Zeppelin study expedition to Spitzbergen

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The expedition ship Mainz in the Adventfjord

The Zeppelin study expedition to Spitzbergen (also German Arctic Zeppelin Expedition ) served to prepare for a research trip with the airship . It was undertaken in the summer of 1910 as a ship expedition with the steamer Mainz and led to Spitzbergen and the Arctic Ocean . In addition to Ferdinand von Zeppelin, high-ranking scientists and Prince Heinrich , the younger brother of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, were involved. One consequence of the expedition was the establishment of the first year-round German weather station on Svalbard. The idea of ​​an Arctic trip with theZeppelin was picked up by the Aeroarctic in the 1920s and realized in 1931 with LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin .

prehistory

The development of the rigid airships by Ferdinand von Zeppelin had advanced so far by 1907 that longer overland journeys were possible. It was around this time that the idea of ​​using zeppelins for scientific purposes arose, especially for geographic exploration. The new means of transport could potentially serve as a flying research platform and as a "survey ship". The use in the as yet little-known polar regions, especially in the Arctic, was of particular interest .

The Swede Salomon August Andrée tried to travel from Spitsbergen to the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon that could be controlled by an abrasive line in 1897 , and has been missing since then (see Andrée's polar expedition of 1897 ). Ten years later he was followed by the American journalist and polar explorer Walter Wellman , who set a course for the pole three times (1906, 1907 and 1909) in an airship. However, technical problems prevented success.

Zeppelin found support for his plans in particular from Prince Heinrich of Prussia , the brother of the German Emperor, and the meteorologist Hugo Hergesell , chairman of the International Aeronautical Commission, who had already carried out meteorological observations and measurements in the waters with the Prince of Monaco in 1906 and 1907 Spitzbergen had made. In 1909 a working committee was set up under the protectorate of Wilhelm II. Heinrich von Prussia took over as chairman. With the help of the Arctic journalist Theodor Lerner , the committee discussed the issues of arctic airship travel for scientific purposes and decided, as a first step, to undertake a study trip to Svalbard. Most of the financing was taken over by Fritz von Friedlaender-Fuld .

Expedition destination and participants

Captain Max Dietrich and Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Glacier front of the Mayerbreen, photographed by Adolf Miethe

The aim of the expedition was to investigate the suitability of airships for use in the Arctic. For this purpose, the meteorological conditions in the high air layers had to be researched in order to use this information to develop future aerological navigation for rigid airships in the Arctic. Knowledge of the wind conditions was particularly important. Because of the danger of icing over the airship hull, they wanted to recognize foggy areas and cloud layers in good time so that they could avoid them.

The second task was to test the anchoring of airships on the ice and to find one or more suitable locations for airship ports. The island of Danskøya as a starting point for Andrées and Wellman's expeditions did not appear to be very suitable. To test ice anchors, Zeppelin accepted his airship engineer Bernhard Lau into the expedition team.

Secondary goals arose from the fact that other scientists were invited to take part in the study trip and developed their own research program. The geographer and glaciologist Erich von Drygalski , who as head of two Greenland expeditions and the First German Antarctic Expedition had the greatest experience of polar regions, was particularly interested in the ice conditions in Svalbard. Together with the physicist Max Reich , he wanted to study the physical conditions of the sea areas traveled through. Other expedition members were the ornithologist Otto von Zedlitz and Trützschler and the photo chemist Adolf Miethe , who had developed a camera for "three-color photography according to nature" with which he wanted to record the landscape of Svalbard. He was accompanied by his assistant Bruno Seegert (1885–1953), later professor at the Technical University of Berlin . The landscape painter Otto Ferdinand Leiber was also on board .

Preparations

The steamship Mainz was chartered by Norddeutscher Lloyd and equipped with various laboratories and technical facilities such as a plumb machine to Sigsbee and an electric balloon winch for use. The ship was only conditionally suitable for ice and was too big to go into small and unexplored bays. Therefore, a smaller steam-powered wooden ship, the Fönix , was chartered and converted to meet the needs of the expedition according to plans by Max Oertz . Both ships received radio telegraphic stations and were able to stay connected up to a distance of 150 km. Prince Heinrich also made his private yacht, the station ship Carmen , available to the expedition as a mail boat.

