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

Zeppelins and the uses for it over the years.

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

Bodensee on August 4, 1908, for the challenge.

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

used to commercialize Zeppelin travel by using it for passenger transportation.

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

Warneford, a lieutenant in RNAS, was flying a Morane-Saulnier.

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

underrated, and they should deserve more.

Bibliography

Websites

Acepilots.com Accessed Apr. 15, 2017

Airships.net Accessed Apr.17, 2017

FirstWorldWar.com Accessed Apr. 17, 2017

nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/Zeppelin-raids/ Accessed Apr.14, 2017

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.

Tanaka, Shelly. The Disaster of the Hindenburg. New York, 1993.

Keegan, John. The First World War. New York, 1998.

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.

Donkin, Andrew. Zeppelin. New York, 2000.

Hamilton, John. Aircraft of World War I. Minnesota, 2004.