LZ130 was to be an "improved sister" of
the LZ129 HINDENBURG, which, "as completed" carried 50 passengers
and 45-50 crew members.
Taking
advantage of hydrogen inflation in a large ship originally designed
to be inflated with slightly heavier but non-flammable HELIUM gas,
the Zeppelin people added nine more cabins to the HINDENBURG in
early 1937, bringing her capacity up to 72 passengers. It was
envisioned that LZ130 would carry 80-100 passengers, with a slight
increase in the on-board service or "hotel" staff.
After the Lakehurst disaster, LZ130
was modified in construction for helium inflation and an assigned
passenger capacity of 40 (though the reconstituted passenger cabins
were roomier, had better lighting and four "luxury cabins" featured
windows.) Other modifications included the fitting of "water
recovery" units to condense water from fuel burned and help the ship
maintain equilibrium without valving the expensive helium; also, as
Rick Archbold points out, "heavy beer bottles were OUT " and were
replaced with keg beer, one of the many weight saving measures
necessitated by using helium.
The Zeppelin would still have had
tremendous reserve lifting capacity for crossing oceans and making
long flights; however, increasing international tensions made the
American government change its mind about supplying helium to the
Germans and the LZ130 (named GRAF ZEPPELIN II ) flew using hydrogen
between 14 September, 1938 and 22 August, 1939. Under the
circumstances, the German Air Ministry refused to allow paying
passengers to be carried (though the ship's accommodations were much
appreciated by special and VIP guests who were always aboard.) The
airship was also generally forbidden to fly over "foreign" soil,
though she did make a propaganda cruise over the soon-to-be-annexed
Sudetenland and also several radar "spy flights" around England
carrying electronic detection gear.
Plans for an LZ131, with an extra
bay and carrying 100 passengers, were never far advanced. LZ130 was
laid up in Hangar #2 at Rhein-Main Airfield, Frankfurt, with the
outbreak of World War Two. Together with the original GRAF ZEPPELIN,
the LZ127, the last and finest big rigid airship ever built was cut
up for scrap in March 1940. Two months later, on 6 May, (the third
anniversary of the HINDENBURG disaster) the expensive, new Zeppelin
hangars at Frankfurt were levelled with dynamite on the excuse that
they were a navigational hazard for military planes using the field.
The Zeppelin Company's hangars at
Friedrichshafen and nearby Lowenthal were used for a variety of
military production projects during the War and were considered
legitimate military targets by Allied air forces; heavily damaged by
increasing air raids in 1944, the big sheds were completely
destroyed in a series of violent air raids in early 1945, along with
a good section of "old Friedrichshafen" to the extent that much of
the place was unrecognizable to pre-war visitors who came to see the
place years later.
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