page_title: LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin
section_title: First intercontinental flight (1928)
hierarchical_section_title: LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin / Operational history / First intercontinental flight (1928)
caption_attribution_description: English: A portion of the damaged fabric skin removed from the port tail fin of the DLZ127 "Graf Zeppelin" in October, 1928, after it arrived at NAS Lakehurst on its first transatlantic flight from Germany. Source: The Cooper Collection of Zeppelin Postal History
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: In October 1928 Graf Zeppelin made its first intercontinental trip, to Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey, US, with Eckener in command and Lehmann as first officer. Rosendahl and Drummond-Hay flew the outward leg. Ludwig Dettmann and Theo Matejko made an artistic record of the flight.
  On the third day of the flight, a large section of the fabric covering of the port tail fin was damaged while passing through a mid-ocean squall line, and volunteer riggers (including Eckener's son, Knut) repaired the torn fabric. Eckener directed Rosendahl to make a distress call; when this was received, and nothing else was heard from the airship, many believed it was lost; but because the zeppelin had to fly at reduced speed to repair the damaged fin, the airship's wind-driven generator could not produce enough power to send messages. After the ship arrived safely there was some annoyance from the Lakehurst personnel that it had not answered repeated calls for its position and estimated arrival time. The 9,926 km (6,168 mi; 5,360 nmi) crossing, the longest non-stop flight at the time, had taken 111 hours 44 minutes.
  Clara Adams became the first female paying passenger to fly transatlantic on the return flight. The ship endured an overnight gale that blew it backwards in the air and 320 km (200 mi; 170 nmi) off course, to the coast of Newfoundland. A stowaway boarded at Lakehurst and was discovered in the mail room mid-voyage. The airship returned home and on 6 November flew to Berlin Staaken, where it was met by the German president, Paul von Hindenburg.
caption: A piece of the damaged fabric removed from Graf Zeppelin in October 1928
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2008:05:25 03:15:10", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6521", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "572", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "424"}