Graf Zeppelin
Apr. 27th, 2008 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenith
Graf Zeppelin over Friedrichshafen, where it was built.
Probably the most successful of the German airships, the Graf Zeppelin operated a passenger service between 1928 and 1937. In 1920 it circumnavigating the globe in 3 week, including the first non-stop flight over the Pacific.
In this time between wars, the battle between airships and airplanes over who would dominate passenger services still hadn't been decided. The zeppelins were slow, but could carry passengers further, and in luxury that the small, noisy planes couldn't match.
Re: Airships
Date: 2008-05-02 06:12 am (UTC)You're right though. Passengers generally travelled in the gondola underneath, although I seem to recall some of them moved the passenger spaces into the "balloon" part but I can't find any mention of that.
You can't see the gondola very well in this view (it's sort of sticking down at the front). There's a better photo at the top of http://www.oldbeacon.com/beacon/airships/grafzep.htm (lots of good photos on the page) and you can see window at the "nose" but I don't how accessible they'd be to passengers.
This is a photo of obsevation windows on the Hindenburg, but that's inside the gondola http://www.garemaritime.com/item.php?id=636
Just for completeness, some interior plans of GZ http://balduin.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/graf-zeppelin-lz-127-plans/