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5 unusual facts about Graf Zeppelin


Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier

The expected role of the Graf Zeppelin class was that of a seagoing scouting platform and her initial planned air group reflected that emphasis: 20 Fieseler Fi 167 biplanes for scouting and torpedo attack, 10 Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, and 13 Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers.

By September 1942 detailed plans for the new fighter, the Me 155, were completed.

Heinz von Lichberg

He reported from Graf Zeppelin during its record-breaking flight around the world in 1929, earning a name as a foreign correspondent.

Hugo Eckener

After the destruction of the Hindenburg, the nearly-completed LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin was redesigned as a helium-filled ship, although, owing to geo-political considerations, the American helium was not available.

Refused funds by the penniless Weimar government, Eckener and his colleagues began a nationwide fund-raising lecture tour in order to commence construction of Graf Zeppelin, which became the most successful rigid airship ever built.


Aviation between the World Wars

The most famous airships today are the passenger-carrying rigid airships made by the German Zeppelin company, especially the Graf Zeppelin of 1928 and the Hindenburg of 1936.

Fieseler Fi 167

In early 1937, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (German Ministry of Aviation) issued a specification for a carrier-based torpedo bomber to operate from Germany's first aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin construction of which had started at the end of 1936.

Petrobaltic

Przedsiębiorstwo Poszukiwań i Eksploatacji Złóż Ropy i Gazu "Petrobaltic" S.A. (Exploration and Mining of Petroleum and Gas Deposits Joint stock company "Petrobaltic") is a Polish oil company that has received fame of late for discovering the lost Nazi Aircraft Carrier Graf Zeppelin.

RV St. Barbara

Measuring 78.9 m in length with a 13.7 m beam, the St. Barbara is most noted for discovering the 265 meter long wreck of the famed Graf Zeppelin on 12 July 2006 near the port of Leba.

Zeppelin Museum Zeppelinheim

The transport airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg, as well as the second Graf Zeppelin (LZ 130), were based near the present site of the museum, on a site later occupied by the Rhein-Main Air Base.


see also

German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin

Graf Zeppelin would have carried 42 aircraft as designed: 12 navalized Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers and thirty Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and Fieseler Fi 167 torpedo bombers.