Ferdinand
von Zeppelin
was born in Baden, Germany in 1838. When he was twenty he joined
the German Army and was a member of the expedition that went to
North America to search for the source of the Mississippi River.
While in Minnesota in 1870 he made his first ascent in a military
balloon.
Zeppelin had reached the rank of brigadier general when he retired
from the German Army in 1891. Over the next few years he devoted
himself to to the study of aeronautics. In 1894 the German government
rejected his proposals for a lighter-than-air flying machine. Although
now aged sixty, Zeppelin decided to invest all his own money in
a company producing airships.
By 1898 Zeppelin, with a team of 30 workmen, had assembled his first
airship. The main principle of Zeppelin's invention was that hydrogen-filled
gas-bags were carried inside a steel skeleton. The airship, which
weighed 12 tons and contained 400,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, was
driven by propellers connected by two 15-hp Daimler engines. After
the Zeppelin LZ made its first flight on 2nd July 1900, the German
government decided to help fund the project.
Ferdinand
Zeppelin continued to improve his airship and in March 1909 the
German Army purchased the Zeppelin Z1. By the outbreak of the First
World War they owned seven of these airships. These Zeppelins could
reach a maximum speed of 136 kph and reach a height of 4,250 metres.
They had five machine-guns and could carry 2,000 kg (4,400 lbs)
of bombs.
In
the early part of the war Zeppelins were used for bombing raids.
A Zeppelin bombed Liege in Belgium on 6th August, 1914 but was forced
to land after encountering artillery-fire. Three more Zeppelins
were destroyed by ground forces over the next two weeks. Although
easy to hit, the Germans continued to use them on attacks on France.
In
January 1915, two Zeppelin navel airships 190 metres long, flew
over the east coast of England and bombed great Yarmouth and King's
Lynn. The first Zeppelin raid on London took place on 31st May 1915.
The raid killed 28 people and injured 60 more.
Zeppelins were used at Verdun but four were brought down by ground-fire.
This brought an end to their use over the Western Front, but they
continued to bomb England. British fighter pilots and anti-aircraft
gunners became very good at bringing down Zeppelins. A total of
115 Zeppelins were used by the German military, of which, 77 were
either destroyed or so damaged they could not be used again. In
June 1917 the German military stopped used Zeppelins for bombing
raids over Britain and instead used them for transporting supplies.
Ferdinand von Zeppelin died in 1917. After
the war Zeppelins were used for luxury passenger transport. The
Graf Zeppelin, which flew round the world in twenty days, included
separate passenger cabins, lounges and dining-rooms. The construction
of hydrogen-filled airships with rigid keels was abandoned after
several disasters including Britain's R.101, that burst into flames
over France in 1930.
