LZ 128

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The Zeppelin LZ 128 was a planned successor to the airship LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" . Despite the advanced planning, the project did not get beyond the conception phase, so that the airship was never constructed.

The construction of the LZ 128 was largely derived from the successful predecessor LZ 127, but was supposed to be shorter but wider. The plan was to construct the ship with a length of 233.5 meters and a diameter of 38.74 meters. The lifting gas volume was set at 155,000 cubic meters, which would have corresponded to 150% of the volume of the LZ 127. The ship was designed as a passenger airship and should be able to carry 25 paying guests and 10 tons of cargo.

After the accident of the British rigid airship R101 in October 1930, the project was abandoned. In the R101 accident, most of the victims were not due to the relatively minor impact, but to the subsequent hydrogen fire.

This event also opened the eyes of the German airship builders at Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH to the dangers of hydrogen filling . They discarded LZ 128 and instead constructed a significantly larger airship in order to be able to use the incombustible noble gas helium as a lifting gas . Helium generates about eight percent less buoyancy than hydrogen and was only available in limited quantities in the United States at the time. This largest airship ever built (the LZ 130 was just as big ) was named LZ 129 and was later named "Hindenburg". The disaster of the "Hindenburg" zeppelin, in which the lifting gas hydrogen played a decisive role, would go down in history as one of the greatest tragedies in aviation .

See also

literature

  • Wolfgang Meighörner: LZ 128 A dead end on the way from the test ship to the luxury liner of the air, in: Meighörner, W. (Ed.): Airships: Those never built, Verlag Robert Gessler, Friedrichshafen 2002; Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen GmbH; Page 94ff; ISBN 3-86136-076-4

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Meighörner: LZ 128 A dead end on the way from the test ship to the luxury liner of the skies, in: Meighörner, W. (Ed.): Airships: Those never built, Verlag Robert Gessler, Friedrichshafen 2002; Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen GmbH; Page 94ff; ISBN 3-86136-076-4