Count Ferdinand von Zeppelinbegan construction of his first airship, LZ-1, in June, 1898 in a floating wooden hangar on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) at Manzell (Friedrichshafen) in Southern Germany, not far from th… See more

Count Zeppelin’s second ship, LZ-2, was not built until five years later, with funds raised partly from a lottery approved as a favor by the King of Wurttemberg, and partly by the mortgage of Countess Zeppelin’s f… See more

The next two ships, LZ-3 and LZ-4, were even greater advances in technology, with huge increases in controllability, power, speed, range, and payload. Large horizontal fins and elevators finally provided greater pitc… See more

Just as it seemed that Count Zeppelinand his team had mastered the basics of airship design and operation, LZ-4 was forced to make an emergency landing in a field at the town of Echterdingen on August 5, 1908, during the … See more