History of the Zeppelin essays

History of the Zeppelin essays It is worth mentioning that the rigid dirigibles pioneer had but one prior experience in air travel and no engineering background whatsoever. Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin was a Prussian military veteran who dreamed of building a fleet of airships to give his homeland an advantage over France in the event of a war. No flying vehicles outside of the balloon existed at this time Zeppelins idea, in short, was to add a skeleton to the existing balloon design to make it easily steered. The Counts vision was rather regal his airships were to be giant and luxurious, looming warbirds to rule the sky. His first test vessel, the LZ 1 (Luftzeppelin), was indeed quite large, 420 feet long and 38 feet in diameter. However, the weight of the ship itself, with its engines and ballast, was a massive 26.4 thousand pounds. This left roughly 600 pounds for cargo, including passengers. Moreover, the craft was only able to fly for 18 minutes. The Count scrambled for more funds to improve his design, but the LZ 2 was not a great step forward. During its test run, both engines failed and the airship crashed into the ground. Count Von Zeppelins tenacity did not allow him to give up on his design. His 3rd test, the LZ 3, flew for over two hours, carrying 11 passengers at 25 miles per hour. It was his LZ 3 that finally gained the military attention Zeppelin had desired if he could perfect his craft to maintain flight for 24 hours, the German War Department would purchase and develop his design. The Count added rear stabilizing fins to keep the craft from pitching dangerously in the wind. His upgraded LZ 3 flew for 8 consecutive hours over a distance of 220 miles; impressive, but far short of the target 24 hours. The LZ 3 ultimately was too small for this feat. A larger craft, one that could hold more fuel and more cells of gas, was necessary to meet the quota. Thus the LZ 4 was developed,...