Daimler engines and was controlled in pitch by moving a weight between its two nacelles.

The first Zeppelin flight took place on 2 July 1900 over Lake Constance (the Bodensee). Upon repair, it proved its potential in two subsequent flights on 17 October and 24 October 1900 beating the 6 m/s velocity record of the French airship La France. Despite this performance, the shareholders declined to invest more money, and so the company was liquidated, with Count von Zeppelin purchasing the ship and equipment. The Count wished to continue experimenting, but he eventually dismantled the ship in 1901.

Donations, the profits of a special lottery, some public funding, a mortgage of Count von Zeppelin's wife's estate and a 100,000 Mark contribution by Count von Zeppelin himself allowed the construction of LZ 2, which took off one single time, on 17 January 1906. After both engines failed, it made a forced landing in the Allgäu mountains, where the anchored ship was subsequently damaged beyond repair by a storm.

Incorporating all usable parts of LZ 2, the successor LZ 3 became the first truly successful Zeppelin. This renewed the interest of the German military, but a condition of purchase of an airship was a 24 hour endurance trial. This was beyond the capabilities of LZ 3, leading Zeppelin to construct his fourth design, the LZ 4. While attempting to fulfill this requirement, the LZ 4 had to make an intermediate landing at Echterdingen near Stuttgart. During the stop, a storm tore the airship away from its anchorage on the afternoon of 5 August 1908. She crashed into a tree, caught fire, and quickly burnt out. No one was seriously injured.

This accident would have finished Zeppelin's experiments, but his flights had generated huge public interest and a sense of national pride regarding his work, and spontaneous donations from the public began pouring in, eventually totalling 6,096,555 Marks.[citation needed] This enabled the Count to found the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH (Airship Construction Zeppelin Ltd.) and the Zeppelin Foundation.


   
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