As one of the most enduring and ethereal images of modern civilization, the Zeppelin, however outdated as transport now, has found a place in fiction. Whether in older works like Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp classic The Princess of Mars (where it appeared in a Martian variation) or in the many steampunk novels that have come about more recently, it’s a bold symbol that works fantastically in fiction. But how do they really work? And how big were they, really?
Let’s start with the size issue. The largest animal to ever fly was the extinct Quetzalcoatlus. The aircraft with the largest wings to ever take flight was the Spruce Goose, designed by entrepreneur and occasional madman Howard Hughes, with a wingspan of three hundred and twenty feet. The largest aircraft today is the Soviet Era Anatov An-225 with a length of two hundred and seventy five feet from nose to tail. What do all three of these titanic flyers have in common? They are all smaller than the sadly defunct zeppelin. In fact, if one were to place a Quetzalacoatlus, the Spruce Goose, and the An-255 together, the zeppelin would still dwarf their combined length by an amazing two hundred feet.
Of course, the use of lighter-than-air substances, or heated air, to carry an object into the sky had come to pass long before the famous flight at Kittyhawk by over a hundred years. Balloons, using fabric filled with heated air, took flight in France in the late 1700s, and sealed balloons filled with hydrogen were able to take passengers on trips (albeit dangerous ones) covering hundreds of miles. French scientist Jean-Pierre Blanchard, for example, had used a gas balloon fitted with a hand-cranked propeller and directional wings to fly across the English Channel in 1785. Sadly, the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars limited experiments in flight and Blanchard’s ideas never got off the ground in the most literal sense.
Militaries gained a passing interest in both hot air and sealed gas balloons and they were used in both the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War for the purpose of observation, but only in the most limited sense. During the American Civil War, a young German observer by the name of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin visited several union balloon camps to learn about flight. He diligently took notes and returned to Germany where he dreamed of new ideas in terms of lighter-than-air craft.
In the late 1800s several attempts were made to use Blanchard’s idea of a sealed gas balloon supported by a rigid frame with both a motor and directional control. Some were successful, others disastrous. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin paid attention to both.
In 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright were able to use a rigid, fixed-wing aircraft, powered by a bicycle with the aid of ramp, to take to the skies for a thrilling twelve seconds. By 1904 they had managed to keep their plane in the air for over five minutes, which was entirely unexciting to balloon enthusiasts who, a century prior, had managed flight for hours on end. However, the world was fascinated by rigid aircraft, and in America and Europe designers began to develop new ways to take to the skies.
Keep in mind that in the 1900s, before World War One, big was beautiful. Britain’s private industries, with the full blessing of their government, produced the largest sea-going vessels, such as the doomed Titanic. Not to be outdone, German investors helped the innovative Count von Zeppelin in the creation of not just another rigid airship, but the largest object ever to take flight then, or now. Armed with data gathered from over forty years from two continents, Zeppelin was ready to astound the world.
Count von Zeppelin’s craft were named after himself, and his name is still synonymous with the term airship or dirigible. Count von Zeppelin used a massive frame of not wood, but metal, to create a cigar-shaped skeleton for his craft. The skeleton was covered with cotton to make a skin. Inside the rigid structure were seventeen balloons of hydrogen that gave the thirteen ton, four hundred foot craft the ability to defy gravity. For power, a Daimler petrol-engine propeller was used. The LZ1 was debuted in 1901 in front of potential investors. While impressive in size, the craft had to make a hard landing due to wind and several design flaws, including the use of weights to control pitch. The investors were displeased and Count von Zeppelin was forced to abandon the project and sell the LZ1 for scrap.
Not to be defeated so easily, Count von Zeppelin (who was still a rich noble) produced the LZ2. The LZ2 design was far sturdier than the LZ1 with a keel of metal built into the cage-like frame of the craft. This, combined with wings rather than weights to control pitch made the craft fully-functional. Before private investors had a chance to purchase the design, the Imperial German army stepped in and bought the craft themselves. They dubbed the LZ2 the LZ1 to give the impression it had always been a well-designed craft and used the model up until 1913. Thousands of passengers were carried thousands of miles with zero accidents. The Zeppelin became the pride of Germany’s airborne forces.
FLOATING BAGS OF DOOM
World War One brought about deadly innovations in all aspects of warfare. In the air, biplanes from all the belligerent powers were used to perform scouting and interception duties. While the idea of using airplanes to bomb enemy positions, ships, and cities existed, no fixed-wing aircraft had the ability to carry enough bombs to cause serious damage to a target. While bi-planes were stable, their wings had to be relatively free of weight or their wooden frames would snap. The fuselage of fixed-wing craft of the time were mostly occupied by the pilot, engine and internal mechanisms used for direction. Worse, the fixed-wing craft of World War One had incredibly short ranges, further limiting their abilities as bombers.
