The Zeppelins
The Zeppelins
The Zeppelins
By Benji Zhang-Li
Inventors like the Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, invented flying machines
that were revolutionary and heavier than air. Their planes caught on to people’s fancies
and were used often. Meanwhile, there were other inventors that built their own airships.
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was one of these inventors. He completed the first Zeppelin
in 1900. The Zeppelin was the most effective airship until 1914, when the RFC, a.k.a. the
Royal Flying Corps and the RNAS, or the Royal Naval Air Service, shot down the mighty
airship with anti-aircraft guns. I will be talking about the development and evolution of
The history of the Zeppelin starts in the 19th century. The original concept was made by
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin as a journal entry. Count von Zeppelin was born on July 8,
1838, at Lake Constance. “He attended the military academy at Ludwigsburg, near
Stuttgart, and at age 20 he became an officer in the Army of Wurttemberg.” During the
Civil War, he traveled to America in 1863, as a military observer. He got to travel with
other armies in the north with the support of a lot of people, such as Carl Schurz, a general
in the Union Army; even President Lincoln gave him a pass to travel. In his first few
months, he left the battlefield to explore other areas. While he was exploring in St. Paul,
Minnesota, he saw his first balloon. “Zeppelin’s first experience with the lighter-than-air
flight was an ascent in this 41,000 cubic foot balloon, inflated with coal gas, which had
previously been used as an observation balloon by the Union Army.” The balloon was
operated by John Steiner, a German balloonist who served in the Union Army. The balloon
he rode in went up around 600 to 700 feet in the air. While he was in the air, he felt
inspired because he felt like he could see the whole world from the air. Because of his
renewed inspiration for lighter than air airships, he created the concept for the first
Zeppelin, the LZ-1, in 1874. He wrote the concept as a journal entry, describing a “rigid-
framed, aerodynamically flown ship constructed of rings and longitudinal girders and
containing individual gas cells.” He sent a letter to the King of Wurttemberg to propose the
idea of using his ship for military purposes. As an inventor and military man, he wanted
his technology and his invention to be used by the army and navy. So in order to try to
convince them to buy and use his ships, most of his efforts were made to get support from
both of them, but neither of them had much enthusiasm about it. Apparently, they found
the Zeppelin unreliable and were skeptical of using it for military purposes because it was
flimsy. After his failed attempt, he was forced to commercialize it for civilian use. People
have said that he did this with disgust. He couldn’t fully devote himself to his ship due to
his responsibilities in the army until he was forced into retirement early in 1890 when he
was only 52 years old at the time. His first ship, the Luftschiff Zeppelin 1, was done in the
next ten years of his retirement. They started construction in June of 1898 and completed it
in the winter of 1899, but he decided to wait until July 2, 1990, to test his airship. The LZ-1
was a rigid, 420 foot long, 38½ foot diameter flying machine. It had 17 gas cells to hold a lot
of hydrogen, necessary to fly, two metal gondolas that held a 4-cylinder water-cooled
Daimler gasoline engine that produced around 14 horsepower. They were each connected
to two propellers mounted on the sides of the hull. Count von Zeppelin was probably the
most excited about his invention being completed, as he was the inventor, engineer, and the
pilot of his ship. The test flight only lasted around 18 minutes and went about three and a
half miles around Lake Constance at approximately 20 mph/32 kph. Even though this was
a success, he had shaky relations with the leaders of the army and navy. Zeppelin had to
regress in his active involvement with airships, due to a fight with the navy about who
would take the blame for the crash of the L-1 (LZ-14) in September 1913, which killed 14
people off the coast of Heligoland/Helgoland. That was the first time anyone had died in a
Zeppelin accident. So even though he made a huge contribution to Germany during WW1,
he had to focus on other things such as “industrial interests, such as internal combustion
engines and gas works,” and heavier-than-air machines, like his Riesenflugzeug, a.k.a
“Giant Aircraft.” He didn’t accomplish anything else major as he died on March 8, 1917, at
age 78, before WW1 ended. Even though his Zeppelins became pretty useless in war after
WW1 and were only used for commercial use, they were still revered as devastating war
machines.
