Part 6 (2/2)
”Sachsen” landing for first time after completion of harbor June 1913.]
The Zeppelin-Maybach Gearless Car
In the fall of 1921 Maybach exhibited for the first time the 22-70 horsepower gearless motor car, designed to simplify operation. Only what is termed the direct speed is used in driving; except for grades of more than 10%, and for the starting on these grades, when apart from the rest of the mechanism a single gear is used by pus.h.i.+ng down a pedal. When it is released, the direct grip is automatically restored without noise or vibration. Backing is accomplished with the electric starting motor by means of a pedal. Smaller cars of this type are now under construction.
New Methods of Gas Bag Fabrication
The early gas bags for the Zeppelins were made of rubberized cotton fabric. This material was comparatively heavy and further, it allowed the hydrogen gas to deteriorate during prolonged operations. Count Zeppelin experimented with various materials, particularly goldbeater skins, which are the big intestines of oxen and other cattle, treated until they become like leather and then they are very thin, tough and so durable that they wear much longer than fabric. Zeppelin learned that goldbeater's skins held gas better, also, and unlike rubberized fabric, practically eliminated the danger of electrical sparks due to friction or tearing.
He organized the Gasbag Manufacturing Company (Ballon-Hullen G.M.B.H.) at Tempelhof in 1912, to carry out this development and goldbeater's skins were used exclusively, as the loss of two Zeppelins that year was traced directly to the balloon fabric in the gas bags causing sparks which exploded the hydrogen. The s.h.i.+ps were the LZ-12 and the Schwaben, the former exploding during inflation and the latter while moored at Dusseldorf.
[PLATE 36: ”DELAG”-Zeppelin Harbors at Liegnitz and Dresden, 1913-14.
”DELAG”-Zeppelin Harbor and Manufacturing Plant at Potsdam (near Berlin), 1915.]
The goldbeater skins possessed certain disadvantages, however. For one thing, they were difficult to handle because of their small size; so they were s.h.i.+ngled on to thin cotton fabric. Since 1917 silk has been used, the combination when prepared being so light and thin as to be transparent. In fact, the Zeppelins hulls are themselves nearly transparent, the fabric envelope and gas bags being so thin that one can make out figures silhouetted on the opposite side of the hull when it faces the light.
The Tempelhof factory, with Mr. Trenkmann as Manager, now includes many buildings and workshops, several put up recently for dyeing and treating fabrics. During the war a thousand persons were employed. The gas bags used in all the German airs.h.i.+ps were made there; and the factory working with another firm under a patent license agreement, made a majority of the German observation balloons.
The Maag-Zeppelin Gear Works
It was not long after the war started that Count Zeppelin had difficulty in securing delivery of cog-wheels, etc. In 1915 he co-operated with Mr.
Maag, a Swiss engineer, in starting the Friedrichshafen Cog-wheel and Gear Factory (Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen G.M.B.H.), another subsidiary (Plate 18.). The plant is as modern as they could make it.
The buildings occupy three acres. They include office buildings, workshops for hobbing, heat-treating, grinding and polis.h.i.+ng cog-wheels and the complete gear transmissions. Aluminum castings are obtained from the foundry of the parent company, Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin.
The gear works is equipped throughout with automatic machines built on the Maag patents. His cog-wheel involves a new principle, giving utmost safety and freedom from wear and noise. Specially designed testing machines are used, guaranteeing precision of the gear wheels.
[PLATE 37: ”DELAG” Zeppelin Route Chart, 1912-13.]
During the war the company made all the gearing on the Zeppelins and airplanes. The factory is now operating at full capacity, employing 500 men, making motor car gears, transmissions, etc. The manager is Dipl.
Ing. Count von Soden.
The Hangar Construction Company
Back in 1913 a subsidiary was founded, first as a consulting engineering concern; but soon thereafter it became the Zeppelin Hangar Construction Company (Zeppelin Hallenbau G.M.B.H.). Through long practical experience it is prepared to build and equip complete airs.h.i.+p harbors and dock yards, prepare landing fields and airdromes. One of the princ.i.p.al developments with which it has been accredited is the rotary shed, single or double. It has erected special workshops, gas plants and all the accessories of a modern flying terminal.
The company designed and constructed the two modern sheds at Friedrichshafen, the entire Staaken plant, the ”DELAG” airs.h.i.+p harbors and nearly all the other airports in Germany. Many hangars and workshops in Germany today were put up by the company using specially patented construction methods. In all some twenty-four complete airs.h.i.+p harbors have been built from start to finish by this organization, which is under the management of Mr. Milatz and his staff of experts varying between 20 and a hundred members.
Zeppelin Production of Airplanes
In 1916, the airs.h.i.+p building personnel conducted experiments with airplanes made of airs.h.i.+p duralumin girders covered with fabric. The object was to secure a plane which would meet the technical requirements of aerial photography. Though their activities were devoted to the airs.h.i.+p building programme, the engineers managed to produce an experimental machine of that type. On its first trials, it proved so superior to existing types that the army urgently requested early delivery of a number of machines. There was little time to do the work, however, and at the end of the war only twenty had been completed. They were destroyed, afterward, under the terms of the Versailles treaty.
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