#grafzeppelin

The Transatlantic Zeppelins: A Golden Age of Air Travel

Transatlantic Zeppelins carried passengers in relative luxury between Germany and New York or Rio de Janeiro during the 1920s and 1930s. The airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg crossed the Atlantic in two or three days, faster than contemporary ocean liners, but this brief golden era of air travel came to an abrupt and tragic end following the Hindenburg disaster in May 1937, when the airship burst into flames and 36 people were killed.

Rigid Airships

While airplanes managed to cross the Atlantic several times in the late 1920s, that particular mode of transport was far from ready to carry paying passengers. The only option to make such a journey by air in the interwar years was in airships, frequently called 'Zeppelins' even if not all were built by the Zeppelin company. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917) had pioneered rigid airships capable of carrying passengers between various German cities in the first decade of the 20th century. Other nations also tried to master the air with gas-filled ships. The American Walter Wellman, for example, made the first attempt to cross the Atlantic in his airship America in October 1909, but that trip ended in failure.

The German Zeppelins had a rigid metal frame of duralumin, giant hydrogen-filled gas cells, and water tanks for ballast. The skin envelope was usually made of cotton. Engines and crew were housed in gondolas suspended underneath the airship. Zeppelins were fragile and easily damaged in collisions, strong winds made them very difficult to navigate, and the hydrogen they were filled with was highly flammable. As a consequence of these defects, there were many setbacks and disasters, but persistence paid off, and Zeppelins became both a viable form of transport and a potentially lethal weapon of war.

The Zeppelin bombing raids of WWI (1914-18) hit enemy cities in Continental Europe and Great Britain. Although not strategically very effective, these raids led to further innovations in airship design. Britain developed its own airships in response to the Zeppelin threat, but Germany maintained the technological lead. Intercontinental trips became a reality when Zeppelin L 59 flew from Bulgaria to Sudan in November 1917.

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A Gallery of Zeppelin Airships

The Zeppelin was a category of rigid airship first designed and built in Germany by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. The first Zeppelin airship flew in 1900, and they became popular in peacetime as passenger liners. The airships were then used in the Zeppelin bombing raids of WWI (1914-18). In the interwar years, the transatlantic Zeppelins regularly carried passengers from Europe to New York and Rio. Following the Hindenburg disaster of May 1937, when the LZ 129 Hindenburg's hydrogen gas cells caught fire and destroyed the airship, Zeppelin travel fell out of public favour, to be replaced after WWII (1939-45) by commercial airplanes. This gallery shows this brief but glamorous history in pictures.

Those who had not travelled on the Zeppelin before could not tear themselves away from the windows, running from one side to the other, exclaiming at every new phase of the scenery. Others were fascinated by the cabin arrangement, the charming little sleeping compartments…

Lady Drummond Hay in 1929 on the Graf Zeppelin (Christopher, 7 & 91)

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Graf Zeppelin's Round the World Trip of 1929

The Graf Zeppelin was the most successful of all Zeppelin airships, making several hundred trips across the Atlantic between Europe and the Americas. In 1929, a new age of air travel dawned when the Graf Zeppelin flew around the world in just three weeks. On its circumnavigation, the Graf Zeppelin left New York and took in Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. As Zeppelin's star commander, Hugo Eckener, promised: "You don't fly in an airship, you go voyaging" (Archbold, 102).

LZ 127's Specifications

Completed in 1928, the airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was named after the founder of the company, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917). The LZ 127 measured 775 feet (237 m) in length, had a diameter of 100 feet (30.5 m), and a gas volume of 3.7 million cubic feet (105,000 m³). The airship would have been even bigger, but its final design was limited by the size of the hangar in which it was constructed.

The Graf Zeppelin had a top speed of 80 mph (128 km/h). Power came from five 550 hp Maybach VL2 engines, which used gas for fuel. This was an important innovation since previously, the use of liquid fuel meant that as that fuel was consumed, the loss of weight necessitated some of the airship's hydrogen gas to be released to compensate. With the new system, as the gas fuel was only slightly heavier than air, when the fuel was consumed, it could be replaced by simply admitting more air into the fuel cells, and the precious hydrogen was preserved. The special gas fuel was called 'Blau Gas' after its inventor, Dr. Hermann Blau.

The gondola suspended beneath the airship could carry 20 passengers and measured 98.5 feet (30 m) in length and 20 feet (6 m) in width. It had the control room forward and included a map room, radio room (essential for weather reports), an electric-powered galley equipped with a refrigerator, and a central lounge-dining area with panoramic windows on both sides. Each passenger cabin had its own window, and its couch folded up to provide two bunks, much like in train sleeping cars of the period. Toilet and washing facilities, separated for men or women, were located at the end of the accommodation corridor. Space was at a premium, and each passenger was only permitted to bring on board 50 lb (22.7 kg) of luggage. The crew of 43 slept in cabins built inside the hull and had separate washrooms from those available to the passengers.