These war machines went through many stages, starting from the LZ-1. The earliest ships
essentially had the same parts, gradually improving over the new designs. The LZ-1, or the
Luftschiff Zeppelin, had 17 gas cells made of rubberized cotton fabric that contained
roughly 399,000 cubic feet of hydrogen (according to airships.net), two metal gondolas (a
gondola is the part of the ship where you stored parts or where the people stay) with a 4-
cylinder water-cooled Daimler gasoline engine in each one. The engines only pushed the
ship at 14 mph, and due to the low power, the ship was hard to control when there was any
wind at all.
Both of the engines were connected to two outrigger propellers mounted to the sides each.
The pitch, the axis that aircraft rotates on when it moves up or down, was controlled by
sliding a ton of weight to one of the sides. According to airships.net, there weren’t any
elevators for pitch control or fins for stability, so it looked like a giant balloon that they use
for making balloon animals with. Since there was almost no control over the airship, there
were a lot of problems, like the sliding weight for the pitch control was jammed most of the
time and the balloon frame not being rigid enough, so it would bounce around and the
middle would droop all the time. The tried to fix the problems, but it didn’t impress the
military enough for them to use, plus they went broke trying to fix the LZ-1 as they had to
test it two more times. As they were broke, they were forced to take the LZ-1 apart as it
was considered a failure. The next ship, the LZ-2 was built five years later with funds from
the lottery and the Countess Zeppelin family’s mortgage. The LZ-2 still didn’t have the
basic things like stability control and pitch stabilizers, but it did have some technical
advancements due to an engineer named Ludwig Dürr. Dürr improved the rigidity
problem by replacing the tubular girders that were in the LZ-1, with triangular ones,
which are much stronger than circles, which improved the problem dramatically. After
that, triangular girders were used in almost every other Zeppelin made. To commemorate
Dürr’s success, he got to stay as the chief engineer and design the rest of the Zeppelins
made by the Zeppelin Company after the LZ-2. He also replaced the weak engines used in
the LZ-1, with 80hp engines. The new engines allowed the LZ-2 to have some control in the
light winds, but they still had an engine failure on the first flight. They had to crash land,
and the ship got destroyed in a storm because they couldn’t get it back. The next two ships
got more upgrades in “controllability, power, speed, range, and payload.” Dürr added
horizontal fins and elevators for pitch control and stability. The LZ-3 and LZ-4 were
capable of longer flights and producing lift. The LZ-4 broke a record during a flight over
Switzerland that lasted over 12 hours. This brought attention from the public, showing that
his machine was successful and people started seeing it as a “practical innovation.” They
got financial support from the German government to see if they could get a Zeppelin to fly
for over 24 hours. The Zeppelin Company accepted the challenge, and departed from
During the challenge, the “LZ-4 was forced to make an emergency landing in a field at the
town of Echterdingen on August 5th, 1908.” It was pulled by a storm and crashed, and
exploded due to the hydrogen. This time, when Zeppelin’s efforts failed, Germany
supported them, trying to make them better, rather than give up on them. Germans
donated a total of around six million marks (the currency in Germany at the time) to the
Zeppelin company for a new ship. They called this the “Miracle at Echterdingen.” With
the donated money, the Count got to follow up the crash at Echterdingen with the
Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. They started building it in September 1908. They finished building
it in about two years, and they got Eckener to be the airship’s commander. This ship was
As with all things, there is usually a good and bad use for everything, depending on your
intentions. The Zeppelin was no exception. Balloons were first used in war even before
WW1. They were used in the siege of Paris in 1870. The technology was rudimentary at the
time, but it was advanced over the years. Germany only had two production companies, the
Schutte-Lanz Company and the more popular Zeppelin Company. Zeppelins during 1914
were capable of flying from England and back, and it wasn’t uncommon to hear that there
were frequent sightings. At the start of the war, Germany only had seven ships that were
operational, six from the army, and one from the navy. The army used them for
experiments, such as the bombing of Liege and Antwerp. They count as experiments since
the ships were not designed for aerial bombing yet. Their testing was not as successful as
they hoped, they lost three ships in the process due to anti-aircraft fire. Even though the
army wasn't as enthused anymore, the navy was. The Zeppelin was the solution to the
navy’s reconnaissance problems. The army and navy usually had different solutions for
reconnaissance, the army had cavalry, and navy used light cruisers. Germany had few
ships and got more airships because they were seen as cheaper and less vulnerable. In 1914,
Zeppelins were used for recon over the North Sea, until the German Admiralty wanted
permission to use them to attack England. They got their permission from the Kaiser, and
on the 19th of January, they started their first Zeppelin raid on Britain. The raid killed two
people and injured sixteen. After the first raid, Germany continued with about two every
month. The German Admiralty was the most enthusiastic and they wanted permission to
bomb London next. They were given permission by the Kaiser after the raids from French
bombers on German cities. The first raid on London was carried out on May 31st, 1915.
