Airship Excursions

XIX

Graf von Zeppelin was more convinced than ever, after the successful flight of his Luftschiff Zeppelin 1 in 1900, that airships were the transportation mode of the future. He promoted them endlessly, even going heavily into debt to make the airship a reality of daily life.

Von Zeppelin pointed out to all that would listen that the airship could carry heavy cargoes at a low cost, that they were extremely economical to run, that they could travel over rugged terrain into isolated areas to bring goods to remote towns, that they traveled faster than the trains, automobiles, and certainly the planes of the day, and that they could operate as flying dispensaries and libraries. He also, interestingly enough for his time, pointed out that they were far less polluting and noisy than coal-fired trains and ships.

No one listened. Von Zeppelin was forced to dismantle LZ-1 in 1901, and it was five years before he built an improved model LZ-2. The fate of LZ-2 foreshadowed the fate of many a future airship. After only its second flight, the inadequately tethered airship was carried away by the wind, crashed, and burned. Fortunately for Graf von Zeppelin, he was able to salvage the frame of LZ-2 and use it in LZ-3, which flew without mishap from 1906 until it was destroyed in combat during the First World War.

LZ-2, at Lake Constance, 1906

The lessons of LZ-2 were lost or ignored, that for all their great size (LZ-2 was 414 feet long and thirty-eight feet in circumference) airships of the early twentieth century were inherently frail craft subject to quick destruction by mischance or mishandling. This was all the more true because European airships all used hydrogen as their lifting gas.

LZ-3 was tremendously successful, and even carried the German Crown Prince on a flight. With the German Imperial Family involved in airship travel, the German Army became interested. Graf von Zeppelin built LZ-4 as an army prototype, with improved rudder and control surfaces that somewhat resembled the dorsal fins of sharks. In general shape, LZ-4 became the prototype for all future airships. LZ-4, like LZ-2, crashed and burned, but the idea of airships had taken hold in Germany. Between 1908 and 1914, Graf von Zeppelin constructed 21 more airships.

In 1909, the Count's backers founded DELAG (The German Airship Transportation Service), the world's first airline. DELAG's ultimate goal was to provide international air travel, but mid-range plans involved regularly-scheduled intercity flights in Germany. Realizing that the LZ-4 second-generation airships were not up to even this task, DELAG originally promoted itself as a cruise ship line. To further promote itself as such, tickets and scheduling were handled by the Hamburg-Amerika Steamship Company.*

An English-language promotional brochure for DELAG

 

People were encouraged to take flying day trips, and later, weeklong sky cruises. In DELAG's early years, its "Sunset Cruises" were astoundingly popular. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres were served on board, and chamber musicians played. Later, weddings were held in flight. Passenger accommodations and public rooms eventually became as luxurious as those on Atlantic steamers if somewhat more compact. Given DELAG's association with Hamburg-Amerika Lines, it could hardly have been otherwise. The name "Zeppelin" became the first and last word in airship flight.

The Grand Saloon of Zeppelin Deutschland (LZ-7) in 1910. The cabin was decorated in mahogany and mother-of-pearl. She was DELAG's flagship, but she wrecked on her first flight. No one was hurt

Schedules, which were implicitly important to the German psyche, were consciously ignored by DELAG. Ticket purchasers were advised that all aspects of the flight (always referred to as "the voyage") were subject to the Captain's discretion. DELAG learned fast that high winds, storms, and other adverse conditions could put an airship at risk, and DELAG's crews were taught to place safety above all other considerations.

This was wise. Airships' hulls were, after all, cloth-covered cages containing flammable gas. Little was really understood about metallurgy. The cages were built of an alloy of aluminum and copper called "duraluminium" (later renamed “duralumin”) which was exceedingly light and expanded and contracted well, but was very soft, tending to twist, torque, bend and fail under more than usual stress.

Aerodynamics was in its infancy; engineers were ignorant of such concepts as drag coefficients and harmonics, and thus airships were too often made to do things they intrinsically could not do.

Even given these high risk factors, DELAG was an extraordinarily safe and successful company. Between 1909 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, DELAG zeppelins carried over 34,000 passengers on over 1,500 flights, without a single, even minor, injury.

DELAG passengers in April 1912, around the time of the loss of the R.M.S. Titanic

 

* DELAG did not build airships itself. Construction of its fleet was in the hands of Zeppelin Luftschiffbau Gmbh., a wholly-owned subsidiary. For purposes of ease, this blog will refer to both the builders and operators of German airships as DELAG.