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Zeppelins
A 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 1874Eckener 1938, pp. 155–157. and developed in detail in 1893.Dooley 2004, p. A.187. They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899. After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the word ''zeppelin'' came to be commonly used to refer to all rigid airships. Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights. During World War I, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins German strategic bombing during World War I, as bombers and aerial reconnaissance in World War I, as scouts, resulting in over 500 deaths in bombing raids in Britain. The defeat of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigid Airship
A rigid airship is a type of airship (or dirigible) in which the envelope is supported by an internal framework rather than by being kept in shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope, as in blimps (also called pressure airships) and semi-rigid airships. Rigid airships are often commonly called Zeppelins, though this technically refers only to airships built by the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company. In 1900, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin successfully performed the maiden flight of his first airship; further models quickly followed. Prior to the First World War, Germany was a world leader in the field, largely attributable to the work of von Zeppelin and his Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company. During the conflict, rigid airships were tasked with various military duties, which included their participation in Germany's strategic bombing campaign. Numerous rigid airships were produced and employed with relative commercial success between the 1900s and the late 1930s. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG
DELAG, acronym for ''Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft'' (German for "German Airship Travel Corporation"), was the world's first airline to use an aircraft in revenue service. It operated a fleet of zeppelin rigid airships manufactured by the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Corporation. Its headquarters were located in Frankfurt, Germany. DELAG was founded on 16 November 1909 as a commercial passenger-carrying offshoot of Zeppelin Luftschiffbau. While the notion did not have the support of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the inventor of the zeppelin, Alfred Colsman, the business manager of Zeppelin Luftschiffbau, gained both funding and promotion for passenger flights from Albert Ballin, the head of the Hamburg America Line. On 19 June 1910, DELAG's first zeppelin, designated LZ 7 and named ''Deutschland'', performed its first flight. Despite its loss on 28 June 1910, the company launched the improved ''Deutschland II'' and the LZ 10 ''Schwaben'' during the following year. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airship
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability. Helium gas has almost the same lifting capacity and is not flammable, unlike hydrogen, but is rare and relatively expensive. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while helium was only available for airships in that country. Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air.A few airships after World War II used hydrogen. The first British airship to use helium was the ''Chitty Bang Bang'' of 1967. The envelope of an airship may form the gasbag, or it may contain a number of gas-filled cells. An airship also has engines, crew, and optionally also payload accommodation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin
LZ 127 ''Graf Zeppelin'' () was a German passenger-carrying, hydrogen-filled rigid airship that flew from 1928 to 1937. It offered the first commercial transatlantic passenger flight service. Named after the German airship pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a count () in the German nobility, it was conceived and operated by Dr. Hugo Eckener, the chairman of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. ''Graf Zeppelin'' made 590 flights totalling almost 1.7 million kilometres (over 1 million miles). It was operated by a crew of 36, and could carry 24 passengers. It was the longest and largest airship in the world when it was built. It made the first circumnavigation of the world by airship, and the first nonstop crossing of the Pacific Ocean by air; its range was enhanced by its use of Blau gas as a fuel. It was built using funds raised by public subscription and from the German government, and its operating costs were offset by the sale of special postage stamps to collectors, the support of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindenburg Disaster
The ''Hindenburg'' disaster was an airship accident that occurred on May 6, 1937, in Manchester Township, New Jersey, United States. The German passenger airship LZ 129 ''Hindenburg'' caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst. The accident caused 35 fatalities (13 passengers and 22 crewmen) from the 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crewmen), and an additional fatality on the ground. The disaster was the subject of newsreel coverage, photographs and Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness reports from the landing field, which were broadcast the next day. A variety of theories have been put forward for both the cause of ignition and the initial fuel for the ensuing fire. The publicity shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the abrupt end of the airship era. Flight Background The ''Hindenburg'' made 10 trips to the United States in 1936. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-rigid Airship
A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hydrogen) inside the envelope and the strength of the envelope itself to maintain their shape. Principle Since blimps keep their shape with internal overpressure, typically the only solid parts are the passenger car (gondola) and the tail fins. A non-rigid airship that uses heated air instead of a light gas (such as helium) as a lifting medium is called a hot-air airship (sometimes there are battens near the bow, which assist with higher forces there from a mooring attachment or from the greater aerodynamic pressures there). Volume changes of the lifting gas due to temperature changes or to changes of altitude are compensated for by pumping air into internal ballonets (air bags) to maintain the overpressure. Without sufficient overpressur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transatlantic Flight
A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, Central America, or South America, or ''vice versa''. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, airships, balloons and other aircraft. Early aircraft engines did not have the reliability nor the power to lift the required fuel to make a transatlantic flight. There were difficulties navigating over the featureless expanse of water for thousands of miles, and the weather, especially in the North Atlantic, is unpredictable. Since the middle of the 20th century, however, transatlantic flight has become routine, for commercial, military, diplomatic, and other purposes. History The idea of transatlantic flight came about with the advent of the hot air balloon. The balloons of the period were inflated with coal gas, a moderate lifting medium compared to hydrogen or helium, but with enough lift to use the winds that would later be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the state of New York. The building has a roof height of and stands a total of tall, including its antenna. The Empire State Building was the world's tallest building until the World Trade Center was constructed in 1970; following the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, the Empire State Building was New York City's tallest building until it was surpassed in 2012. , the building is the seventh-tallest building in New York City, the ninth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States, the 54th-tallest in the world, and the sixth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. The site of the Empire State Building, in Midtown South on the west side of Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets, was developed in 1893 as th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duralumin
Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The term is a combination of '' Dürener'' and ''aluminium''. Its use as a trade name is obsolete. Today the term mainly refers to aluminium–copper alloys, designated as the 2000 series by the international alloy designation system (IADS), as with 2014 and 2024 alloys used in airframe fabrication. History Duralumin was developed by the German metallurgist Alfred Wilm at Dürener Metallwerke AG. In 1903, Wilm discovered that after quenching, an aluminium alloy containing 4% copper would harden when left at room temperature for several days. Further improvements led to the introduction of duralumin in 1909. The name is mainly used in pop-science to describe all Al-Cu alloys system, or '2000' series, as designated through the international alloy designation system originally created in 1970 by the Aluminum A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goldbeater's Skin
Goldbeater's skin is the processed outer membrane of the intestine of an animal, typically cattle, which is valued for its strength against tearing. The term derives from its traditional use as durable layers interleaved between sheets of gold stock during the process of making gold leaf by goldbeating, as a batch process producing many "leaves" at the same time. In the early modern production of airships, application of its high strength-to-weight ratio and reliability were crucial for building at least the largest examples. Manufacture To manufacture goldbeater's skin, the gut of oxen (or other cattle) is soaked in a dilute solution of potassium hydroxide, washed, stretched, beaten flat and thin, and treated chemically to prevent putrefaction. A pack of 1,000 pieces of goldbeater's skin requires the gut of about 400 oxen and is thick. Up to 120 sheets of gold laminated with goldbeater's skin can be beaten at the same time, since the skin is thin and elastic and does not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