That raid killed seven and injured thirty-five. The biggest raid on London was on
September 8th, 1915, causing more than half a million pounds of damage from Zeppelins.
The model used in that raid was the L13, it managed to do more than half of the damage of
all the raids on Britain in 1915. June 6th, 1915, during the night in Everett, Rex
On his flight, he saw a Zeppelin returning from a bombing mission, so he decided to try to
take it down. His attempt failed when he was driven back by the Zeppelin’s defensive
machine guns. The Zeppelin tried to climb in altitude to avoid chase, but they didn’t know
what plane Warneford was in. He followed the airship up over two hours at an altitude of
13,000 feet. When the airship started descending to Brussels, Warneford’s ship was above
it. He “dived towards it and from about two hundred feet above he dropped his six bombs
on its roof.” The explosion destroyed the Zeppelin and almost destroyed his own plane. He
had to bring down his plane behind enemy lines, but he got home eventually. “The LZ 37
was the first Zeppelin brought down by an airplane.” Warneford was given the Knight’s
Cross of the Legion from the French, and the Victoria Cross from the British, but he didn’t
get to live in honor for long, he got in a flying accident and died 10 days later. Even though
one Zeppelin failed, Germany didn’t stop. Zeppelins continued raiding London frequently
without a worry. Zeppelin’s flew too high for normal planes, and their ammunition wasn’t
effective at the time. Zeppelins attacks weren’t that bad compared to everything else
during the war, except for the success of the L13. the bombs weren’t accurate already and
the blackouts from the British didn’t help their aim. Only about 10% of the bombs
dropped actually hit their target, On March 21st, Germany also bombed Paris, killing 23
and injuring 30 people. It was easier and preferred to attack London rather Paris, because
the nearest Zeppelin base was at Metz, approximately 200 miles away from Paris, traveling
over enemy territory giving them more time to organize a defense. But even though the trip
to Paris was almost twice as long, it was over friendly territory. “Paris was also protected
by barrage balloons, a measure only taken by the British later in the war.” At the
beginning of 1916, four Zeppelins got lost on a bombing run, which made the German
government stop using them for tactical bombing. The Zeppelin Company was still making
new airships that were more powerful than the last. The British also had changed during
1916. Due to the failure of stopping the Zeppelins from RNAS, the job of home defense was
given to the RFC. With the job change, they also got new and stronger ammunition. In the
middle of 1916, most of the British planes had explosive and incendiary bullets, which were
extremely effective against Zeppelins. A couple of those rounds could penetrate the
Zeppelin’s tough skin and hit the gas bags, which in turn would all combust at the same
time and the whole thing would come crashing down. On September 2nd, 1916, William
Leefe-Robinson, with a BE2C, was the first to shoot down a dirigible over London. (BE2C)
The burning Zeppelin was visible from miles on, and he became an instant hero to the
people. Strasser was still confident in his airships, the one William shot down was an SL11,
one of the army’s ships, not his. Strasser’s confidence didn’t change anything, as two of his
airships that were taking part in a raid, went down. They were the most advanced ships
they had at the time. “The L33 had been hit by anti-aircraft fire. She did not catch fire,
but she was forced to land in England. The crew all survived, and set her alight before
capture. The L32 was shot down by a plane, and as in the case of Leefe-Robinson's SL11, it
caught fire. Nor were these the last losses in 1916.” Strasser’s ships were in almost four
times as many missions and dropped almost five times as many bombs than the last year,
but they only caused about two-thirds the amount of damage they caused in the last year.
The German military was starting doubt using Zeppelins and started using Gotha and
Giant bombers.
(Gotha bombers)
(Giant bomber).
