page_title: List of Schütte-Lanz airships
section_title: S.L.2 (Type 'b')
hierarchical_section_title: List of Schütte-Lanz airships / S.L.2 (Type 'b')
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Fig. 5. Schütte-Lanz Luftschiff SL 2. English: Fig. 5. Schütte-Lanz airship SL2.
context_page_description: Schütte-Lanz is the name of a series of rigid airships designed and built by the Luftschiffbau Schütte-Lanz company from 1909 until 1917. One research and four passenger airships were planned for post-war use, but were never built. The Schütte-Lanz company was an early competitor of the more famous airships built by Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Although it is common for all rigid airships to be informally called zeppelins regardless of their manufacturer, this name technically only applies to those manufactured by the Zeppelin company.
context_section_description: The Schütte-Lanz airship S.L.2 surpassed the contemporary Zeppelin airships in performance. It adopted the Zeppelin ring-girder construction method, but retained the streamlined shape and plywood construction of the S.L.1. The S.L.2 was also the most significant airship to date in that it laid down two vital design innovations that were copied in almost all subsequent rigid airships. The first was the cruciform tail plane, with a single pair of rudders and elevators. The second was the location of the engines in separate streamlined gondolas or cars. A third innovation, for war service, was the mounting of heavy machine guns for defense against attacking aircraft in each of the engine cars.
  S.L.2 was built between January and May 1914 and transferred to Austrian military control as the S.L.II. It carried out six missions in the first year of the war over Poland and France. After being enlarged in summer 1915, several more missions were carried out before S.L.2 was stranded at Luckenwalde on 10 January 1916 after running out of fuel and decommissioned. The S.L.2 demonstrated the Schütte-Lanz wood girder's advantage in compression as opposed to tension allowed the Schütte-Lanz type of airship to be technically superior until a certain size had been reached.
  First Flight: 28 February 1914
  Length: 144 m (472 ft) (156 m (512 ft) after rebuild)
  Diameter: 18.2 m (60 ft) (18.2 m (60 ft) after rebuild)
  Gas Capacity: 25,000 m³ (880,000 cu ft) (27,500 m³ (970,000 cu ft) after rebuild)
  Performance: 88.2 km/h (54.8 mph; 47.6 kn) (89.3 km/h (55.5 mph; 48.2 kn) after rebuild)
  Payload: 8 tonnes 10.4 t (10,400 kg; 23,000 lb)
  Engines: 4x Maybach C-X 6-cyl in-line engines:720 hp (730 PS; 540 kW) total (840 hp (850 PS; 630 kW) total after rebuild)
caption: The four engine gondolas hang under the hull in this image from the 1920 Lexikon der gesamten Technik.
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