Zeppelin Mania: In Those Days, Giants

The Graf Zeppelin Over Rio

On the Graf Zeppelin 

Hugo Eckener (translated from the German by Douglas Robinson) 

I have always felt that such effects as were produced by the Zeppelin airship were traceable to a large degree to aesthetic feelings. The mass of the mighty airship hull, which seemed matched by its lightness and grace, and whose beauty of form was modulated in delicate shades of color, never failed to make a strong impression on people’s minds. It was not, as generally described, ‘a silver bird soaring in majestic flight,’ but rather a fabulous silvery fish, floating quietly in the ocean of air and captivating the eye just like a fantastic, exotic fish seen in an aquarium. And this fairy-like apparition, which seemed to melt into the silvery blue background of the sky, when it appeared far away, lighted by the sun, seemed to be coming from another world and to be returned there like a dream…

The mighty hull indeed! The Hindenburg weighed 236 tons, was 13 stories tall, and was nearly as long as 3 football fields. The 7 million plus cubic feet of hydrogen was sufficient to run an ordinary kitchen stove for several hundred years.

The 17 huge gas cells of the R 101 used the intestines of a million cows to provide the leak-proof lining.

However, not only were the ships of behemoth dimensions, so were their hangers. The Goodyear-Zeppelin hanger in Akron, Ohio was so huge clouds sometimes formed and a soft rain would fall.

And as Dr Eckener wrote, those giants of the sky were like something from another world, a dream world. They were exotic silvery fish of immense size and fairy origin.

John R McCormick’s account of seeing the Graf Zeppelin when a young boy fills me with envy. Here it is in part:

Out of the Blue

…I was a little uneasy. Something wasn’t quite right. Suddenly I realized why. We were alone, absolutely alone, and surrounded by a profound silence. That whole land, usually so full of sound and action, was empty and still. Even the animals were quiet. There was no wind, not the slightest breeze.

Into that remarkable silence there came from far away the smallest possible purring, strange and repetitive, gradually approaching, becoming louder — the unmistakable beating of powerful engines. I looked to the west and at first saw nothing. Then it was there, nosing down out of the clouds a half-mile away, a gigantic, wondrous apparition moving slowly through the sky.

“Grandma!” I screamed.

She was out of the kitchen door in an instant. I pointed to the sky. The great dirigible was very low, perhaps because the captain was trying to find some landmark.

There is a wonderful opening scene in the movie Star Wars. A great starship is passing very low and directly overhead so that one sees only the underside. That underside moves deliberately and interminably on and on until at last it is gone. The Graf Zeppelin, moving ever so slowly above us, was like that. We saw every crease and contour from nose to fins. It was so low that we could see, or imagined we could see, people waving at us from the slanted windows of its passenger gondola.

We stood entranced. Slowly, slowly the ship moved over us, beyond us, and at last was gone.

The above accounts and information are taken from one of the books in my library: The Zeppelin Reader: Stories, Poems, and Songs from the Age of Airships, edited by Robert Hedin. A fascinating book. Highly recommended!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

The World’s First Commercial Airliner

Today is an auspicious day in aviation history. One hundred and six years ago, the world’s first commercial air flight took place by the world’s first commercial aircraft. The LZ-7 Deutschland took off from Dusseldorf, Germany with 24 passengers on board. She was owned by the world’s first airline company — the DELAG (German Airship Transportation Corporation).

The LZ-7 Deutschland

The Deutschland was, at the time, the largest aircraft that had ever been built. She was 486 feet long and 46 feet in diameter. Her gas cells were inflated with 683,000 cubic feet of hydrogen and she had a useful lift of 11,000 pounds. The airship had a crew of 8 or 9 men and had room for two dozen passengers in addition to some cargo capacity.

The passenger cabin was enclosed and had windows for viewing, was paneled in mahogany, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

The Passenger Cabin of the Deutschland

The zeppelin was powered by three 125 horsepower Daimler engines. Her top speed was just over 37 miles per hour and her cruising speed was 33 miles per hour.

By contrast, the world’s first mass produced airplane, the Wright Model B, could carry, aside from the pilot, one passenger or a small cargo — and nothing was enclosed. The plane was completely open. The Model B flew at an average speed of 44 miles per hour.

The Wright Model B Biplane

“A Three Hour Tour”

On that beautiful Tuesday morning, 106 years ago, the LZ-7 Deutschland rose into the sky. Twenty-three journalists were on board, along with DELAG director Alfred Colsman. The passengers enjoyed a light breakfast of champagne and caviar shortly after take off. What a delightful way to start off a  three hour sightseeing tour.

Note: Breakfast was not served on the Wright Model B.

