Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (July 8, 1838 - March 8, 1917) was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer. He founded the Zeppelin Airship company, served as a volunteer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He visit
Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (July 8, 1838 - March 8, 1917) was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer. He founded the Zeppelin Airship company, served as a volunteer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He visited the balloon camp of Thaddeus Lowe who introduced him to the German aeronaut John Steiner. His first ascent in a balloon during this visit is said to have been the incentive of his later experiments in aeronautics. Back in Germany, he saw active service in the Austrian war of 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. From the 1880s onward, he was preoccupied with the idea of guidable balloons. After his resignation from the army in 1891 at age 52, he devoted his full attention to airships. His idea was for a rigid alumiium framework covered in a fabric envelope; separate multiple internal gas cells, each free to expand and contract thus obviating the need for ballonets; modular frame allowing addition of sections and gas cells; controls, engines and gondola rigidly attached. In 1900, he made the first flight with the LZ 1. The airship rose from the ground and remained in the air for 20 minutes, but was wrecked in landing. In 1906, he made two successful flights at a speed of 30 miles per hour and in 1907 attained a speed of 36 miles per hour. As flights became more and more successful, it ignited a public euphoria which allowed the Count to pursue the development of his vehicle. Within a few short years the zeppelin revolution began creating the age of air transportation. He died in 1917 at the age of 78, shortly before the end of World War I. The accident of the Hindenburg dirigible, which burst into flames in 1937, brought the fashion for airships to an end.
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