Historic Airships

These prints were published by Hugh Evelyn in 1973 and were drawn by Peter W.M. Griffin. They are 34 x 24 cm (13 ½ ″ x 9 ½ ″) on high white matt cardstock of 115 g/m².
6 of these prints show 2 airships. Shown here are scans of the prints. Shown here are scans of the prints.
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Giffard Steam Dirigible, 1852
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Renard-Krebs, ‘La France’, 1884
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Lebaudy, ‘Le Jaune’, 1902
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Schwarz No. 2, 1897
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Zeppelin LZ1, 1900 & Naval Airship No. 1 ‘Mayfly’, 1911
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Zeppelin LZ10 ‘Schwaben’, 1911 & Schutte-Lanz SL1, 1911
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Zeppelin ZI X, 1914 & Zeppelin L30 Super-Zeppelin, 1916
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Zeppelin L 59 ‘Afrika-Schiff’ (Africa-Zeppelin), 1917 & Beardmore R34, 1919
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Zeppelin LZ 127 ‘Graf Zeppelin’, 1928 & Royal Airship Works R101, 1929
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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Goodyear-Zeppelin ZRS-4 ‘Akron’, 1931 & Zeppelin LZ129 ‘Hindenburg’, 1936
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Historic Airships 1852-1931

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The Genesis of the Airship

Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, paper makers, in cooperation with Jean-Baptists Réveillon, a wallpaper maker, made the first manned lighter-than-air contraption, a hot air balloon, that flew at the Bois de Boulogne, Paris on 21st November 1783 with Pilâtre de Rozier and the marquis d’Arlandes the first passengers.

The King had given permission for the venture having witnessed an earlier experimental flight at Versailles in which a sheep, a duck and a rooster were passengers that were safely returned to earth from a tethered flight. The envelope used for the balloon was made from paper-lined linen. The Montgolfier brothers’ success revived interest in the possibility of using gas for “lift”, hydrogen having been discovered by Sir Henry Cavendish in 1766. But hydrogen was able to permeate most envelope materials until brothers Anne-Jean and Marie-Noel Robert revealed their formula for rubberised silk which they had used in their illegal contraceptives business.

The first manned flight using hydrogen took place 10 days after Montgolfier’s first flight. The balloon age immediately launched the quest for a form of transport that was less dependent on wind direction and speed and more amenable to going where it was needed to go. Balloons had their uses: military reconnaissance in “captive” or tethered form; escape from the 1870-71 Siege of Paris, when 66 balloons carried 168 people out over the heads of the investing Prussian armies. But their inability to be directed limited their use almost completely. “Dirigible” means “Capable of being directed or guided” and the process of achieving this in the air required a combination of envelope construction and mechanical power. The use of balloons at the Siege of Paris led the French government later to establish the first official aeronautical research facility in the world at Chalais-Meudon near Paris.

The Giffard (see left) demonstrated the potential of dirigible flight in still air but it was the Lebaudy’s “La Jaune” (see left) that paved the way for the short age of dirigible airships in which the Zeppelin was to become the most important player.

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