History of the Zeppelin: from LZ 1 to the Zeppelin NT

On Lake Constance, people still tilt their heads back when an airship passes over the harbor. There is a tradition behind that: the history of the zeppelin began here more than 125 years ago, and the modern Zeppelin NT is built here. In between lie a failed prototype, a public donation, the world’s first airline, a world war, a circumnavigation and one of the best-known disasters in aviation. This overview takes you through the era of rigid airships in chronological order and shows where you can find their traces today.

The history of the zeppelin in brief

From 1898, Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin had rigid airships developed in Friedrichshafen – at a time when pioneers like Otto Lilienthal had experimented with gliding and the Wright brothers’ first powered flight was still to come. The first one, LZ 1, flew on July 2, 1900 over Lake Constance. After financial setbacks and the loss of LZ 4 in 1908, a nationwide fundraising campaign brought the breakthrough. From 1909, DELAG carried passengers; in the First World War the army and navy used zeppelins as scouts and bombers. In the 1920s and 1930s came the great transport airships LZ 127 “Graf Zeppelin” and LZ 129 “Hindenburg.” The era ended with the burning of the Hindenburg in 1937, and in 1940 the last ships were scrapped. Since 1997, the Zeppelin NT has put an airship from Friedrichshafen back in the sky.

What makes a zeppelin a zeppelin

Before we get to the dates, it is worth a look at the principle. A zeppelin in the classic sense is a rigid airship. A framework of rings and longitudinal girders – aluminum on the early ships, later the aluminum alloy duralumin – holds the streamlined shape even when there is no gas inside. Inside hang several separate gas cells holding the lifting gas, and a fabric cover is stretched over the framework on the outside. Gondolas for the crew, engines and passengers sit under the hull or are integrated into it.

The advantage of this design: it allows very large airships, because the shape does not depend on internal pressure. Multiple gas cells also increase safety, since a leak does not affect the whole volume. The downside is the heavy weight of the framework and the enormous need for hangar space. Almost all historic zeppelins flew on hydrogen, which gives more lift than helium but is flammable – a fact that in the end shaped history decisively.

Design	Shape comes from	Typical example	Size
Rigid airship	solid framework, gas in cells	LZ 127, LZ 129	up to over 240 m
Non-rigid airship (blimp)	overpressure in the envelope	classic advertising airships	usually much smaller
Semi-rigid airship	internal framework plus slight overpressure	Zeppelin NT	around 75 m

LZ 1: the bumpy start on Lake Constance

Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, a retired Württemberg officer, pursued the idea of a steerable airship for many years. LZ 1 was built in a floating hangar in Manzell Bay near Friedrichshafen. The thinking behind it: a hangar on the water can be turned into the wind, which makes it easier to bring the delicate airship in and out.

The key figures show how big even the first attempt was:

• Length: 128 meters
• Diameter: around 11.7 meters
• Gas volume: about 11,300 cubic meters of hydrogen
• Propulsion: two four-cylinder Daimler engines with a good 14 hp each
• Payload: about 300 kilograms

The first flight on July 2, 1900 lasted 18 minutes. A broken crank on the winch of the trim weight made the ship hard to steer, and it had to come down on the lake. On further flights in October 1900, LZ 1 stayed in the air longer, the longest lasting around 80 minutes. The military remained skeptical anyway and saw LZ 1 mainly as a test vehicle. With no buyer in sight, the money ran out: the company was dissolved, and LZ 1 was dismantled and scrapped.

LZ 3, LZ 4 and the Zeppelin donation

The second attempt came only years later. After a brief interlude with LZ 2, LZ 3 achieved the breakthrough from 1906: by 1908 it made 45 flights over almost 4,400 kilometers in total and was eventually taken over by the army as “Z I.”

The real turning point came with LZ 4. In August 1908 it made a long-distance flight, had to make an intermediate landing along the way and finally lay on the ground at Echterdingen near Stuttgart – where Stuttgart Airport is today – when a storm tore the ship loose. LZ 4 caught fire and was destroyed on August 5, 1908. What looked like the end became the beginning: in an unprecedented fundraising campaign, the public contributed over 6 million marks. With the money, the count founded Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH and the Zeppelin Foundation – both still shape Friedrichshafen today.