Zeppelins, on the other hand, had the potential to lift literally tons of weight, and thus tons of bombs. They also could fly as fast as most fixed-wing aircraft if the wind was going with them and they had enormous ranges because the inexhaustible hydrogen provided them lift and the petrol-engines had to provide very little power to get the zeppelins moving.
British author H. G. Wells already had envisioned zeppelins in the role of a bomber in 1907 when he penned War in the Air, in which fleets of airships were used to decimate ships and cities. By 1915 his work of fiction had become reality. Fleets of Imperial German zeppelins droned over Britain by night and dropped bombs on London and other major cities. Such tactics had never been used before, and the British responded with intense outrage that civilians would be brought into the war.
Zeppelins developed the name “babykillers” and propaganda throughout Britain urged men to join the war because it was better than being bombed at home.
While potentially a war-winner, the zeppelins had a critical flaw that not only hampered their use in wartime, but also gave hint as to their ultimate fate. The hydrogen within the zeppelins was highly flammable. Count von Zeppelin and Ludwig Durr were well aware of this and went to great lengths to protect the hydrogen bags deep within the shell. Additionally, the hydrogen bags themselves were made of a strong, fire-resistant, rubberized cloth. These added features had made zeppelins far safer to fly than fixed-wing aircraft, but still represented a weakness.
British anti-air guns and fixed-wing aircraft started to use rounds coated in an incendiary powder. The rounds, once fired, blazed with heat and had the power to puncture the metal shells of zeppelins and penetrate the hydrogen bags. Once struck by an incendiary round, the hydrogen bag would explode and cause the others to do the same in a fiery and deadly chain-reaction. Despite their carrying capacity, speed, and range, the zeppelins were relatively easy to turn into glowing balls of flame.
Germany attempted several raids throughout the war, but the zeppelins failed to change the outcome due to their inherent weakness. At the end of World War One, Germany was forced to sign the crippling Treaty of Versailles. The treaty specifically stated the German military was to never have aircraft of any sort and made specific mention that all of their military zeppelins were to be handed over to the Allies. The end of the military zeppelin, however, did not mean the end of German dirigibles.
GOLDEN AGE OF GAS
The 1920’s breathed new life into Germany’s zeppelins, not death as the Allies had expected. The Zeppelin Company, headed by Dr. Hugo Eckener and still engineered by Ludwig Durr after Count von Zeppelin’s death, were denied German military contracts, but merrily started producing zeppelins for the private sector. Zeppelins promised to provide a role that no other aircraft could: that of passenger aircraft.
Eckener built two small but serviceable zeppelins in 1919 to carry passengers in Germany. For two years they flew successfully and without incident. Noting their success, Britain and France demanded the two zeppelins be given to them as part of reparations for the war. Without a military of its own, the German Weimar Republic was forced to comply. Undaunted, Eckener sought non-German investors for his zeppelins and found them in an unlikely place.
The United States had been deeply upset by the results of World War One. 50,000 American soldiers had died for what seemed to be British and French dominion over Europe and an unfairly crippled Germany: not the unilateral peace, harmony, and democracy that Woodrow Wilson envisioned. Eventually, Eckner proposed that Germany help the United States with their zeppelins. Although enemies less than four years prior, the U.S. government accepted the offer so long as the Zeppelin Company built and delivered the craft, after which point the U.S. would pay for it. The risk was high, but Eckner agreed.
The LZ-126 was over six hundred feet long and took flight from Germany in 1924. No insurance company would offer a policy on the trans-Atlantic flight to America. Despite this, Eckner risked not only his company, but his life, by personally accompanying the LZ-126 on its voyage. After 81 hours, the massive airship landed safely at Lakehurst New Jersey to the delight of Americans. The LZ-126 was purchased by the U.S. and renamed the Los Angeles. The Los Angeles had her hydrogen bags switched for helium for safety purposes (at the cost of carrying capacity) and remained in military service until 1940, when she was decommissioned due to age.
Despite various drawbacks ranging from wind to the explosive nature of hydrogen, zeppelins continued to fascinate the world, and the Zeppelin Company continued to produce larger and larger craft.
NAZI BAGS OF HYDROGEN
Contrary to popular belief, the rise of Adolf Hitler did not end U.S.-German relations: at least not instantly. On the surface Hitler seemed to be doing no more than restoring Germany to its rightful borders and place in the world. The United States hardly complained as he broke various parts of the Treaty of Versailles, including the militarization of zeppelins once again.