Interior View of the Deutschland's Passenger Cabin

“The Weather Started Getting Rough”

Captain Kahlenberg, formerly of the Prussian Airship Battalion, was relatively inexperienced and committed several judgement errors. Most airship crashes were due to such errors of judgment. For his, Kahlenberg was sacked and the Zeppelin company began emphasizing safety first.

Kahlenberg’s first mistake was his failure to get a weather report before take off. His second was to fly before the wind towards more picturesque scenery. When he suddenly found the wind had dramatically increased, he also discovered he couldn’t fly his underpowered airship into the wind and return to base. And it was a situation made worse by the failure of one of the engines. Kahlenberg found himself, his passengers, and crew pushed along by the wind and he was unable to do anything about it.

Having no radio on board, Captain Kahlenberg frantically dropped notes to the ground asking local Army garrisons for assistance in landing the giant ship. And all the while, the wind pushed the Deutschland towards the towering thunderheads over Teutoberger Forest.

“The Giant Ship Was Tossed”

By late afternoon, the airship was being driven rapidly along towards its rendezvous with destiny. The crew was helpless to stop the relentless drive towards the oncoming thunderstorm. And when the zeppelin at last collided with the storm front, the updrafts caused her to shoot up to 3,600 feet. During her rapid and wild ascent, hydrogen was automatically valved from the swollen gas cells. Finally, heavy with rain and with insufficient lift gas, the airship plunged to earth and crashed into the forest pines.

Unlike the Minnow of Gilligan’s Island, in spite of the crew’s best efforts, the Deutschland was lost. The nine hour ordeal was over. However, unlike a modern airliner crash, there were no fatalities and the only injury occurred to a crewman who jumped from the airship and broke his leg.

Safety First

Certainly not the way an airline company would choose to start out operations. Count Zeppelin, though, made changes, lots of changes, changes that resulted in German airships having the best safety record the world has ever seen.

The DELAG, in its four years of operations before World War I, carried over 34,000 passengers on over 1500 flights without a single injury.

After the war, the safety record continued with flights by the Bodensee, Graf Zeppelin, and Hindenburg. And as spectacular a disaster as was the tragic burning of the Hindenburg in 1937, the loss of life was relatively small. Twenty-six percent of the passengers and crew died. Compare that with 100% loss of life from the increasing numbers of jet airliner crashes today.

Perspective

Passenger air travel became a reality 106 years ago today. And while the first flight ended in the destruction of the airship, no lives were lost.

The Graf Zeppelin flew over a million miles without a single casualty and many of those miles were as a passenger aircraft.

The next time you board a jetliner and squeeze yourself into your seat and have a complimentary drink, think of the flight of the Deutschland. They had room to walk around and enjoyed a breakfast of champagne and caviar.

The LZ-7 Deutschland

The Wonderful Machine Age: The Daring Young Men in Their Flying Machines #3

The time period between World War I and World War II was the heyday of the rigid airship. Those two decades were filled with the exploits of what the great airships did and the dreams of what the future might hold for air travel.

1919 was an auspicious year. The war to end all wars was over. The airplane had developed in technological leaps and bounds. The airship as well had been refined. And whereas the airplane was mostly still a toy or of use for short distance flights, the airship was viewed as a machine of great commercial and military value.

On the 6th of March 1919, the British rigid airship, R33, took its first flight. Eight days later, her sister ship, R34, made it's inaugural flight. Both airships were based on the design of German zeppelins in 1916. It is interesting to note, these were the most successful of any British rigid airship. The R33’s career lasted for nine years before she was scrapped in 1928 due to severe mental fatigue in her frame.

The R33 near her hanger:

The R34 made the first east to west crossing of the Atlantic by air (the more difficult crossing due to the prevailing westerly winds) in July 1919, flying from England to Canada. Hot meals were even served on board, courtesy of a hotplate welded to an engine exhaust manifold. On the 13th of July 1919, the R34 returned to England; completing the first ever round trip across the Atlantic by air.

The flight of the R34 in 1919 fueled speculation of the possibilities for commercial airship flights across the Atlantic on a grand scale.

August 20, 1919 saw the first flight of the LZ-120, Bodensee, the Zeppelin company’s new commercial airship for the DELAG airline. She flew over 100 flights, carrying 2,322 passengers over 31,000 miles (50,000 km). Unfortunately, the Allied powers forced the Germans to turn over the Bodensee to the Italian government as a war reparations in July 1921. As the Esperia, she made flights for the Italian government, including a 1,500 mile long distance flight, before being scrapped in July 1928.

The Bodensee:

The LZ-121, Nordstern, never served the DELAG and was turned over to France on 13 July 1921 as war reparations. The French Government never made much use of the ship and she was scrapped in 1926.

A substantial book could be written chronicling just the airships of the interwar period. To exemplify The Wonderful Machine Age, I’ll focus on the triumphs and the dreams.