DELAG: the world’s first airline

On November 16, 1909, the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG) was founded. It is considered the world’s first airline – long before airplanes could carry passengers over any significant distance. Soon afterward it offered passenger flights by zeppelin, mostly sightseeing trips from German cities with airship hangars.

By 1914, several airships went to DELAG. Four of them were destroyed in accidents, mostly while being walked into or out of the hangar on the ground; no one was injured. The record shows two things: airships were a serious means of transport, but extremely vulnerable on the ground in wind. If you are interested in the moment when airplanes took over air travel, the story of the Douglas DC-3 is a good follow-up.

Zeppelins in the First World War

When the war began in 1914, the army and navy bought the available airships. During the war, 88 more zeppelins were built, getting ever bigger and more capable. The late wartime ships had gas volumes of 56,000 to 69,000 cubic meters and reached speeds of 100 to 130 km/h.

They were used for reconnaissance over the North Sea and for bombing raids, including on England. More than 550 people on the ground died in these raids. At the same time, losses among the airships were enormous: around two thirds of the military airships were lost, roughly half to enemy action and half to accidents. Around 500 crew members lost their lives. Toward the end of the war, incendiary ammunition and higher-flying fighters turned the hydrogen-filled giants into easy targets.

Technically, the war nevertheless brought records: in 1917 a naval airship covered around 6,750 kilometers in 95 hours on a long-distance flight. The story of the naval airships is told by the Aeronauticum Nordholz on the North Sea coast.

After 1918: Bodensee, Los Angeles and a fresh start

The Treaty of Versailles obliged Germany to hand over its airships. Many were destroyed by their own crews in June 1919, and the rest went to the victorious powers in 1920. Even so, a brief restart in civil service succeeded in 1919: LZ 120 “Bodensee” began operating in August 1919 and carried almost 2,400 passengers in the same year. This ship, too, later had to be surrendered and went to Italy.

Airship construction was saved by an order from the USA. LZ 126 was built as reparations for the US Navy, flew for the first time on August 27, 1924 and then crossed the Atlantic to Lakehurst in around 81 hours. There, the 200-meter ship served as USS Los Angeles until 1932. That kept the know-how alive in Friedrichshafen – under the leadership of Hugo Eckener, who became the defining figure of the company after the count’s death in 1917.

LZ 127 “Graf Zeppelin”: the most successful airship

On July 8, 1928, the 90th birthday of the late count, LZ 127 was christened, and the first flight followed in September. The ship was financed by another donation, the Zeppelin-Eckener Donation, by government funds and by the company itself.

One special feature was the fuel: besides gasoline, the Maybach engines burned Blau gas, a fuel gas that weighs roughly the same as air. Its consumption therefore hardly changed the buoyancy – a big advantage on long flights, where gas otherwise had to be valved off to keep the ship, growing lighter, from rising.

The best-known flight was the 1929 world flight. From Lakehurst it went east on August 8 via Friedrichshafen, across the Soviet Union to Tokyo, then over the Pacific to Los Angeles and back to Lakehurst. After 21 days, 5 hours and 31 minutes, around 33,000 kilometers had been covered. It was the first circumnavigation by an airship. In 1931 came an Arctic flight with a meeting with the Soviet icebreaker Malygin.

Economically more important was the scheduled service to South America, which LZ 127 flew regularly from the early 1930s. In total the ship made 590 flights and around 140 ocean crossings. At the same time, aircraft manufacturers were building up their own long-distance dreams – for example Dornier with the flying boat Do X, which also wrote Atlantic history from 1930 to 1932.

LZ 129 “Hindenburg” and the end of the era

With LZ 129 “Hindenburg,” Luftschiffbau Zeppelin built the largest passenger airship of its time: around 245 meters long, more than 41 meters in diameter, about 200,000 cubic meters of gas. Four Daimler-Benz diesel engines powered it. It was actually designed for helium, but the USA did not supply the gas, so the Hindenburg flew on hydrogen. The higher lift made it possible to raise capacity from 50 to 72 passenger berths.

The first flight took place on March 4, 1936 over Lake Constance. In the same year the ship flew to Lakehurst ten times and to Rio de Janeiro seven times. For airship traffic, Frankfurt got its own airship port on the grounds of today’s Frankfurt Airport – the settlement of Zeppelinheim at the airport still carries the name today. If you watch airliners from the Zeppelinheim viewing platform, you are standing on historic ground.

