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Ferdinand von zeppelin (Click to select text)
Ferdinand von Zeppelin 1838-1917 Born in Konstanz, Baden. Count von Zeppelin joined the Army at 16 and earned his commission by the time he was 20. Five years later, as a military observer for the King of Württemburg, he traveled with the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was in that service that the young count had gone aloft in military observation balloons. During Zeppelin's military career, he fought in the Seven-Weeks War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), serving in the armies of Württemburg, Prussia and Imperial Germany. In 1890, Zeppelin retired from military service as a brigadier of cavalry, but the 52 year old count was not ready to retire completely. He had been nursing a dream since 1874 of giant flying 'ships' .'He became a tireless champion of lighter-than-air aircraft. By the late 1800's, people were attaching motors and propellers to balloons in order to travel at will. Makers of engine-powered lighter-than-air craft's quickly encountered a technological ceiling. Lifting more powerful engines and heavier loads, required a much larger gas envelope. To attain any speed faster than a crawl, the larger envelope had to be fashioned into sleek aerodynamic shape with small frontal area. These long, thin, 'sausage' shapes tended to be highly unstable. Slight changes in the craft's center of gravity could cause the larger volumes of hydrogen to shift wildly with sometimes with tragic results. Zeppelin's design broke the technological barrier and made his name a synonym for the airship. His solution contained the hydrogen in separate 'cells' all within a long, thin, light-weight metal frame covered with stretched fabric. His first rigid airship, the Luftshiff Zeppelin 1, made its initial flight in July 1900. While not perfect, the LZ 1 impressed some people with the potential of airships. Many remained skeptics. Despite numerous setbacks and outright disasters, Count von Zeppelin persevered his persistence and determination transformed him into a national hero. The Kaiser given upon Zeppelin the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle, an order usually reserved for high nobility. His airships caught the popular imagination such that the 'Zeppelin' became an icon for national pride. In 1908, the imperial German government bought the LZ 3 and gave it the army designation of LZ 1. Airplanes were still flimsy and extremely limited. Zeppelin's airships had an enormous performance advantage. By 1914, Germany had the largest fleet of airships of any nation. While impressive, the airship's performance advantage over airplanes had all but disappeared. Over 100 airships were used by Germany during the Great War for reconnaissance and bombing. Those chores shifted to airplanes later in the war. Count von Zeppelin died in 1917 without seeing his vision of regular airship passenger lines come to reality. Only in the 1930's did the 'Zeppelin' have its brief days of glory. I think if Count Zeppelin didn't invent the 'Zeppelin' it could off not helped Germany in the Great War even though many "Zepplins' were shot down. Or it could not have completed many missions in World War 1 by having bombing raids over 100 hours duration from over the 100 'Zeppelins' used in World War 1. . Bibiogrephic Information Internet Address- http://www.biography.com/find/bioengine.cgi?cmd=1&rec=15027 Internet Address- http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/vzeppelin.htm Internet Address- http://top.monad.net/~wonko/First_Zeps.html Internet Address- http://www.zf.com/history.htm Internet Address- http://www-osp.stanford.edu/drama258/TorWeb/Zeppelin.html Author- Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 7, Page 393 Title- "History of Flight" Copyright Date- 1983 Publisher-Encyclopedia Britanica
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