Strasser's answer to this problem was to make Zeppelins fly higher than the defending
planes, so his new generation of planes were the “Height Climbers” His new ships were
capable of flying up to 20,000 feet. To reach this goal, they had to reduce defense
armaments and the strength of the frame, which caused even more problems for them to
fix. It is extremely cold and the air is thin, up at 20,000 feet. The new atmosphere affected
the engines and the crew. The aiming and navigation got even harder, but they saw the
immunity worth the sacrifices. The raids with the new Height-Climbers were effective, the
airships were too high up to be heard and the raids were a total surprise. The airships were
still shot down when they were descending back into the homeland though. To avoid being
shot down, an L55 tried to stay at an altitude of 20,000 feet until they got past the western
front. In the morning, the sun started heating the hydrogen, making the airship go even
higher, at around 24,000 feet. More than half of the crew began passing out due to oxygen
deprivation, and they struggled to come down. They eventually crash landed in central
Germany. The damage airships caused became less and less over the next two years of the
war. In 1917, the total damage caused by airships was less than 90,000 pounds, and at the
start of 1918, an unexplained explosion at the airship base, in Ahlhorn caused four Height-
Climbers and one Schutte-Lanz airship to explode. They couldn’t fix their loss because
German manufacturing was greatly reduced. The last big airship raid was on August 5th.
Strasser led it himself, with a fleet of five Height-Climbers and an L70. They didn’t know
that the British made a ship that was also capable of going up to an altitude 20,000.
Strasser's L70 was taken down by a two man DH4 that was piloted by Egbert Cadbury.
His partner, Robert Leckie, was the one who did the shooting. While the Zeppelins were
being chased, they “dropped their bombs on what they thought were "targets of
opportunity", but in fact, they dropped them in the sea.” The Zeppelins did cause much
damage on the Allies, physical and mental, so when the war ended, the Allies ordered
Germany, under the Treaty of Versailles, to hand over all of their airships. Many of the
Germans were patriots and preferred to burn them all rather than give them to the Allies.
The Germans considered the Zeppelin a failure as a weapon of destruction. Out of the 115
Zeppelins that were made, 53 were destroyed, and 24 were too damaged to be operational.
Strasser’s crew had a 40% loss rate. The cost of building the Zeppelins was almost five
times as expensive than the damage they caused. On May 6th, 1937, thousands of people
looked up to the sky to see the Hindenburg, a long sleek silver airship. She was flying for
the first time of the season, from America to Germany. Things were looking good for
Zeppelins at the time, they had 18 more flights scheduled, they had a great safety record,
and they’ve already completed a year of transatlantic flights.It seemed like nothing could
go wrong, the passengers were comfortable, they trusted everything was safe until flames
erupted from the back of the ship. The Hindenburg was coming to a stop, descending into
Lakehurst NJ. There were many people under the airship, waiting to watch it land, when
at 7:25 p.m., the landing ropes were let down and everything seemed fine, then everything
burst into flames. The landing crew and all the spectators were running for their lives, as
the passengers aboard the Hindenburg were doomed. Many people jumped while the ship
was still hundreds of feet in the air. Then the airship suddenly exploded and broke up into
parts, crashing into the ground. 36 people were killed, some were barely injured, and some
were horrifically burned. In just 34 seconds, Count von Zeppelin’s dreams were crushed
with the lost confidence in the safety of airships. This was basically the end of the age of
the airship.
The Zeppelins was a great invention of the time that they were made. Their technology
advanced because of the war, they also had an advantage over the skies during the early
years of the war. They also had many uses for war and for the people, like reconnaissance,
bombing, and passenger travel. Though the golden years of the Zeppelin ended when
World War 1 ended, there are still people who are trying to bring the Zeppelin back into
modern day and age. Some of these ideas include the U.S. using the idea of the Zeppelin
and made blimps in the twentieth century, Eureka, the company that operates the Zeppelin
NT, used helium to fly, and the same material that NASA uses for their space suits for the
outer structure, and Nephelios is a solar powered Zeppelin made by researchers in several
French universities. The U.S. Air Force also has a program called “Blue Devil”, which is an
airship packed full of supercomputers, and can analyze data and send it to the troops on
the ground in less than 15 seconds. There are much more airships that used the Zeppelin as
a reference because it was a good idea just done wrong. I think that Zeppelins are
Bibliography
Websites
Books
Pisano, Dominick A., Thomas J. Dietz, Joanne M. Gernstein, and Karl S. Schneide.
Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air. Seattle: U of Washington, 1993. Print.
Kirchberger H., Joe. The First World War. New York, 1992.
DK, Eyewitness Dictionaries. The Visual Dictionary of Flight. New York, 1992.
Bryant, Mark. World War I, in Cartoons. London, 2006.
DK Smithsonian. World War I, the Definitive Visual History. New York, 2014.