On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg caught fire while landing at Lakehurst. Of 97 people on board, 35 died, plus one member of the ground crew. The exact cause of ignition has still not been conclusively determined; the investigating commissions considered an electrical discharge the most likely. The images went around the world and abruptly ended passenger airship travel. You can find all the background, theories and consequences in the article on the Hindenburg disaster.

LZ 127 was retired shortly afterward, in the summer of 1937, even though it was still airworthy. Its sister ship LZ 130 “Graf Zeppelin II” entered service in 1938 but never carried paying passengers. In March 1940 – shortly after a visit by Hermann Göring – the order came to scrap both ships, and in May 1940 the airship hangars in Frankfurt were blown up. That was the end of the age of the great rigid airships.

Timeline: the most important zeppelins

Year	Airship	Significance
1900	LZ 1	first flight over Lake Constance, 18 minutes
1906	LZ 3	first lastingly successful zeppelin, later army airship Z I
1908	LZ 4	lost at Echterdingen, followed by the great public donation
1909	DELAG	founding of the world’s first airline
1914–1918	Wartime airships	88 new builds, heavy losses
1919	LZ 120 “Bodensee”	brief civil restart, almost 2,400 passengers
1924	LZ 126 / USS Los Angeles	Atlantic crossing to Lakehurst, service with the US Navy
1928	LZ 127 “Graf Zeppelin”	most successful airship, world flight in 1929
1936	LZ 129 “Hindenburg”	largest passenger airship, burned in 1937
1938	LZ 130 “Graf Zeppelin II”	last great zeppelin, scrapped in 1940
1997	Zeppelin NT	first flight of the modern semi-rigid airship

The Zeppelin NT: the comeback

A good five decades after LZ 130 was scrapped, the name returned. In 1993, Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik (ZLT) was founded in Friedrichshafen, and on September 18, 1997 the prototype of the Zeppelin NT took off. NT stands for “Neue Technologie” (new technology), and that is meant literally: the airship has little in common with the giants of the 1930s.

• Design: semi-rigid – an internal framework of carbon fiber and aluminum carries the gondola and engines, and the envelope is supported by slight overpressure.
• Lifting gas: helium, non-flammable.
• Size: around 75 meters long, about 14 meters in diameter, a good 8,000 cubic meters of envelope volume.
• Propulsion: three piston engines with propellers, two at the sides and one at the tail. The propellers can be swiveled, which allows precise maneuvering right up to hovering.
• Cabin: room for two pilots and a group of a good dozen passengers.

The first production airship entered service in 2001. Over the years, NTs flew in Germany, Japan, the USA and for research projects; the prototype was lost on the ground in a whirlwind in Botswana in 2007. In 2011, Goodyear ordered three units in the specially adapted version N07-101, with final assembly in the USA. The first Goodyear NT flew in March 2014. Overall, the number built remains small to this day, in the single digits.

In Germany, Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei operates the NT for sightseeing flights. Its home base is Friedrichshafen with flights over Lake Constance, and seasonal sightseeing flights are also offered at other locations, such as the Rhineland, over the Ruhr area, Munich and the Frankfurt region. You can see which dates are currently running in the operator’s flight overview.

Zeppelin traces for spotters

For aviation fans, zeppelin history is not just a book topic. A few destinations are especially worth the trip:

An airship is, by the way, a rewarding photo subject too: slow, big, often low. You hardly need short shutter speeds, more patience until it turns into nice side light. An airship photo is a real exotic in any collection – much like the rarities that have always been especially sought after in the history of plane spotting.

Conclusion

The history of the zeppelin is a story of setbacks and breakthroughs. LZ 1 was barely steerable, LZ 4 burned – and yet the count’s idea grew into an industry with the world’s first airline. The war showed the limits of the hydrogen-filled giants, and the years after showed their strengths: LZ 127 flew almost 1.7 million kilometers and once around the world. With the Hindenburg the era ended abruptly. Today the Zeppelin NT picks up the name, but not the old role – it is a helium-filled sightseeing and special-purpose airship, and that is exactly why it is a rare, beautiful catch for spotters on Lake Constance.