23 Facts About Zeppelin

Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century.

Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874 and developed in detail in 1893.

Principal feature of the Zeppelin's design was a fabric-covered rigid metal framework made up of transverse rings and longitudinal girders containing a number of individual gasbags.

Zeppelin had previously encountered Union Army balloons in 1863 when he visited the United States as a military observer during the American Civil War.

Zeppelin's patent described a [Steerable aircraft with several carrier bodies arranged one behind another], an airship consisting of flexibly articulated rigid sections.

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Zeppelin sought support from the industrialist Carl Berg, then engaged in construction work on the second airship design of David Schwarz.

In 1917 the German High Command made an attempt to use a Zeppelin to deliver supplies to Lettow-Vorbeck's forces in German East Africa.

The cause of the airship's loss was not discovered by the Germans, who believed the Zeppelin had been brought down by anti-aircraft fire from ships.

The Zeppelin was the target of concentrated anti-aircraft fire, but no hits were scored and the falling shrapnel caused both damage and alarm on the ground.

The 10-Zeppelin raid achieved very little; four turned back early and the rest wandered over a fog-covered landscape before giving up.

Zeppelin technology improved considerably as a result of the increasing demands of warfare.

Zeppelin came under government control, and new personnel were recruited to cope with the increased demand, including the aerodynamicist Paul Jaray and the stress engineer Karl Arnstein.

At the beginning of the war Captain Ernst A Lehmann and Baron Gemmingen, Count Zeppelin's nephew, developed an observation car for use by dirigibles.

The car's observer would relay navigation and bomb dropping orders to the Zeppelin flying within or above the clouds, so remaining invisible from the ground.

On 23 June 1919, a week before the treaty was signed, many Zeppelin crews destroyed their airships in their halls in order to prevent delivery, following the example of the Scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow two days earlier.

Dr Hugo Eckener, who had long envisioned dirigibles as vessels of peace rather than of war, took command of the Zeppelin business, hoping to quickly resume civilian flights.

Graf Zeppelin toured Germany and visited Italy, Palestine, and Spain.

Graf Zeppelin was retired one month after the Hindenburg wreck and turned into a museum.

The intended new flagship Zeppelin was completed in 1938 and, inflated with hydrogen, made some test flights, but never carried passengers.

The 1930 movie Hell's Angels, directed by Howard Hughes, features an unsuccessful Zeppelin raid on London during World War I In 1934, the calypsonian Attila the Hun recorded "Graf Zeppelin", commemorating the airship's visit to Trinidad.

Von Zeppelin tried to sue the group for using her family name, but the case was eventually dismissed.

In May 2011, Goodyear announced that they would replace their fleet of blimps with Zeppelin NTs, resurrecting their partnership that ended over 70 years ago.

Zeppelin NTs are often used for sightseeing trips; for example, D-LZZF was used for Edelweiss's birthday celebration performing flights over Switzerland in an Edelweiss livery, and it is used, weather permitting, on flights over Munich.