A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874 and developed in detail in 1893. They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899. After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the word zeppelin came to be commonly used to refer to all forms of rigid airships. Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights. During World War I, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and as scouts. Numerous bombing raids on Britain resulted in over 500 deaths.
An airship is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air to achieve the lift needed to stay airborne.
The history of aviation extends for more than 2000 years, from the earliest forms of aviation such as kites and attempts at tower jumping to supersonic and hypersonic flight by powered, heavier-than-air jets. Kite flying in China dates back to several hundred years BC and is thought to be the earliest example of man-made flight. Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century dream of flight found expression in several rational designs, but which relied on poor science.
The Whitehead No.21 was the aircraft that aviation pioneer Gustave Whitehead claimed to have flown near Bridgeport, Connecticut on August 14, 1901. Professional aviation historians and scholars reject claims for the flight. A description and photographs of Whitehead's aircraft appeared in Scientific American in June 1901, stating that the "novel flying machine" had just been completed, and "is now ready for preliminary trials". The flight was reported in the August 18, 1901, issue of the Bridgeport Sunday Herald and reprints or rewrites were published in many other newspapers.
Gustave Albin Whitehead was an aviation pioneer who emigrated from Germany to the United States where he designed and built gliders, flying machines, and engines between 1897 and 1915. Controversy surrounds published accounts and Whitehead's own claims that he flew a powered machine successfully several times in 1901 and 1902, predating the first flights by the Wright Brothers in 1903.
The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 is a British single-engine tractor two-seat biplane, designed and developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. Most of the roughly 3,500 built were constructed under contract by private companies, including established aircraft manufacturers and firms new to aircraft construction.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1902:
A parasite aircraft is a component of a composite aircraft which is carried aloft and air launched by a larger carrier aircraft or mother ship to support the primary mission of the carrier. The carrier craft may or may not be able to later recover the parasite during flight.
The mystery airship or phantom airship was a phenomenon that thousands of people across the United States claimed to have observed from late 1896 through mid 1897. Typical airship reports involved nocturnal sightings of unidentified flying lights, but more detailed accounts reported actual airborne craft comparable to an airship or dirigible. Mystery airship reports are seen as a cultural predecessor to modern claims of extraterrestrial-piloted UFO's or flying saucers.
The AEREON III was an experimental hybrid airship of rigid construction built by the AEREON Corporation in the early 1960s. Of unconventional design, the airship featured three gas envelopes attached side-by-side, with the connecting structures shaped as airfoils to create extra lift as the craft moved forward. Intended as a small prototype craft that would precede the development of much larger hybrid airships, the AEREON III was constructed between 1959 and 1965 but was destroyed during taxiing tests in 1966 and scrapped without having flown. It was "the first rigid airship to be built since Graf Zeppelin II".
The 14-bis (French: Quatorze-bis;, also known as Oiseau de proie, was a pioneer era, canard-style biplane designed and built by Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont. In 1906, near Paris, the 14-bis made a manned powered flight that was the first to be publicly witnessed by a crowd and also filmed. It was also the first powered flight by a non-Wright Brothers airplane aside from short powered "hops" by Clément Ader and Traian Vuia.
A steam-powered aircraft is an aircraft propelled by a steam engine. Steam power was used during the 19th century, but fell into disuse with the arrival of the more practical internal combustion engine at the beginning of the pioneer era.
Early flying machines include all forms of aircraft studied or constructed before the development of the modern aeroplane by 1910. The story of modern flight begins more than a century before the first successful manned aeroplane, and the earliest aircraft thousands of years before.
The Convair XFY-1 Pogo is an experimental V/STOL aircraft developed during the early years of the Cold War. It was intended to be a high-performance fighter aircraft capable of operating from small warships. Lockheed and Convair were awarded contracts to build experimental VTOL fighters, with Convair producing the XFY-1, also known as the "Pogo." It was developed as an attempt to create a practical V/STOL aircraft.
A hybrid airship is a powered aircraft that obtains some of its lift as a lighter-than-air (LTA) airship and some from aerodynamic lift as a heavier-than-air aerodyne.
The R.80 was a British rigid airship, first flown on 19 July 1920, and was the first fully streamlined airship to be built in Britain. Originally a military project for the British Admiralty, it was completed for commercial passenger-carrying. R.80 proved too small for this role and after being used briefly to train the United States Navy personnel who were to crew the ZR-2 airship, R.80 was retired and eventually scrapped in 1925.
The Willows airships were a series of pioneering non-rigid airships designed and built in Wales by Ernest Thompson Willows in the first decade of the 20th century. The first airship Willows No. 1 flew in 1905, and the last, the Willows No. 5 in 1913.
A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered transport.
Stanley Edward Spencer (1868–1906) was an early English aeronaut, famous for ballooning and parachuting in several countries, and later for building and flying an airship over London in 1902.
The Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Center and Museum is a museum in Pittsburg, Texas. It consists of two separate facilities, the Depot Museum and the Farmstead Museum.
