History of Aviation

In the beginning...

The history of aviation extends beyond the written records available to scholars. A brief overview of some of the highlights of aviation's history, points to perhaps why Count Zeppelin chose a form of dirigible, a lighter-than-air craft, as the creative output for his passion for flight. It seems there has always been dreamers who have envisioned humans flying, and the dream was not limited to the Western world. Many cultures, in some way, have expressed the desire for human flight. This desire is seen by their worshiping gods with power over the wind and sky, as did the ancient Egyptians, by believing in angels with wings, as does much of the Christian world, or by drawings and stories of humans in flight. The story of Daedalus and Icarus tell of a father and son escaping from the Crete using a pair of wax wings. Leonardo da Vinici produced many detailed sketches of flying apparatuses in the 15th Century. Chinese folklore tells of the emperor Shun who 'flew' about the year 2230 B.C. Chinese folklore tells of the emperor Shun who, about the year 2230 B.C., escaped from atop a burning granary tower using two wide reed hats as parachutes. Although nothing practical for human flight came from this period, much about aerodynamics and the air was learned. "by the Middle Ages, humanity already had a significant grasp on working the air via sails, kites, windmills, helicopter toys, flue turbines in kitchens, and rockets."¹

The Montgolfier Brothers

Not until the mid 18th Century did the dream of human flight become a reality. While not quite the dream of flying with wings like a bird, human flight was finally realized in the use of hot-air balloons. As the result of a failed business attempt, Joseph Mongolfier, sat in front of a fire at the University of Avignon, November 1782. Watching the ashes fly up the flue, carried by the hot air from the fire, Joseph pondered if the same principle could be applied to the scene of the futile siege by Spanish forces against British Gibraltar. Could a vessel be made to harness the rising power of heated air to carry soldiers over the fortress walls? Joseph quickly tested his idea with a small cube-like balloon made from paper stretched over a light frame. Involving his brother, Etienne, with his ideas, Joseph went on to create the first known vessel to carry humans into the air. Two months after the Montgolfier brothers tested a 35 foot diameter rounded balloon, the most popular public scientist at the time, J. A. C. Charles let fly his own lighter than air craft, this one filled with the recently discovered hydrogen.

In the ensuing contest to create the first balloon to carry a human being beyond the bounds of earth and gravity, Charles and the Montgolfier brothers tested their experiments in and around Paris to the delight of the local citizenry and for the speculation of many notable figures including Benjamin Franklin² and John Quincy Adams from America, William Pitt and William Wilberforce from England, and king Lois XVI and queen Marie Antoinette. On November 21, 1783, a year and seventeen days following Joseph Montgolfier's initial balloon test, Jean Françs Pilatre de Rozier, a popular physics and chemistry lecturer, and Françs Laurent, Marquis d'Arlandes, became the first humans to fly completely untethered from the earth in a Montgolfier balloon. The next month, eleven days later, J. A. C. Charles followed as copilot of his own hydrogen filled balloon.³

Throughout the 19th Century, ballooning moved from heresy, to novelty, from speculation to science. But simply rising above the earth was not enough for many seekers of flight, for once in the air, man was still subject to the winds and had no control of his destination. The balloonist had power over vertical motion, he could choose where to go up from, but he could not choose where to go once airborne. The quest for sustainable, steerable flight was still at large, and two branches of flight experimentation seemed most promising; find a way to propel and steer a balloon, or mimic the ability of birds and glide on a pair of wings with the ability to steer the craft in any direction.

Airplane vs. Airship

Of the differences between the two types of air craft that would evolve from man's search for flight, P. B. Lichtfield, president of Goodyear tire and rubber, and creator of the famous Goodyear blimp, explained

that the airplane remains aloft through the aero-dynamic forces created by the forward motion created by its motors, plus the lifting effect given by its tilting wings. Being heavier than air the airplane must remain at high speeds and at once descends if its motors stop.

The airship is actually lighter than the air in which it floats, its motors being used chiefly to carry it forward, and its rudders and control surfaces primarily to give it direction and stability. If its motors fail, the lighter-than-air craft still remains in the air, and will be brought down only by the gradual release of the lifting gas which it contains.⁴

At the time Zeppelin set about to create his great airships, the airplane was still an unattainable quest. The airship, infinitely less technical and more simple to implement, certainly had a factor to play in which branch of aviation vehicle Zeppelin chose to build. The quest for sustainable, steerable flight led to amazing and awe inspiring creations; from large hoops for the wings of an airplane, to the giant 400 feet behemoths of Zeppelin's airships.