List of Schütte-Lanz airships
The Schütte-Lanz company was an early competitor of the more famous airships built by Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
When the Zeppelin LZ 4 met with disaster at Echterdingen in 1908, Professor Johann Schütte (1873–1940) started to consider the problems of airship design.
He decided, with the co-operation of his students, to develop his own scientifically designed, high-performance airship.
In partnership with Dr Karl Lanz, an industrialist and wood products manufacturer, he started constructing the Schütte-Lanz Luftschiffbau on 22 April 1909.
[citation needed] In the words of Führer der Luftschiffe Peter Strasser: Most of the Schütte-Lanz ships are not usable under combat conditions, especially those operated by the Navy, because their wooden construction cannot cope with the damp conditions inseparable from maritime service...[3]The decision was made to compensate the company for the unusable wooden ships, and in response the company started work on a tubular aluminum-framed ship which was probably not completed.
Twenty-four Schütte-Lanz airships were designed before the end of the World War I, most of which the company was not paid for due to the collapse of the German Monarchy.
The ship was powered by four 125 hp (127 PS; 93 kW) Daimler-Benz engines installed in two ventral gondolas.
A distinctive feature of the Schütte-Lanz ships was that the frame was constructed from special plywood which was (supposedly) waterproofed and protected from frost.
The SL.I was constructed with a diamond lattice frame and had a highly streamlined shape, allowing it to achieve a record speed of 38.3 km/h (23.8 mph; 20.7 kn).
It was only matched at the time by the structure of the MacMeecham airship, designed and partially built in England in the first years of World War I. Fifty-three experimental flights were made between October 1911 and December 1912, the longest of over 16 hours.
The ship was handed over to the German Army on 12 December 1912 but destroyed soon afterwards when it broke loose from its temporary mooring during a storm.
A third innovation, for war service, was the mounting of heavy machine guns for defense against attacking aircraft in each of the engine cars.
After being enlarged in summer 1915, several more missions were carried out before SL.2 was stranded at Luckenwalde on 10 January 1916 after running out of fuel and decommissioned.
SL.4 flew 21 reconnaissance missions and two bombing raids against enemy harbours on the Eastern front.
During its second flight the ship was forced down by bad weather at Giessen and stricken from service on 5 July 1915 Naval airship based at Seddin.
Flew six reconnaissance missions, but exploded due to unknown causes with the loss of all hands while taking off on 10 November 1915.
Repaired and possibly enlarged before being decommissioned 6 March 1917 when the army terminated airship operations.
Disappeared during a subsequent attack on Sevastopol, possibly due to bad weather 28 July 1916.
Badly damaged after hitting gas-holder near hangar and stricken 28 December 1916 Army airship based at Leipzig.
Construction completed at Leipzig base, but ship destroyed by hangar collapse on 8 February 1917.
Burnt in huge hangar explosion and fire with four zeppelin airships on 5 January 1918 after only two missions.