Hitler’s Air Marshal, Hermann Goring, had been an ace in World War One and the man who replaced the Red Baron after his death. He understood the military value of zeppelins was low and focused on improved fixed-wing bombers and fighters. He was also not interested in a world united by mail and passenger carrying zeppelins. However, Goring believed the popularity of zeppelins could be used for Nazi propaganda purposes.
Dr. Eckner refused to cooperate with the Nazi regime and remained fairly outspoken against their policies. He was nearly arrested in 1933 and after continual disobedience had his company nationalized by the Nazi government. With full control of the Zeppelin Company, Goring approved the construction of two massive airships, the Graf Zeppelin Two, and the Hindenburg (named in honor of Germany’s last President rather than Hitler by Eckner as a parting shot), both of which measured over eight hundred feet long and were by far the largest objects ever to take flight.
OH THE HUMANITY
Still benefiting from Eckner’s goodwill trips to America, Hitler sent the Hindenburg across the Atlantic to land at Lakehurst New Jersey as the LZ-126 and Graf Zeppelin had done before in the 1920’s. The year was 1937, and while Germany and America were on speaking terms, the racist, expansionist and anti-democratic policies of Hitler had worn away any luster he may have had in 1933.
Helium, safer if not as light as hydrogen, was at the time relatively rare and harnessed almost exclusively in the United States. The U.S. had embargoed the sale of helium and other rare goods to Germany in an effort to use economic sanctions to thwart Nazi hostility. The goodwill voyage by the Hindenburg was thus conducted using the more explosive hydrogen gas.
Hitler hoped the voyage of the Hindenburg might rekindle warmth towards him in America. However, as the giant zeppelin hovered over New York City, the sight of giant swastikas on its rudders were unlikely to soothe the population, of which thousands were Jewish.
Ponderously, the Hindenburg headed for Lakehurst, New Jersey, where cameras rolled and a reporter, Herbert Morrison, rattled away in cheery tones about the event, while skillfully avoiding the words “Nazi” or “Hitler.”
Just as it was about to dock, the tailfin of the mighty craft suddenly burst into flame and in a dramatic, horrific, and filmed, chain-reaction the rest of zeppelin ignited in a roaring flame. The craft’s nose rose while the exploding hydrogen rushed upwards in a pillar of flame. Amazingly, of the ninety-seven people aboard, miraculously over half survived by jumping from the burning craft.
As the craft burned, Morrison famously said, “Oh the humanity!” Oh indeed! And the cause? Static electricity and a leaking hydrogen bag are the most likely culprit, but there are rumors ranging from an errant bolt of lightning to sabotage.
The disaster was total, for Hitler and the future of zeppelins. Furious that his propaganda venture in America literally went up in smoke, Hitler showed no interest in further development of lighter-than-air vehicles. The remaining zeppelins within the German armed forces were shuttled about the country and eventually stripped for parts when World War Two broke out.
The war brought about innovations in flight, but in terms of fixed-wing, not lighter-than-air vehicles. Sadly, the last famous flight of the zeppelin was as a failed and fiery Nazi-propaganda mission.
THE LOST BAG
The end of World War Two in 1945 brought Germany to a state of total devastation. Economically, the country would not have the resources to build much of anything for decades and any plans on the creation of new zeppelins remained on the drawing board.
Dr. Eckner was arrested by French authorities, charged with collaborating with the Nazi regime (ironic given he was nearly arrested by the same regime), and fined an exorbitant amount of money. Members of the flying community from across the world demanded the judgment be rescinded. Under enormous international pressure, the French reluctantly agreed and were prevented from carrying out petty revenge against Eckner for what amounted to his pre-war involvement in the German air industry. Dr. Hugo Eckner died in Germany in 1954 and was remembered as a pioneer in the field of flight and anti-Nazi hero.
The development of jet power in 1945 enabled craft to fly above-weather and carry passengers on smooth, quick rides across continents. Zeppelins, even if made safer, could never travel as fast, or as smoothly, as jet-powered fix-winged aircraft. Having no military or civilian market, the zeppelins remained the stuff of legend and quickly grew into obscurity throughout the late 1900s, with few people realizing that the largest aircraft today would be completely dwarfed by the zeppelins of over a half century ago.
There is little, but not entirely absent, remaining interest in rigid airships. Airship Ventures is a company that is striving to revive the zeppelin. Since 2001 the company has been operating one of four zeppelins in the world for novelty sight-seeing in the same manner one might operate a hot-air balloon. However, the company hopes that their two-hundred-foot-long craft is just the beginning of a Zeppelin Renaissance that will fill the skies with massive, safe, and exciting lost technology.