The human fantasy for travelling in air took several centuries to become true. It was not until Jean-francois and Francois Laurent took off with the first manned free balloon on 21 November 1783, embarking the history of human aviation. Balloons that run on hot-air and light gases were largely used for adventure and army reconnaissance but were not suitable for transport service.
The founder of Zeppelin
German general, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin developed interest in building a rigid airship for transport of humans. After joining hands with the Union of German Engineers and the industrialist Carl Berg, he began the construction of the first Zeppelin(or rigid airship) in 1899. After building various versions of zeppelin, the third version of Zeppelin named LZ 3 was considered truly successful which made an 8 hour flight
The Founding of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin
After the success of LZ 3 German army showed interest in buying Zeppelin but they demanded a zeppelin capable of flying for 24 hours straight. So LZ 4 was made to meet the expectation of the military but the attempt for a 24 hour flight ended when it had to make a landing because of a mechanical problem. During the stop, a storm led to the destruction of LZ 4. Following this accident they received huge donations from the public which led to the founding of the company, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, a rigid-ship or zeppelin manufacturer.
The world’s first Airline
Luftschiffbau Zeppelin was finding it difficult to obtain orders from the military. So, the business manager of Zeppelin Luftschiffbau, Alfred Colsman thought of exploiting the public enthusiasts by starting a commercial passenger carrying company. But, Von Zeppelin refrained himself from commercializing his idea while Alfred Colsman continued to raise investment for starting the company. He sought the help of Albert Ballin who was later responsible for the one-fourth total capital raised. He found DELAG on 16 November 1909 which was the world’s first airline.
Operation history
DELAG operated the rigid airships manufactured by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. LZ-7 named Deutschland was the first zeppelin to be built for DELAG. The ship had a capacity of 24 passengers while the cruising speed was 51 km/hr. Due to the low speed DELAG gave up the idea of providing inter-city passenger transport service and offered only cruise flights. But it was destroyed when it took off with a group of journalists that intended to generate publicity. This left the company with only one airship LZ 6 that was built for the army. The company modified it for the commercial purpose. This ship made several successful cruise flights until it was destroyed in fire when stationed in its hangar. The luck of the company changed when LZ 10 was delivered to the company which made intercity passenger transport possible. LZ 10 is considered as the first commercially successful passenger-carrying aircraft. LZ 10 was first flown on 26 June 1911 and was inducted into the service on 16 July 1911. In its career it made a total 218 flights while carrying 1553 passengers. By July 1914, DELAG had transported 34,028 passengers on 1558 commercial flights, the fleet of the company completed 3176 hours of flight covering 1,72,535 kilometers.
End of DELAG
The company DELAG flew its last airship named ‘Graf Zeppelin’ before the successor to DELAG, Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei was founded in 1935.
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