FERDINAND, Count von Zeppelin, was a relatively undistinguished German soldier, the highlight of whose military career was participation in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. It was only in the 1890s, however, after he had retired from active service with the rank of general, that Zeppelin found his real niche in life: he devoted his remaining years to aeronautics, designing the famous airships which were to make his name a household word.
Earlier and smaller airships were of the "non-rigid" kind, their shape being maintained only by the pressure of the gas within. Aircraft of this design, however, became unwieldy as their size increased, and Zeppelin was convinced that the answer was to house separate bags of gas inside a light but rigid framework covered with a fabric. His first "rigid" airship was the 420-foot-long - LZ1, which made its maiden flight in July 1900 and ushered in the golden era of these giant aircraft.
For a brief period during the late 1920s and 1930s, airships provided those who could afford it with the ultimate in flying comfort. Indeed, for a time it was confidently assumed that they represented the future of civil aviation, with aeroplanes playing only a subsidiary role. The views of one Capt William Pollock, writing in the early 1920s, were perhaps typical of the time:
"As civil flying becomes widely recognised as a safe and speedy means of transport from one country to another, it is probable that aeroplanes will merely perform the function of feeders for big rigid airships and super flying-boats. The Atlantic and the Pacific should in time become largely all-airship routes, together with those from Cape Town to Sydney and San Francisco to Tokyo. A round-the-world airship route from London would be via St Johns, Ottawa, Vancouver, Fiji Island, Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore, Madras, Cairo and Malta, and so back to London".
This, of course, was not at all what happened. During the 1930s a number of tragic and well-publicised disasters notably the British R1O1 in 1930 and the Hindenburg in 1937 - swung public opinion strongly against the use of airships, and the lighter-than-air approach to flight was more or less abandoned.
Zeppelin, however, harboured no illusions. Before his death 80 years ago today on March 8th, 1917, at a time when Zeppelins were being used with only limited success on German bombing raids, he became resigned to the fact that his brainchild's days were numbered. "Airships are an antiquated weapon", he declared. "It is the aeroplane that will control the skies".