SL vs Zeppelin

[leo]

Did the SL airships offer any advanatage over the Zeppelins. The former had a wood frame as opposed to duraluminum. Did that make any real difference?
Did either possess any performance advantages over the other?

[Tom L.]

S-L airships were more aerodynamically sophisticated than early Zeppelin products, featuring a truer "body-of-revolution".
Something that Zeppelin eventually incorporated into it's own designs.

[Patrick]

Did the SL airships offer any advanatage over the Zeppelins. The former had a wood frame as opposed to duraluminum. Did that make any real difference?

Huge. The wooden girders of the SL airships were unsuitable for operations in damp coastal air and over the North Sea. The girders were built up in 3 or more plies using casein glue, then laquered and coated with paraffin. Even so, atmospheric humidity alone penetrated the girders and caused the them to lose up to 50% of their rated dry strength as the wood softened and the plies separated. The airships SL 3 and SL 4 were constantly down with broken girders, ring joints and detached fins that neccesitated long, complex repairs. Freg. Kap. Peter Strasser, the IGN's Leader of Airships, hated the SLs and refused to acquire any new ones for the Navy -- he called the proponents of SL products "glue-potters". Late in the war he refused to accept the SL 22 for "front" missions despite the fact that the Navy and the Finance Ministry had placed the order.

Did either possess any performance advantages over the other?

The SL products seem to have consistently underperformed the Zeppelin products, at least in terms of useful lift and maintenance record. Ironically, the SL 2 introduced many design elements -- superior streamlining, simplified cruciform tail surfaces, fully-enclosed control car -- that were later incorporated into Zeppelin products. Much of the performance lag can be traced to the use of wood instead of duralumin for structural components, and poor quality of workmanship. It was reported that the Schutte-Lanz manufacturing operation was poorly organized and managed.

[jempie]

Hallo!

I fully aggree with above comments on SL and Zeppelins!

SL 2 for more (was also based for a while at Brussels-Etterbeek) had to be withdrawn for service to be enlarged in size seen the humidity into the framework made her not having enough liftforce anymore!

However the design (f.e.) cruciform tail, was in advance on the Zepplin tailconstruction! Its only from LZ 25 , I believe, finally the hard headed Graf Zeppelin finally accepted that cruciform tail!
Kpt. Ernst Lehmann was fully against the SL airships!


vbr

Jempie

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Leo:
Adding to what patrick and Jempie have stated. The SL designs up to SL-6, type d-1 out performed all Zeppelin airships up to and including all P class airships in lifting capacity, hull design and aerodynamics. Schutte-Lanz wooden hulls did not have the strength of the aluminum framed Zeppelin airships. Commencing with the q classthe Zeppelin ships passed the SL ships in lifting capacity. It was not until the R class ships, L30(LZ62) and on surpassed the the Schutte-Lanz in aerodynamics.
Schutte-Lanz did not have the production base that supported the Zeppelin airships.
One of my favor subjects.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[leo]

Thanks for your replies, gentlemen. I always thought the SL ships were the better looking of the two. Did any other German compaies entertain thoughts of building LighterThan Air ships?

[Graeme]

Leo

Parseval made a number of airships - I think used by the German Naval Airship Division.

Graeme

[rammjaeger]

Leo,

the German Air ship systems were Zeppelin, Schütte-Lanz, Parseval and Militär-Groß-Basenach (abbr. M). In pre-war times did also exist a fifth system: Siemens-Schuckert.

[Roundel]

My understanding is that Schutte-Lanz went into the plywood business after WWI and was still in business in the late 1960's, its factory still informally known as "The Airship Works."

Ironically, the company switched to aluminum construction late in WWI, but completed few, if any, airships with such framing.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Gentlemen:
The German Army by the Armistice had ordered from Schutte-Lanz two G Class ships in construction, G.1 SL23, 64000 cu.meter and the G.2, SL24,78000 cu.meters gas capacity. On the drawing board was a ship of 108000 cu.meter capacity. The frame structure would be riveted duralumin tubing in place of the wood construction. Had Schutte-Lanz change metal construction they probably had received more orders. The SL23 was in size and capacity of L70 and the SL24 surpassed the size of L71. Schutte-Lanz effort to hung on to being different too long.
Blue skies,
Dan-San