The first zeppelin flight is carried out…
July 1900 CE
The first zeppelin flight is carried out over Lake Constance, near Friedrichshafen, Germany, on July 2, 1900
Damaged during landing, it will be repaired and modified and proved its potential in two subsequent flights made on October 17 and 24 , 1900, bettering the 6 m/s (21.6 km/h, 13.4 mph) velocity attained by the French airship La France.
Despite this performance, the shareholders will decline o invest more money, and so the company will liquidated, with Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, wishing to continue experimenting, purchasing the ship and equipment, but he will eventually dismantle the ship in 1901.
The Count's serious interest in airship development had begun in 1874, when he took inspiration from a lecture given by Heinrich von Stephan on the subject of "World Postal Services and Air Travel" to outline the basic principle of his later craft in a diary entry dated 25 March 1874.
This describes a large rigidly framed outer envelope containing several separate gasbags.
He had previously encountered Union Army balloons in 1863 when he visited the United States as a military observer during the American Civil War.
Count Zeppelin had begun to seriously pursue his project after his early retirement from the military in 1890 at the age of fifty-two.
Convinced of the potential importance of aviation, he had started working on various designs in 1891, and had completed detailed designs by 1893.
An official committee had reviewed his plans in 1894, and he had received a patent, granted on August 31, 1895, with Theodor Kober producing the technical drawings.
Zeppelin's patent describes a Lenkbares Luftfahrzeug mit mehreren hintereinander angeordneten Tragkörpern [Steerable aircraft with several carrier bodies arranged one behind another], an airship consisting of flexibly articulated rigid sections.
The front section, containing the crew and engines, is 117.35 m (385 ft) long with a gas capacity of 9,514 m³ (336,000 cu ft): the middle section is 16 m (52 ft 6 in) long with an intended useful load of 599 kg (1,320 lb) and the rear section 39.93 m (131 ft) long with an intended load of 1,996 kg (4,400 lb).
Count Zeppelin's attempts to secure government funding for his project proved unsuccessful, but a lecture given to the Union of German Engineers had gained their support.
Zeppelin had also sought support from the industrialist Carl Berg, then engaged in construction work on the second airship design of David Schwarz.
Berg was under contract not to supply aluminum to any other airship manufacturer, and will subsequently make a payment to Schwarz's widow as compensation for breaking this agreement.
Schwarz's design differs fundamentally from Zeppelin's, crucially lacking the use of separate gasbags inside a rigid envelope.