Joseph Spiess (engineer) on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Joseph Spiess (10 September 1838 – 31 March 1917) was a French
Shortly before 
Joseph Spiess is buried with other family members in the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise in Aérostèles: Tomb of Joseph Spiess
/ref>
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
who filed a patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
for a 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 airsh ...
in 1873, the year before Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (german: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships a ...
first outlined his own design. However, Spiess's machine was not actually constructed until 1913, and was the first and only French rigid airship.
Biography
Spiess was the son of a printer, inMulhouse
Mulhouse (; Alsatian language, Alsatian: or , ; ; meaning ''Mill (grinding), mill house'') is a city of the Haut-Rhin Departments of France, department, in the Grand Est Regions of France, region, eastern France, close to the France–Switzerl ...
, Haut-Rhin
Haut-Rhin (, ; Alsatian: ''Owerelsàss'' or '; german: Oberelsass, ) is a department in the Grand Est region of France, bordering both Germany and Switzerland. It is named after the river Rhine. Its name means ''Upper Rhine''. Haut-Rhin is the ...
département
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities"), between the regions of France, admin ...
, in the Alsace
Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...
region of France. He served as a warrant officer
Warrant officer (WO) is a rank or category of ranks in the armed forces of many countries. Depending on the country, service, or historical context, warrant officers are sometimes classified as the most junior of the commissioned ranks, the mos ...
in the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871, and when Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
, Spiess opted to retain his French nationality.
Shortly before World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, there was public pressure for France to emulate Germany's airship fleet, and construction of Spiess's airship, with state assistance, was started by Société Zodiac at the Aérodrome de Saint-Cyr-l'École
Saint-Cyr-l'École () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.
It used to host the training school for officers of the French army, the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr (ESM), which wa ...
. It had a framework of hollow wooden spars braced with wire, and was given the name ''Zodiac XII'' but had the name ''"SPIESS"'' painted along the side of the envelope. It was 113 metres long, with a diameter of 13.5 metres, powered by a single Chenu 200 horse power engine that drove two propellers. It first flew on April 13, 1913, but it became clear that it was underpowered and required more lift, so the envelope was extended to 140 metres to accommodate three more gas cells and a second engine was added. Spiess then presented the airship to the French government as a gift. After further trials, it was not accepted by the French military, because their view was smaller non-rigid types would be more effective. The Spiess airship seems to have been broken up in 1914.
The first appearance of the Spiess airship over Paris initially caused consternation as it was mistaken for a German Zeppelin
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 ...
; however, when it was found to be a French machine, Spiess became something of a national celebrity and was nominated for Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
in June 1913.
Joseph Spiess is buried with other family members in the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
; his gravestone has a bronze frieze depicting his airship./ref>
References