A short interlude - Easter 2011: The Zeppelins

Easter Sunday 24th April, saw me back at Vienna Airport  ready to fly on the mid-morning Swiss flight  to Zurich. I was off for the weeken to meet my old pal Alex J  who actually lives in Germany but Zurich is the closest airport.
It was a lovely weekend and we were soon off on our way to a local rural restaurant for an asparagus lunch as this was the start of the asparagus season.

Then back to the house and we did have some work to do before setting off for a swim at a nearby spa resort with hot volcanic waters.  Great fun in the various  pools and outside as well as a sauna and a steam room. When we had done our 2 hours or so we returned to dry land for a beer  and a pretty good goulasch soup afterwards .

Monday saw us do a bit more work before taking advantage of the sunshine to drive out along the shores of Lake Constance (Bodensee) . 

 Plenty of people out sailing and a number of very fine baroque churches in the lakeside villages.

 We ended up at Friedrichshafen and the Zeppelin Museum.  This was the original home of those fantastic airships built by the Count Graf von Zeppelin in the forst half of the 20th century. The museum is designed to be a chance to walk through   replicas of the various parts of one of the larger examples of this old method of air transport as wellas  looking at old artifacts and  seeing the histroy of the rise and fall of the airship. There is a small cinema at the start of the walking route around which has a 3D screen and of course includes that infamous film of the awful crash of the Hindenburg  in the USA.

Once inide the museum proper one can see how large these vessels weer and how luxurious (for their time) in relation to the aeroplanes of the era.

This is a replica of the smoking lounge (inteeresting in a ship filled with hydrogen) and the backdrop of the world routes flown by Zeppelins.

An example of a two berth cabin which looks to me to be the same as the modern Polish first class train that I used to go to Krakow last year!

A sample of the method of construction used in the aircraft. A real dilemma for the riveters as the aluminium tubes and spars seem to go everywhere.

The German Airship frames were all aluminium but some of the British types used a plywood framework and the museum had some fragments  as examples of that option on display.

The galleries also contained some examples of various experimental items including this model showing how a propellor generates the power to move through the air. In the foreground is a sample section of one of the giant propellors froman earlier airship - it is a beautifully laminated piece of timber.

There was also a chnace to walk through a reconstruction of part of the frame of the main gas envelope - again an amazing piece of braced construction with zillions of rivets and all in aluminium.

Another gallery had lots of examples of the old petrol engines used  to power airships and this included the Maybach example above. This was two straight 6 cylinder engines driving two crankshafts then geared to one single output shaft for the propellor - an amazing piece of engineering.

At the end there was this greta old automobile - a model of Maybach called a Zeppelin.

Outside the museum  there is a pedestrian precinct with cafes and bars and example  of interactive street art for kids to play on. This airship example  was especially popular.

This was the view from the jetty looking back into the tourist area - having a beer looking back out over the lake was very pleasant.

All too soon the afternon had gone and we found ourselves back at the house with a few last minute work items to finish before a couple of sunset beers on Alex's veranda and  dinner.

Tuesday was  again good weather and we had a local guy drive us back to Zurich Airport. I was off to Vienna and Alex was off to Canada.