LZ 10 Schwaben was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 rigid airship

Rigid airship

A rigid airship is a type of airship in which the envelope retained its shape by the use of an internal structural framework rather than by being forced into shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope as used in blimps and semi-rigid airships.Rigid airships were produced and...

 built by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin

Luftschiffbau Zeppelin

Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH is a German company which, during the early 20th century, was a leader in the design and manufacture of rigid airships, specifically of the Zeppelin type. The company was founded by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin...

 in 1911 and operated by DELAG

DELAG

DELAG, an acronym from was the world's first airline to use an aircraft in revenue service. It was founded on November 16, 1909 with government assistance, and operated airships manufactured by Zeppelin Corporation...

 (Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft) for passenger service. It is regarded as the first commercially successful passenger-carrying aircraft.

Description

Schwaben was 139.9 metres (459 ft) long and had a lift capacity of almost 23 tons. She was powered by four 145-horsepower Maybach

Maybach

Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH is a German luxury car manufacturer. It was founded in 1909 by Wilhelm Maybach and his son. The company was originally a subsidiary of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH and was itself known as Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau GmbH until 1912.Today, the ultra-luxury car brand is owned by...

 engines and had a maximum speed of 73 kilometres (45.4 mi) per hour. The airship was the first to use the engines which were also used to drive most later Zeppelins. The diameter was 14 metres (45.9 ft) and the volume of gas was 17800 cubic metre. The passenger quarters (with a capacity for 20 people) were mounted amidships; the steering gondola was closer to the bow, between the first pair of engines, and the engine gondola sat near the stern, between the second pair of engines.

Operating history

The LZ 10 made her first flight on June 26, 1911 and was put into service three weeks later, on July 16, 1911. She was called the "lucky airship" because she was more successful than any of the previous craft that DELAG had put into service, and was the first commercially successful passenger aircraft in history. Over the course of the next year she made 363 or 364 flights totaling roughly 28000 miles (45,061.5 km), transporting 6,045 passengers. Schwaben served for domestic flights between several German cities, mainly Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...

, Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, Potsdam

Potsdam

Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

 and Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

.
Schwaben was catastrophically destroyed in a gale on June 28, 1912 at an airfield near Düsseldorf, which snapped her in two, causing a spark to ignite the hydrogen in one of her gas bags. At the time she was at anchor outside the hangar as the strong winds had hampered efforts to take her in. In moments the entire ship had caught on fire and the remnants of its frame, the cabins, and engines that had not burned were destroyed upon collapsing to the ground. Sources differ regarding injuries suffered: the New York Times reported "34 soldiers were injured"; others claimed either 30 or 40 injured.

Schwaben had one sister ship, LZ11 Viktoria Luise, built in 1912. LZ 11 was even more successful than LZ 10, and was in service for over three years.

Further reading

• Evening Post - 9 November 1912 - Page 10, newspaper article with statistics on the Schwaben