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A Gallery of Zeppelin Airships

The Zeppelin was a category of rigid airship first designed and built in Germany by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. The first Zeppelin airship flew in...

The airship was christened on 8 July 1928 on what would have been Count Zeppelin's 90th birthday. After a series of test flights, Graf Zeppelin crossed the Atlantic in October 1928, where, upon arrival in New York, it received a rapturous welcome and a ticker-tape parade. The maiden voyage had hit bad weather in its final stages, but a normal run of 2-3 days meant passengers could now cross the Atlantic faster than any contemporary ocean liner.

Wherever it flew, the Graf Zeppelin caused a sensation. Once, at London's Wembley Stadium, a football cup final had to be halted while the Graf Zeppelin flew over the crowd. The giant Zeppelin certainly captured the public's imagination. As the contemporary journalist Lady Grace Drummond Hay (1895-1946) remarked: “The Graf Zeppelin is more than just machinery, canvas and aluminium. It has a soul" (Archbold, 102).

Admiration, even adoration, could not fund an airship. The Graf Zeppelin was a hugely expensive endeavour. Ticket prices were only affordable to the very wealthy, but the running costs were tremendous: a large crew on board and an even bigger number of ground staff for each landing, tons of fuel, expensive gas, and non-stop maintenance between flights all meant the airship needed to be flying more often than not. The German authorities were reluctant to provide any further investment beyond what they had provided to help build the airship, and so Zeppelin's owners had to seek funding from unusual sources. The answer to the cost problem would be found in two places: the press and stamp collectors.

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Zepelines transatlánticos: La Edad de Oro del transporte aéreo

Durante las décadas de 1920 y 1930, los zepelines transatlánticos ofrecían a los pasajeros un medio de transporte relativamente lujoso entre Alemania y destinos como Nueva York o Río de Janeiro. Aeronaves como la Graf Zeppelin y la Hindenburg eran capaces de cruzar el Atlántico en un plazo de dos o tres días, superando así la velocidad de los transatlánticos de la época. Sin embargo, esta breve época dorada de los viajes aéreos se vio truncada de manera abrupta y trágica tras el desastre del Hindenburg en mayo de 1937, cuando la aeronave se incendió, resultando en la pérdida de 36 vidas.

Tour du Monde du Graf Zeppelin en 1929

Le Graf Zeppelin fut le plus performant de tous les dirigeables Zeppelin et effectua plusieurs centaines de traversées de l'Atlantique entre l'Europe et les Amériques. En 1929, une nouvelle ère dans le domaine du transport aérien vit le jour lorsque le Graf Zeppelin fit le tour du monde en seulement trois semaines. Pour son tour du monde, le Graf Zeppelin quitta New York et fit escale à Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, San Francisco et Los Angeles. Comme l'avait promis Hugo Eckener, le célèbre commandant de Zeppelin: "On ne vole pas dans un dirigeable, on voyage" (Archbold, 102).

Zeppelins Transatlantiques: Une époque dorée du transport aérien

Les zeppelins transatlantiques transportaient des passagers dans un luxe relatif entre l'Allemagne et New York ou Rio de Janeiro dans les années 1920 et 1930. Les dirigeables Graf Zeppelin et Hindenburg traversaient l'Atlantique en deux ou trois jours, plus rapidement que les paquebots de l'époque, mais cette brève période dorée de l'aviation prit fin de manière tragique et brutale après la catastrophe du Hindenburg en mai 1937, lorsque le dirigeable prit feu et que 36 personnes perdirent la vie.

The German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was the lead ship in a class of two carriers of the same name ordered by the Kriegsmarine. She was the only aircraft carrier launched by Germany and represented part of the Kriegsmarine’s attempt to create a well-balanced oceangoing fleet, capable of projecting German naval power far beyond the narrow confines of the Baltic and North Seas. The carrier would have had a complement of 42 fighters and dive bombers.

Construction on Graf Zeppelin began on 28 December 1936, when her keel was laid down at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel. Named in honor of Graf (Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the ship was launched on 8 December 1938, and was 85% complete by the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Graf Zeppelin was not completed and was never operational due to shifting construction priorities necessitated by the war. She remained in the Baltic for the duration of the war; with Germany’s defeat imminent, the ship’s custodian crew scuttled her just outside Stettin in March 1945. The Soviet Union raised the ship in March 1946, and she was ultimately sunk in weapons tests north of Poland 17 months later. The wreck was discovered by a Polish survey ship in July 2006.