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Summary:

Recounts the story of the creation and development of the zeppelin and their use as passenger craft and to carry out aerial bombings, and the twenty-one-day around-the-world voyage of the Graf Zeppelin.
In July 1900, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin conducted the maiden flight of the world's first zeppelin. The trip lasted eighteen minutes and the airship reached a cruising speed of eight miles an hour. Among those watching the historic event was a young reporter named Hugo Eckener, who would go on to play a crucial role in the zeppelin's development, becoming first the Count's aide and later his successor. In 1929, Eckener earned a lasting place in the history of flight with the legendary around-the-world voyage of the luxurious Graf Zeppelin. During World War I, zeppelins carried out the first systematic aerial bombing in the history of war. Though they ultimately failed as a weapon, zeppelins were soon flying all over the world, running the first intercontinental passenger service. By the late 1920s, the zeppelin ruled the skies for air travel, far surpassing even the radically improved airplane in capacity and comfort, and outpacing steamships in speed. This book tells the enthralling story of the creation and development of the zeppelin, one of the great inventions of aviation history and one of the most spectacular and best-loved technological and operational marvels of its age.

Table of Contents:

• Diagram: The Structure of the Graf Zeppelin
• Prologue: On First Sighting the Dream Machine
• The Dream Machine
• The Dreamer and the Dream
• The Dream Becomes a Nightmare
• Dreaming of America
• The Dream Voyage
• The Dream Becomes Reality
• The End of the Dream.

Author/Creator:

Botting, Douglas

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

Dr. Eckener's dream machine: the great zeppelin and the dawn of air travel [by Botting, D.]

Subjects:

Graf Zeppelin (Airship)

Flights around the world

Eckener, Hugo, 1868-1954

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-314) and index.

Physical Description:

xvi, 331 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 21 cm

Call Numbers:

TL659.G7 B68 2002

ISBNs:

0805064591 (pbk.)
9780805064599 (pbk.)

OCLC Numbers:

913412425