The Worldflight

XLVII

The Graf Zeppelin's Round-The-World Route in 1929

1.     AUGUST 1, 1929:   Ship leaves Friederichshafen for passage to Lakehurst.

2.   AUGUST 7, 1929:   “The American Voyage” begins --- Upon arriving at Lakehurst, reprovisioning and refueling, ship leaves Lakehurst to return to Friederichshafen.

3.     AUGUST 10, 1929:     “The German Voyage” begins ---   Ship arrives at Friederichshafen and reprovisions and refuels.

4.   AUGUST 15, 1929: Ship sets out from Friederichshafen across eastern Europe and the Soviet Union for her next destination, Tokyo. The Soviet Delegate on board attempts to divert the flight to Moscow.

5.     AUGUST 19, 1929:     Ship arrives in Tokyo to great fanfare after a 7,000 mile nonstop flight. Repairs are made over the next several days.

6.   AUGUST 23, 1929: The Graf Zeppelin departs Tokyo and crosses the vast Pacific Ocean in less than three days.

7.     AUGUST 26, 1929:     At sunset the Graf Zeppelin crosses the U.S. coast at San Francisco and sails south to Los Angeles to make landfall. The ship arrives at Los Angeles late at night. A thermal inversion makes landing difficult and the ship must valve hydrogen (and lose lift) in order to land.

8.   AUGUST 27, 1929: The only real danger of the Weltrundfahrt comes at Los Angeles during liftoff the next evening when the now “heavy” ship has to engage in risky aerial maneuvering to overfly a line of electrical towers. It is perhaps ironic that the Graf Zeppelin's sister ship is named Los Angeles. Due to a lack of lifting gas and persistent bad weather across the high plains the West-to-East transcontinental crossing of the U.S. marks the hardest leg of the Worldflight.

9.     AUGUST 29, 1929:     After passing over Chicago, the Graf Zeppelin lands at Lakehurst. “The American Voyage” ends after 12 days and 1 hour of elapsed flying time. 

10.                SEPTEMBER 1, 1929:            The Graf Zeppelin departs for Germany and completes “The German Voyage" on September 4, 1929 after 12 days and 6 hours of elapsed flying time.