Around the world in an airship

The Graf Zeppelin is the first airship to circumnavigate the globe

Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin was inspired to invent a rigid-framed, elongated “airship” filled with gas after witnessing the military use of air balloons in the Franco-Prussian War (1870/71). After patenting his design and constructing a prototype, his invention soon found widespread use in military and civilian aviation from 1908 onwards. Zeppelin lived until 1917 and saw his airship design being used by the German Army during the First World War for a variety of purposes, including bombing raids.

After the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles banned Germany from constructing zeppelins and it fell to the USA and Great Britain to develop the potential of lighter-than-air technology for air travel. However, their attempts to build their own “zeppelins” after 1918 fell flat and all the prototypes were destroyed in accidents. In the end, the USA capitulated and ordered a German product. The 1920s and 1930s became the heyday of zeppelin air travel, with US and German companies running regular transatlantic services. The most successful and well-known airship was the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin. Its 237-metre-long fuselage was powered by five Otto engines and had a gondola for 45 crew members. On 8 August 1929, the LZ 127 took off to complete the first – and to date only – circumnavigation of the globe by an airship. Carrying 20 passengers and 100,000 postcards and letters franked with special stamps, the Graf Zeppelin completed the journey in 21 days at an average speed of 115 km/h. However, the age of zeppelin travel came to an end just eight years later when the Hindenburg burst into flames whilst attempting to dock at Lakehurst near New York.