On July 2nd, in the year 1900, The people of Friedrichshafen, Germany came out to witness a momentous occasion. For two years a huge floating building had been anchored on lake Bodensee and in this building, the local Count, Ferdinand von Zeppelin had been spending all his time and resources with a small band of engineers and builders. As the building had progressed, the Count was often made the object of ridicule and jokes. Many thought that the count was squandering his family's savings on a ridiculous idea that could never work. That afternoon, the people of Friedrichshafen would get a glimpse of the future. A steam launch chugged over to the shed and slowly proceeded to draw out a huge cigar shaped airship. Although air ships had been flown for almost 50 years, this was a special airship. This was the very first of the ridged airships. The first to have a skeleton built around bags of lifting gas. The Count's reasoning for attempting this new and radical design was for several reasons. First, the Count reasoned that a solid outer shell would allow an airship to travel at much greater speeds with out worrying about air pressure buckling in the nose of the airship. Second, he hoped that this design would make for a solid long range scout ship capable of military service. Something that could be used for missions of great duration and could bring it's crew home with vital information from the enemy lines. Another reason for the aluminum skeleton, was to make the airship strong enough to fly through less than ideal weather conditions with out deforming or simply folding in on its self. Something that was a very real threat to the nonrigid ships being flown at the time.
As the Count and his workers had the airship towed out of it's hanger on the water, the crowd got it's first glimpse of the LZ 1. "L" stood for "luft", the German word for air, and "Z" for it's inventor. The first flight on that early July day was not very impressive for the thousands who crowded the shore of the lake to watch the "Crazy Count" try out his new flying machine. Although the LZ 1 was a marvel to watch as the 416 foot long ship glided into the air, trouble erupted almost immediately and after only 18 minutes the ship settled back down on the water and was towed back to its shed. During the flight the engines had proven to be temperamental and worse, the frame had been bent in several places and would need to be fixed.
The LZ 1 would not be ready to fly again until October 17 of the same year. This time, as the long ship was towed out of it's dark, floating hangar, the people watching on the shore were mostly locals who wanted to see if their count could make his invention work. As the engines were started up and the ship slowly lifted off the surface of the water the crowd of towns people cheered. The LZ 1 slowly spiraled its way up in to the sky and cruised over the middle of the lake.
More to come +Matt+
II
I. The LZ 2 the prior to lift-off on Lake Constance.
The rail for the weight can be seen running under the length of
the ship aft of the control car.
II. The LZ 5 over her floating hanger on Lake Constance.
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