Ferdinand von Zeppelin
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This page is about the German aviation pioneer, for other meanings, see Graf Zeppelin (disambiguation).
Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf von Zeppelin (July 8, 1838 – March 8, 1917) was the founder of the Zeppelin airship company. He was born in Konstanz, Grand Duchy of Baden (now part of Baden-Württemberg, Germany).
Airships
A young Ferdinand von Zeppelin was first seen in the balloon camp of Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe during the Peninsular Campaign of the American Civil War. The balloons were placed off limits to civilian riders and Lowe was not able to entertain the curious von Zeppelin. He sent him to another balloon camp where the German aeronaut John Steiner could be of more help to the young man. In the 1870's von Zeppelin returned to America to meet and learn from the experienced Prof. Lowe gaining all the knowledge he could in the aviation of the day, ballooning.
From the 1880s, Zeppelin was pre-occupied with the idea of guidable balloons. In 1899, he started constructing his first guidable rigid airship (based on an earlier design by David Schwarz) which he used for three ascents over the Bodensee. The flights became more and more successful, igniting a public euphoria which allowed the Count to pursue the development of his vehicle. In fact the second version of his airship was entirely financed through donations and a lottery. The final financial breakthrough only came, ironically, after the Zeppelin LZ4 crashed in 1908 at Echterdingen, sparking a wave of helpfulness. A subsequent collection campaign raised over 6 million German marks and the money was used to create the 'Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin GmbH' and a Zeppelin foundation.
The same year the military administration bought the fully functional airship LZ 3 and used it as Z1. From 1909, zeppelins also were used in civilian aviation. Up until 1914 the German aviation association (Deutsche Luftschifffahrtsgesellschaft, DELAG) transported nearly 35,000 people on over 1500 flights without an incident.
Count Zeppelin died in 1917, before the end of World War I. He therefore didn't witness either the provisional shutdown of the Zeppelin project due to the Treaty of Versailles or the second resurgence of the zeppelins under his successor Hugo Eckener.
Finally, the crash of the LZ129 Hindenburg 20 years later, on May 6, 1937, at Lakehurst closed the chapter of these enormous rigid airships.
Unfinished WWII German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin and airships LZ 127 and LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin were named after him.
Notes
Note regarding personal names: Graf is a title (translated as Count), not a first or middle name. The female form is Gräfin. When "Graf" or its translation "Count" is used, it is correct to omit the "von." Thus, "Ferdinand von Zeppelin," but "Graf Zeppelin." (That is why the famous zeppelin named for him was called the Graf Zeppelin, not the Graf von Zeppelin.)See also
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