Zeppelin, Count Ferdinand von

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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b. 8 July 1838 Konstanz, Germany

d. 8 March 1917 Berlin, Germany

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German designer of rigid airships, which became known as Zeppelins.

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Zeppelin served in the German Army and retired with the rank of General in 1890. While in the army, he was impressed by the use of balloons in the American Civil War and during the Siege of Paris. By the time he retired, non-rigid airships were just beginning to make their mark. Zeppelin decided to build an airship with a rigid framework to support the gas bags. Plans were drawn up in 1893 with the assistance of Theodore Kober, an engineer, but the idea was rejected by the authorities. A company was founded in 1898 and construction began. The Luftschiff Zeppelin No. 1 (LZ1) made its first flight on 2 July 1900. Modifications were needed and the second flight took place in October. A reporter called Hugo Eckener covered this and later flights: his comments and suggestions so impressed Zeppelin that Eckener eventually became his partner, publicist, fund-raiser and pilot.

The performance of the subsequent Zeppelins gradually improved, but there was limited military interest. In November 1909 a company with the abbreviated name DELAG was founded to operate passenger-carrying Zeppelins. The service was opened by LZ 7 Deutschland in mid-June 1910, and the initial network of Frankfurt, Baden- Baden and Düsseldorf was expanded. Eckener became a very efficient Director of Flight Operations, and by the outbreak of war in 1914 some 35,000 passengers had been carried without any fatalities. During the First World War many Zeppelins were built and they carried out air-raids on Britain. Despite their menacing reputation, they were very vulnerable to attack by fighters. Zeppelin, now in his seventies, turned his attention to large bombers, following the success of Sikorsky's Grand, but he died in 1917. Eckener continued to instruct crews and improve the Zeppelin designs. When the war ended Eckener arranged to supply the Americans with an airship as part of German reparations: this became the Los Angeles. In 1928 a huge new airship, the Graf Zeppelin, was completed and Eckener took command. He took the Graf Zeppelin on many successful flights, including a voyage around the world in 1929.

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Bibliography

1908, Erfahrungen beim Bau von Luftschiffen, Berlin. 1908, Die Eroberung der Luft, Stuttgart.

Further Reading

There are many books on the history of airships, and on Graf von Zeppelin in particular. Of note are: H.Eckener, 1938, Count Zeppelin: The Man and His Work, London.

——1958, My Zeppelins, London.

P.W.Brooks, 1992, Zeppelin: Rigid Airships 1893–1940, London.

T.Nielson, 1955, The Zeppelin Story: The Life of Hugo Eckener, English edn, London (written as a novel in direct speech).

M.Goldsmith, 1931, Zeppelin: A Biography, New York.

W.R.Nitshe, 1977, The Zeppelin Story, New York.

F.Gütschow, 1985, Das Luftschiff, Stuttgart (a record of all the airships).

JDS