ZEPPELIN REBORN

The skeleton holds the engines, control deck and steering fins, and is surrounded by an outer hull made from polyester, polyurethane and a gas-tight material called Tedlar. There’s another crucial difference, too. Unlike the original Zeppelins, which Winston Churchill referred to as “enormous bladders of explosive gas”, modern airships get their buoyancy from helium, which is inert, rather than from flammable hydrogen making them much, much safer.

So is the airship set for a big comeback? Well, DZR are operating 10 routes from Friedrichshafen over Lake Constance and its surrounds, with sightseeing flights over Munich starting for the first time on 25 April, and plan to roll out Zeppelin tours from Stuttgart, Cologne and London by the end of the year. One company, Zeppelin Europe Tours, even has ambitious plans for a fleet of 12 airships operating “air cruises” for a number of European cities, like Brussel, Berlin, and Vienna.

Taking a Zeppelin tour may be pricey and, at a leisurely 70km/h, they are unlikely to replace regular aircraft for point-to-point travel. But with the romance and magic of the Zeppelin, the incredible views prompting intakes of breath and gasps of amazement from passengers, as well as the popularity of the Friederichshafen tours over recent years, a new golden age of airships could be just around the corner.
Zeppelin flights over Lake Constance begin 15 March. Flights over Munich run from 25 April—11 May. See www.zeppelinflug.de for more details

THE GOLDEN AGE OF AIRSHIPS
Friedrichshafen can justifiably claim to be the place where the golden age of the airship began. The first Zeppelin flew in 1900, and Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich, Graf von Zeppelin (1838–1917) set up his company Luftschiffbau-Zeppeli in 1908. By 1928 Zeppelins were crossing the Atlantic.

But the days of the big airships were numbered almost from the beginning. While Zeppelin’s engineers in Friedrichshafen were taking lighter-than-air flying machines to new heights, on the other side of the Atlantic two brothers named Wright had built the first heavier-than-air flying machine.

The airships had just 20 years of glory before aeroplanes made them obsolete. After fire engulfed the biggest of them all, the Hindenburg in New Jersey in 1937, Zeppelins didn’t fly commercially again, until 2001.

You can see some of the history of the airship at Friedrichshafen’s Zeppelin Museum, housed in the former Harbour Railway Station beside Lake Constance. It’s a classic art deco building, and inside is a vast collection of photos, plans, drawings and paraphernalia from the days when Zeppelins ruled the skies. Think how the future could have turned out were it not for those pesky Wright brothers!
Tel: +49 754 138 010, www.zeppelin-museum.de

You can also take a tour of Zeppelin NT’s assembly hangar, where the company’s fifth airship is under construction, and marvel at the mix of old and new technology that has brought it back to life.
Tours for 2008 start after Easter.
Tel: +49 754 1590 0343, www.zeppelin-nt.de

Did you know?
In 1970, a descendant of the original Count Zeppelin, Countess Eva von Zeppelin, threatened to sue bighaired pomp-rockers Led Zeppelin for illegal use of the family name.

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