The LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was the most successful airship of the entire era of these machines. It was named after the famous airship builder, count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. The Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier bears a similar name. The Graf Zeppelin was built in workshops in Friedrichshafen, Germany, based on a design by Ludwig Dürr, who had been involved in the design of all previous zeppelins. Its main promoter and later also its captain was Hugo Eckener. It flew for the first time on September 18, 1928.

The volume of hydrogen filling was 85,036 m³, length 236 m, cruising speed 115 km/h, maximum speed 130 km/h, range 12,000 km. The airship was equipped with five Maybach VL 2 engines of 390 kW each, powered by a specially developed Blau gas, named after the inventor Hermann Blau from Augsburg (a mixture of propylene, methane, ethane, ethene, butylene and hydrogen), which had the same density as air and its consumption did not affect the airship's buoyancy. Its reserves, stored in a special balloon, amounted to 30,000 m³. The airship had a duralumin rigid skeleton with a central keel, the passengers and crew were seated in a nacelle located under the front part of the hull.

In 1929, the airship made a promotional two-week trip around the globe as the first flying vehicle with paying passengers on board. The first test flight to South America took place in May 1930, and a year later, the airship began carrying passengers there on a regular service. In 1931, Graf Zeppelin completed a successful polar expedition mapping the northern coast of Russia. In the following years, the airship flew on a regular service from Germany to Brazil.

A month after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, the Graf Zeppelin was decommissioned and moved to a museum. In March 1940, it was dismantled for scrap on the orders of Air Minister Hermann Göring.

Source: Wikipedia

Original

Length:
236 m

Width:
30 m

Height:
30 m

Maximum speed:
130 km/h

Range:
12.000 km

State:
Germany

Model 1:33

Length:
7,15 m

Width:
0,91 m

Height:
0,91 m