A Zeppelin over Zürich


Deutsche Version

Zeppelin, 1929

A Zeppelin over Zürich, Switzerland.
Photo taken by my grandfather Walter Burkhard in 1929.

Click here or here to see an enlarged picture of the zeppelin.

The original photo is a transparency on a lantern slide, therefore it was difficult for me to scan the picture with a good resolution. In fact, the inscription at the tip of the Zeppelin is "Graf Zeppelin" (visible only with a slide projector). In the middle you can see the registration number. From the inscription "Graf Zeppelin" follows that we are dealing with a LZ-127:

LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin Statistics

Length

776 feet / 236.53 meters

Diameter

100 feet / 30.48 meters

Gas Volume

3,700,000 cu. feet / 111,000 cu. meters

Engines

Five 550 hp Maybach engines

Maximum Speed

80 mph / 128 km/h

Lifting Gas Type

Hydrogen

Maximum load

30 tons

Maiden flight

September 18, 1928

There were only four landings of the Graf Zeppelin in Switzerland: On November 2, 1929 in Zürich-Dübendorf,
on September 14, 1929 in Geneva-Cointrin and on Oktober 12, 1930 in Bern-Beundenfeld and Basel-Sternenfeld.


By the way, the church visible on the picture is the Fraumünster. This beautiful church dates from the ninth century (when it was a Benedictine abbey), but it is often the five 20th-century stained-glass windows in the choir by Marc Chagall (1970) that attract visitors. These glass works of art are best seen in the morning light. The church itself was begun in the 12th century, although the undercroft contains the original abbey crypt. The Fraumünster spire is an elegant and notable landmark dating from 1732. The rest of the church is predominantly Gothic, although the choir is Romanesque. The site was originally endowed by Charlemagne's grandson, the German king Ludwig, in 853 and later became the church of the Zurich noblewomen's convent. The stained glass windows in the north transept are by Alberto Giacometti's cousin, Augusto.

Fraumuenster, Zürich, Switzerland

Created August 20, 2002. Copyright by Andreas Walter Aste.
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