The short two year life of the R100 was a dream come true. The world’s first luxury commercial airship. Her first flight was on 16 December 1929. She and her sister ship, the R101, were, at the time, the largest airships ever built. She was meant to carry 100 passengers in elegance for an envisioned transatlantic passenger service. In 1930, she flew from England to Canada and back again; repeating the R34’s flight and proving once again the feasibility of such a transatlantic service. 

Below are pictures of the R100:

Below the lounge on the R100:

The Grand Staircase in the R100:

Unfortunately, with the crash and subsequent fire which destroyed the R101 on 5 October 1930, the R100 was grounded and then scrapped the following year. The British were no longer interested in rigid airships.

This left but three rigid airships flying: the German-built USS Los Angeles, the newly launched USS Akron, built by Goodyear-Zeppelin for the US Navy, and the Zeppelin Company’s LZ-127, Graf Zeppelin.

The USS Los Angeles was the US Navy's most successful airship. She was a sturdy vessel, logging 4398 hours of flight time and flying 172,400 nautical miles (319,300 km) with no major incidents. She was a testimony to the superior engineering and craftsmanship of the Zeppelin Company. She was decommissioned in 1932, returned to service briefly after the crash of the USS Akron in 1933, and then once again mothballed. She was scrapped in 1940.

The USS Los Angeles over Washington Blvd in Detroit, 1926:

The greatest airship of all was the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin. She was an experimental ship. To avoid valving off lift gas to compensate for fuel usage, the Graf’s engines burned Blau gas, which weighed about the same as air. This successfully innovative feature was not duplicated in any other airship.

The Graf was small compared to the R100 and R101. She only had room for 20 passengers. And while accommodations were pleasant, they were not sumptuous.

The Graf Zeppelin:

The combination lounge/dining room on the Graf:

A cabin on the Graf:

The Graf Zeppelin's career from 1928 to 1932 primarily involved experimental and demonstration flights displaying the airship's capabilities. These flights included a round trip across the Atlantic in 1928, the round the world flight in 1929, the Europe-Pan American flight of 1930 (Germany to South America to North America and back to Germany), the 1931 polar expedition, two round trips to the Middle East, and a variety of other European flights.

The round the world flight set a world record. The Graf completed the circumnavigation in 21 days and could have made an even faster flight, except part of the purpose was a goodwill tour which involved spending extra time in Japan.

You can read more about her polar flight at airships.net.

Beginning in 1932 until she was retired in 1937 after the Hindenburg tragedy, the Graf provided regular passenger, mail, and freight service between Germany and Brazil. Below is my favorite picture of the Graf Zeppelin coming flying into Rio de Janeiro.

The Graf Zeppelin was the first aircraft to fly over 1,000,000 miles (1,056,000). She made 590 flights, 144 transoceanic crossings, carried 13,110 passengers, and logged 17,177 hours of flying time. She did this without a single injury to passenger or crew. Keep in mind, her lift gas was hydrogen. Which I think proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, with the proper precautions, hydrogen is safe. She was scrapped in 1940.

The Hindenburg is well known and I won’t cover her story here. Her sister ship, the LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin (II) took her first flight on 14 September 1938. Like the Hindenburg, she was designed to fly using helium as her lift gas. However, the US government reneged on its promise to deliver helium to the Germans and the Graf Zeppelin II was inflated with hydrogen. She never entered commercial service and made but 30 flights. On 20 August 1939 she made her last flight. When she landed at 9:38 PM, the era of rigid airship flight came to an end.

The LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin (II):

More pictures of the LZ-130 can be seen at blimp info.

The rigid airships were the largest aircraft to fly. The success of the R33 and R34, the Graf Zeppelin, the USS Los Angeles, and the R100 excited the depression beleaguered public that good things were coming. Science and technology would make life better.

Lester Dent’s Zeppelin Tales and the fictional Doc Savage’s use of an airship were exciting fantasies reflective of this new hope that better times were coming.

The May 1930 issue of Modern Mechanics featured an airship with pontoons (to help cut hangar costs) and the July 1929 issue of Modern Mechanix, featuring an airship with wings and boat hull (to combine the best features of airships and seaplanes), were further examples of the possibilities that airships provided to improve intercontinental transportation.

 

There were even thoughts of an airship tuberculosis hospital. See airships.net for the article.

The airship has and continues to excite our imaginations as no other flying machine. Is it any wonder our retro-futurist fiction continues to make our dreams reality, even if only within the realities of our imaginations.

The Wonderful Machine Age - His Master’s Voice

Who isn’t familiar with the picture of the dog focused on the phonograph horn listening to the voice of his deceased master? Such is the power of sound, especially familiar sounds.

While typing this post, I was listening to the incredibly beautiful work of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, entitled “The Solent”. Prior to 1877 such would not have been possible. For in that year, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and within decades home entertainment was revolutionized. The piano in the parlor began to collect dust and piano lessons began to become a thing of the past.

