page_title: LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin
section_title: Design and operation
hierarchical_section_title: LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin / Design and operation
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen, Seestraße 22, Friedrichshafen, Germany. Photography was permitted in the museum, without restriction.
context_page_description: LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was a German passenger-carrying, hydrogen-filled rigid airship that flew from 1928 to 1937. It offered the first commercial transatlantic passenger flight service. Named after the German airship pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a count in the German nobility, it was conceived and operated by Dr Hugo Eckener, the chairman of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin.
  Graf Zeppelin made 590 flights totalling almost 1.7 million kilometres. It was operated by a crew of 36, and could carry 24 passengers. It was the longest and largest airship in the world when it was built. It made the first circumnavigation of the world by airship, and the first nonstop crossing of the Pacific Ocean by air; its range was enhanced by its use of Blau gas as a fuel. It was built using funds raised by public subscription and from the German government, and its operating costs were offset by the sale of special postage stamps to collectors, the support of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and cargo and passenger receipts.
context_section_description: The LZ 127 was designed by Ludwig Dürr as a "stretched" version of the USS Los Angeles. It was intended from the beginning as a technology demonstrator for the more capable airships that would follow. It was built between 1926 and September 1928 at the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, Germany, which became its home port for nearly all of its flights. Its duralumin frame was made of eighteen 28-sided structural polygons joined lengthwise with 16 km (10 mi) of girders and braced with steel wire. The envelope was of thick cotton, painted with aircraft dope containing aluminium to reduce solar heating, then sandpapered smooth. The gas cells were also cotton, lined with goldbeater's skins, and protected from damage by a layer containing 27 km (17 mi) of ramie fibre.
  Graf Zeppelin was 236.6 m (776 ft) long and had a total gas volume of 105,000 m³ (3,700,000 cu ft), of which 75,000 m³ (2,600,000 cu ft) was hydrogen carried in 17 lifting gas cells (Traggaszelle), and 30,000 m³ (1,100,000 cu ft) was Blau gas in 12 fuel gas cells (Kraftgaszelle). It was built to be the largest possible airship that could fit into the company's hangar, with only 46 cm (18 in) between the top of the finished vessel and the hangar roof. It was the longest and most voluminous airship when built, but it was too slender for optimum aerodynamic efficiency, and there were worries that the shape would compromise its strength.
  Graf Zeppelin was powered by five Maybach VL II 12-cylinder 410 kW (550 hp) engines, each of 33.251 L (2,029.1 cu in) capacity, mounted in individual streamlined nacelles arranged so that each was in an undisturbed airflow. The engines were reversible, and were monitored by crew members who accessed them during flight via open ladders. The two-bladed wooden pusher propellers were 3.4 m (11 ft) in diameter, and were later upgraded to four-bladed units. Graf Zeppelin often flew with one engine shut down to save fuel.
  Graf Zeppelin was the only rigid airship to burn Blau gas; the engines were started on petrol and could then switch fuel. A liquid-fuelled airship loses weight as it burns fuel, requiring the release of lifting gas, or the capture of water from exhaust gas or rainfall, to avoid the vessel climbing. Blau gas was only slightly heavier than air, so burning it had little effect on buoyancy. On a typical transatlantic journey Graf Zeppelin used Blau gas 90% of the time, only burning petrol if the ship was too heavy, and used ten times less hydrogen per day than the smaller L 59 did on its Khartoum journey.
  Graf Zeppelin typically carried 3,500 kg (7,700 lb) of ballast water and 650 kg (1,430 lb) of spares, including an extra propeller. Calcium chloride was added to the ballast water to prevent freezing. The ship retained grey water from the sinks for use as additional ballast. Both fresh and waste water could be moved forward and aft to control trim.
  The airship usually took off vertically using static lift (buoyancy), then started the engines in the air, adding aerodynamic lift. Normal cruising altitude was 200 m (650 ft); it climbed if necessary to cross high ground or poor weather, and often descended in stormy weather. To measure the wind speed over the sea, and calculate drift, floating pyrotechnic flares were dropped.
  When preparing to land the crew advised the ground, either by radio or signal flag. Ground crew lit a smoky fire, to help the airshipmen judge wind speed and direction. The airship slowed, then adjusted buoyancy to neutral by valving off hydrogen or dropping ballast. Echo sounding with the report from an 11-mm blank round was used to measure altitude accurately. The ship flew in with its nose trimmed slightly down, made its final approach into the wind descending at 30 m (100 ft) per minute, then used reverse thrust to stop over the landing flag, where it dropped ropes to the ground. Landing in rough weather required a faster approach. Up to 300 people manhandled the airship into a hangar or secured it by the nose to a mooring mast.
  Graf Zeppelin's top airspeed was 128 km/h 
caption: One of the engine nacelles, preserved in Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen
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