For the aerological and meteorological work, balloons of various types and sizes had been purchased, tethered balloons for studying the lower atmospheric layers and free balloons that could carry recording instruments to higher atmospheric layers. There were numerous geodetic instruments for tracking the balloons and surveying the glaciers. Particular care had been taken in the selection of the photographic equipment.

course

Zeppelin study expedition to Spitzbergen (Earth)
reference = [[Bear Island]]
Bear Island
Svalbard
reference = [[Isfjord]]
Isfjord
reference = [[Grønfjord]]
Grønfjord
reference = [[Adventfjord]]
Adventfjord
reference = [[Krossfjord]]
Krossfjord
reference = [[Kongsfjord]]
Kongsfjord
reference = [[Magdalenefjord]]
Magdalenefjord
reference = [[Raudfjord]]
Raudfjord
Important stations of the expedition

The Mainz left the port of Kiel under the command of Captain Max Dietrich (1870-1916) and First Officer Ferdinand Gluud on July 2, 1910. She reached the North Sea through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and initially headed for Bergen for coal bunkering. In Tromsø, the Mainz met the Fönix , which was under the command of Captain Svendsen. On July 13, both ships set sail for Spitsbergen, the Mainz a few hours earlier, as two series of depth soundings were to be carried out on the way to Bear Island . On July 17th, the Mainz anchored in the Grønfjord , a side fjord of the Isfjord , in the immediate vicinity of a whale station. In Adventfjord both ships met again. They left the Isfjord and headed north on the west coast of Svalbard. The Krossfjord with its subsidiary fjords Möllerfjord and Lilliehöökfjord has been extensively explored. The expedition of the Norwegian Gunnar Isachsen was met in the Kongsfjord . Then it went north on the west coast of Svalbard to the Virgohafen, where Andrée and Wellman had started and left their mark. While the Mainz waited in the Magdalenefjord , the Fönix drove into the drift ice to the north until it hit harder clods. Two balloon ascents were made here to try out different ice anchors. On the way home, the expedition visited the Kongsfjord again and later landed on Bear Island. She returned to Kiel on August 24, 1910.

Research work

meteorology

A pilot balloon is filled.

Knowledge of the physical conditions of the atmosphere (temperature, pressure, humidity) over water, ice and land up to great heights was of particular interest to arctic aviation. The tethered balloons used by Hergesell could determine the distribution of these sizes up to a height of about 4000 meters. In addition, pilot balloons were used, which could be followed free-flying up to a height of 10,000 meters with the theodolite and were used to determine air currents. Occasionally, recording balloons were used that carried measuring instruments to heights of over 10,000 meters. On August 11th, the stratosphere was reached at an altitude of 10,830 meters .

Anchor tests and location search for airship ports

Ascent of a captive balloon

The airship anchoring in the sea ice, which Zeppelin and Lau investigated and which were carried out in the Adventfjord and in the drift ice northwest of Spitsbergen, were promising. To do this, holes were drilled more than a meter deep into the ice. Iron pipes were then wedged into it. Several such tubes were connected with steel cables. The resilience was tested both with the Mainz ship's winch and by attaching a manned tethered balloon to the anchor. The anchorage could be made by one man in half an hour and reinforced as required, so that a large airship could not tear itself away even in a strong storm. In the Kongsfjord, anchorages on land were also tested during balloon ascents.

The expedition checked several locations for their suitability for an airship port . Her first interest was in the lagoon north of the Ebeltof harbor in the Krossfjord. The anchorage offered too little protection against incoming winds. Ice drifting from the fjord could also be a problem. On the other hand, an as yet nameless anchorage in the Kongsfjord, which was given the name Zeppelin Harbor, seemed suitable. Another possibility was the Signehafen in Lilliehöökfjord. From the anchorage, which is protected by mighty mountains, the broad Signetal stretches to the southwest to the west coast of Spitsbergen and enables an airship to arrive and depart safely. The Raudfjord on the north coast of the island of Svalbard also seemed promising, where airships would have a suitable berth between Lake Richardvatnet and the beach and ships would have a good anchorage off the headland of Narreneset.

Ornithology, oceanography, glaciology

With the support of his taxidermist C. W. Müller, Count Zedlitz collected the skins of numerous birds in Northern Norway and on Svalbard. In his article Ornithological Notes from the “Zeppelin Study Trip” in Spitzbergen in the summer of 1910 , he reports on 50 observed species.

