![]() Zeppelin continued to improve his design and build airships for the German Government. In June 1910 the Deutschland became the world's first commercial airship. The Sachsen followed in 1913. Between 1910 and the beginning of World War I in 1914, German zeppelins flew 107,208 miles (172,535km) and carried 34,028 passengers and crew safely. At the beginning of the war Germany had ten zeppelins. Dr Hugo Eckener, a German aeronautical engineer, helped the war effort by training pilots and directing the construction of zeppelins for the Germany Navy. By 1918, 67 zeppelins had been constructed, and 16 survived the war. Those that had not been captured were surrendered to the Allies under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and it looked as though the Zeppelin company would soon disappear. However, Eckener, who had assumed the company's helm upon Count Zeppelin's death in 1917, suggested to the American Government that the company build a huge zeppelin for the US military, which would allow it to stay in business. On October 13, 1924, the US Navy received the German ZR3 (also designated the LZ-126), delivered personally by Eckener. The airship, renamed the Los Angeles, could accommodate 30 passengers and had sleeping facilities similar to those on a Pullman railway coach. The Los Angeles made some 250 flights, including trips to Puerto Rico and Panama. It also pioneered aircraft launch and recovery techniques that would later be used on the US airships Akron and Macon. When the various restrictions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles were lifted and the country was again allowed to construct airships, three giant constructions followed: the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, LZ-l29 Hindenburg, and LZ-l30 Graf Zeppelin II. The Graf Zeppelin is considered the finest airship ever built. It flew more miles than any had done to that time or would do in the future. Its first flight was on September 18, 1928. Its total volume comprised 75,000 m³ of supporting gas and 30,000 m³ of fuel for the engines. It was 236m long and had a maximum diameter of 30.5m. Five Maybach engines each of 530 HP brought a total output of 2650 HP. Its top speed was 110 km/h, and its range was increased to 12,000 km. During the ten years the Graf Zeppelin flew, it made 590 flights including 144 ocean crossings. It flew more than one million miles (1,609,344km), visited the United States, the Arctic, the Middle East, and South America, and carried 13,110 passengers. Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper publisher, secured himself the reporting monopoly for the world tour, by which its financing was guaranteed. Enough experience had been gathered on numerous journeys to attempt to circle the globe, and only three intermediate landings were planned. Hearst's only stipulation in return for the financing was that the flight should start from the Statue of Liberty in New York. So the LZ-127 travelled there first from Friedrichshafen for the official start on August 7, 1929. She was back in Friedrichshafen on August 10, and started eastwards a second time on the morning of August 15. ![]() ![]() ![]() Germany constructed one more large airship, the Graf Zeppelin II, which first flew on September 14, 1938. But the start of World War II, coupled with the disaster that had befallen the Hindenburg, kept this airship out of commercial service. She was scrapped in May 1940. |
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