Edison’s machine used a needle to record little hills and valleys in a wax cylinder, which when played back produced sound. In 1887, Emile Berliner patented the gramophone which used a flat disc. The needle followed a track with moved side to side instead of up and down.

Below is Edison's phonograph from 1899.

Eventually Berliner’s gramophone won the commercial battle because the process of producing records instead of cylinders was cheaper. A record cost 20¢, whereas a cylinder cost 50¢. For the cost of 2 cylinders, I could buy 5 records. Pretty simple math and the cylinder became a footnote in history. Ironically enough, Edison had already contemplated the disc but favored the cylinder because it was scientifically more perfect. I guess even geniuses make mistakes. And that’s why many of us grew up collecting records instead of cylinders.

Below is picture of a wind-up gramophone.

Edison’s phonograph was the first machine to both record and playback sound. However, an earlier machine, the phonautograph, invented in 1857, made a visual image of the voice for study by doctors and scientists. The image could not be played back. At least not until 2008 when, with the help of optical scanning and computers, the pictures were turned into digital audio files and listened to for the first time. The oldest recordings of the human voice.

Just as Bell had competition for the telephone, so did Edison with the phonograph. That competition came in the form of Charles Cros’ paleophone. Cros, who was a poet and amateur inventor, came up with the idea to use photoengraving to transfer the phonautograph image to a disc or cylinder for playback. He wrote a letter describing his idea and deposited it with the French Academy of Science on 30 April 1877. Cros’ idea became public on 10 October 1877, however by then he had improved upon his original concept by inventing a way to capture and record sound using an acid-etch method.

Learning of Edison’s machine, Cros had his April letter opened and claimed scientific priority over Edison.

Cros’ method became standard procedure to produce the metal masters from which the flat records could be pressed. Unfortunately, he died in 1888 and could not enjoy his triumph over Edison. Today, no one’s even acquainted with the name of Charles Cros.

The phonograph, or gramophone, is perhaps one of the most iconic inventions of The Machine Age. Rivaled only by the telephone and the automobile. It appeared at the age’s beginning and was going strong when the age faded away. Today, the phonograph has morphed into the ubiquitous iPod.

There was a gramophone on board the Graf Zeppelin on its round the world flight in August 1929. Brought on board by millionaire Bill Leeds, Commander Hugo Eckener had it promptly removed. Leeds retrieved the machine and told Eckener if weight was the problem he’d leave behind his luggage.

Bram Stoker, in his novel Dracula, had Doctor Seward record his diary on a phonograph. Seward, however, was worried the count might be able to melt the wax cylinders with his mysterious powers and destroy Seward’s recordings of the vampire’s machinations. That is perhaps the first literary example of the dictaphone, which has also gone digital.

Of equal lineage with the phonograph is the tape recorder. We don’t really use them anymore but we do use digital versions to record our voices.

The tape recorder was invented in 1886 by Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta Laboratory. The machine used a strip of paper coated with beeswax. Magnetic recording was first conceived of in 1877 and demonstrated in 1898, first using wire and later tape.

Below is an early magnetic wire recorder from 1898.

Magnetic Wire Recorder 1898

The record player and tape recorder were everywhere in the 20th century — even more widespread than the TV. I think retro-futurist writers with a little imagination can easily come up with something true to form and yet truly fantastic. Bram Stoker did so simply by including a phonograph in his novel. Now what if that record player or tape recorder could fit inside a small brown box about the size of a deck of cards?

8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #22

Today we continue following Rand Hart, who is ruminating on gambling and gamblers. Enjoy!

The best gambling was in Europe. He could also get in a decent game or two on the Hindenburg or Graf. Like the one he’d just won. Always helps when several wealthy industrialists want to lose a little money. Little to them, that is. Of course, one wonders when they cheat. Hart shrugged. People are people and even wealthy industrialists are, at the end of the day, people. You just have to get a little more creative than they are.

To be continued!

If you write or read Dieselpunk, join in the fun: 8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks.

8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks #21

Rand Hart’s been in Europe all winter and, perhaps due to a touch of homesickness, he’s looking forward to spending some time at home with his money. We continue Hart’s adventure in today’s snippet:

Yes, Hart thought, sometimes he was lucky. This past winter, for example, his time on the Riviera had been profitable. He’d been lucky more often than not. Chemin de fer and backgammon. Those had been his main sources of income. He never played roulette. Luck wasn’t a lady often enough for Hart’s liking. Now he was looking forward to going home for awhile. Then he’d fly down to Rio de Janeiro and catch a flight on the Graf Zeppelin for Europe.

To be continued!

If you write or read Dieselpunk, join in the fun: 8 Sentence Sunday on Dieselpunks.