Soundings of the sea depths resulted in an undersea continuation of the Prince Karl Foreland north of the entrance to the Krossfjord . After the trip, Drygalski published a treatise on Svalbard's landforms and their glaciation .

Results

The weather conditions turned out to be very stable, as hoped and expected. It was confirmed that the air temperature in the summer months fluctuates only slightly due to the 24-hour almost constant solar radiation and is consistently just above or below freezing point . Since a temperature increase of 10 ° C in a large Zeppelin-type airship made it necessary to release 700 to 800 cubic meters of hydrogen, the atmospheric conditions were very favorable. Precipitation was rare and of short duration. The fog, which occurs frequently, only ever appeared at low altitudes of up to 200 meters or only began at a height of 50 to 70 meters and then formed a layer of cloud of little thickness. The wind strengths were seasonally low. When the weather was fine, winds often occurred in the fjords, which were caused by the temperature differences across land, ice and sea. The height of the local winds was only a few hundred meters. In foggy conditions, the winds are sometimes completely out of order.

On the question of the location of the airship ports, Zeppelin ultimately favored the establishment of the main station in Signehafen and a branch station in the Raudfjord, which should serve as the starting point for the research trips. This was supported by the fact that the two places are only 40 kilometers away from each other, a distance that could be covered over the Lilliehöökbreen and Raudbreen glaciers in a few hours on skis or by sledge.

Zeppelin's conclusion was unreservedly positive. However, he was aware that the airships had to be completely operationally safe as a basic requirement for the research trips. A minimum speed of around 70 km / h and an uninterrupted journey time of 48 hours were considered necessary for this.

Follow-up projects

The expedition's meteorological observations only covered a short period in summer. Further data were required to determine the most favorable flight time and flight routes as well as for aerological navigation. Therefore, in the summer of 1911, Hergesell founded a year-round aerological station, the German Geophysical Observatory Adventbai, in a coal mine building on the Adventfjord . The location turned out to be unsuitable due to unfavorable logistical conditions and unrepresentative weather conditions. Kurt Wegener and Max Robitzsch therefore built a new station on the Krossfjord, the Ebeltofthafen geophysical observatory , near the signage port favored by Zeppelin, which was continuously manned until the outbreak of the First World War .

In the 1920s, the idea of ​​geographic exploration of the Arctic by airship was taken up again. In 1924, the Aeroarctic was founded in Berlin as the "International Study Society for Exploring the Arctic by Airship". In 1931 she carried out a research flight with the airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin to the Russian Arctic.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Hugo Hergesell: The arctic airship company and the purpose of our study trip . In: Adolf Miethe, Hugo Hergesell (ed.): With Zeppelin to Spitzbergen. Pictures from the study trip of the German arctic zeppelin expedition . Bong, Berlin 1911, p. 4-16 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Lüdecke: With Zeppelin to Spitzbergen. Pictures from the study trip of the German arctic zeppelin expedition
  3. ↑ The Zeppelin polar expedition . In: Leipziger Tageblatt on October 7, 1909.
  4. ↑ a b c Drygalski: The Zeppelin study trip to Spitzbergen and the northern Arctic Ocean in the summer of 1910 , p. 3.
  5. ↑ Bruno Karl Emil Seegert. TU Berlin, 2019, accessed on May 2, 2021 .
  6. ↑ Adolf Miethe: The journey of the "Mainz" . In: Adolf Miethe, Hugo Hergesell (ed.): With Zeppelin to Spitzbergen. Pictures from the study trip of the German arctic zeppelin expedition . Bong, Berlin 1911, p. 17-164 .
  7. ^ Zedlitz: Ornithological notes from the "Zeppelin study trip" Spitzbergen summer 1910 .
  8. ^ Drygalski: Spitzbergens landforms and their glaciation .
  9. ↑ a b Ferdinand von Zeppelin: Did our expedition prove the expediency of using my airships to explore the Arctic? In: Adolf Miethe, Hugo Hergesell (ed.): With Zeppelin to Spitzbergen. Pictures from the study trip of the German arctic zeppelin expedition . Bong, Berlin 1911, p. 284-291 .

Web links

Commons : Zeppelin study expedition to Spitzbergen  - collection of images