Hallet E. Cole collection on Zeppelins and lighter-than-air craft

The focus of Cole's collecting efforts was the rigid airship--the largest aircraft that ever flew. They were vast in size, ranging from 400 to 8OO feet long. Developed in 1897, their period of greatness and popularity was 1910-1940. Rigid airships have an internal skeleton, usually constructed of a metal and wire network. Non-rigid airships, or blimps, are gas-bags with a cabin and engines attached.

The first practical rigid airship was flown by Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin, an elderly German general, in 1900. Germany was the leader in rigid airship construction; by 1910 a German Zeppelin airline (DELAG) was carrying passengers and mail between German cities. Thousands of passengers and tons of mail were safely carried prior to WWI. Then the DELAG ships and crews were drafted, and speedy, high-altitude airships were developed for military service. Though at first effective bombers against England, the raiders, lifted by great volumes of flammable hydrogen gas, soon fell prey to improved British aircraft and ammunition.

After the war, the surviving Zeppelins were confiscated by the Allies. Britain built a number of rigids and three were built in the United States—the Shenandoah, Akron and Macon. These airships were lifted by non-flammable helium. Though none of these burned, all three were eventually lost in violent weather.

It remained for the experienced Germans to bring the rigid airship to its highest state. The Los Angeles, built in Germany for the U.S. Navy, flew from Germany to America in 1925. It remained in service until 1939, when it was dismantled.

The Graf Zeppelin, the most famous airship of all time, was launched in 1928. It flew around the world in 1929, carrying passengers and mail, and then maintained a regular transatlantic schedule between Europe, South America and the United States. Considered "undersized" at 775 feet long and 100 feet in diameter, the Graf was joined by a larger Zeppelin for the tourist season of 1936. This was the Hindenburg, 803 feet long and 135 feet in diameter, capable of carrying over 200 tons at speeds of over 80 m.p.h. The mysterious destruction of this ship at Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 brought an end to the passenger airships. the Graf Zeppelin and the sister-ship of the Hindenburg, Graf Zeppelin II, remained in existence, but were dismantled by the Nazis in 1940.

It was the hope of Hallett Cole that this collection would help maintain public interest in rigid airships until the time when the airship, reborn of modern technology, could begin reducing pollution and conserving the dwindling energy resources of our transportation systems.