British airship based on a German design marked the brief reign of the zeppelins
THE R34, the first airship to cross the Atlantic, was based on a captured German war dirigible, which was designed by Ferdinand von Zeppelin, born 178 years ago today.
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THE airship glided majestically over Hazelhurst Field, Mineola on Long Island in New York on July 6, 1919 to the great excitement of spectators. Major John Pritchard jumped out of the gondola, opened his parachute and drifted to the ground.
Like an Edwardian-style James Bond, Pritchard remained immaculately attired in military uniform as he set about giving orders to bring the airship in to land.
The British vessel, the R34, was the first such aircraft to cross the Atlantic, heralding a new, more peaceful era of airship travel. It was based on a captured German war dirigible, which was designed by Ferdinand von Zeppelin, born 178 years ago today and whose name became indelibly associated with the airship.
Memories of the German zeppelins unleashing terror over France, Belgium and England during World War I were still fresh when the R34 crossed the Atlantic. During the war air raids on civilian targets earned Germany global condemnation, but they continued through 1916-1918, most with little or no strategic effect, but showed the broader potential for airship technology.
Zeppelin, a German blue blood born on July 8, 1838 in Baden, developed an interest in lighter-than-air flight while serving as an observer with the Union army during the American Civil War, where he made his first ascent in a balloon in 1863.
The idea of creating a rigid-framed balloon airship that could be steered more efficiently than hot air balloons, formulated in his mind over the ensuing decades but after resigning from the army in 1891 he turned his hand to making his vision a reality.
He hired engineers to design an airship and secured funding from the King of Wurttemburg, a historical territory of Germany. In 1898 he began constructing his first airship the LZ1. it made its first flight in 1900, lasting only 20 minutes.
It took several years before his dirigibles stayed in the air for any length of time, but in 1906 a 24-hour flight resulted in a surge of interest and funding enabling him to build a fleet. Zeppelin established a company to manufacture the aircraft and in 1910 established Delag (Deutsche-Luftschiffahrts AG) a regular passenger airline.
The German army began buying up Zeppelin’s airships before World War I and used them in air raids beginning with bombings in Belgium in August 1914 and later moving to France and England.
Civilian deaths were widely condemned, along with Germany’s use of poison gas and submarine warfare, it was seen as a terror tactic rather than one with any great strategic value. The airships were vulnerable to ground fire, which they tried to overcome by flying higher, which subsequently affected the accuracy of the bombing. But several zeppelins were shot out of the sky and the English were able to better develop their own airship program, which had only limited success up to that time.
They developed the R33 and the R34, based on captured German technology from the L32 and L33 which were shot down in September 1916.
At the end of the war Germany was banned from making military zeppelins, but the English military continued experimentation, the R33 and R34 making their maiden flights in 1919.
The R34 may not have been the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic, that honour was snatched by John Alcock and Arthur Brown in June 1919 flying a modified World War I Vickers Vimy from Newfoundland to Ireland.
But the R34, captained by Major George Herbert Scott, became the first aircraft to cross from east to west, England to America, and then the round trip back to England. It seemed to mark the beginning of a new era where airships would become the dominant form of air travel.
However several tragic accidents darkened the reputation of the aircraft, which allowed aeroplanes to dominate passenger travel.
Scott was involved in the crash in France of the R101, a British government project to develop long distance passenger craft, on which 48 of the 54 people on board died in 1930.
The German airship Hinderburg’s explosion in 1937 while on a trip to the US, killing 36 of the 97 people aboard, seemed to put an end to the golden era of dirigibles.
Originally published as British airship based on a German design marked the brief reign of the zeppelins
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