Most Schütte-Lanz airships were made of plywood rather than aluminum alloy.
Despite this, Schütte-Lanz introduced many design innovations that were soon
adopted by competitor Zeppelin. This is a late war example - probably 1918's
SL22.
Silhouettes demonstrate the
relative sizes of six SL airships.
Schütte-Lanz (SL) is the name of a series of rigid airships designed
and built by the Luftschiffbau Schütte-Lanz company from 1909
until the last LS22 delivered in 1917.[1] One research and four passenger airships were planned
for post-war use, but never built. The Schütte-Lanz company was an early strong
competitor of the more famous airships
built by Ferdinand von Zeppelin.[1]
When
the Zeppelin
LZ4
met with disaster at Echterdingen in 1908, Professor Johann
Schütte 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 the Schütte-Lanz
Luftschiffbau on April 22, 1909. The
ships were successful at first, and introduced a number of highly successful
innovations.]].[2]
Twenty-four
Schütte-Lanz airships were designed before the end of the First
World War, most of which the company was not paid for due to the collapse
of the German Monarchy. By the time the last eight ships were ready, most of
them could not be operated due to the losses of trained crews and also the
serious problems that had developed with their wooden structures. 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...[2]
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.
In the
postwar period, Professor Lanz designed a series of very large advanced
airships for transatlantic and transpacific passenger operations, as well as
proposals for the US Navys rigid airships ZRS-4 and ZRS-5. However none of
these were ever realized due to Allied objections.[2]
If one
studies this comprehensive list of Shutte-Lanz airships, one can get a very
good idea of why the firm ultimately failed. Schutte-Lanz airships, until 1918,
were composed of wood and plywood glued together. Moisture tended to degrade
the integrity of the glued joints. Shutte-Lanz airships became structurally
unstable when water entered the airship's impefectly water-proofed envelope.
This tended to happen during wet weather operations, but also, more
insidiously, in defective or damaged hangers.
Another
problem is related to the first. The German Navy had bases closer to the sea,
and thus more humid. They were reluctant to accept wooden composite craft. As a
result the primary customer for Shutte-Lanz airships was the Germany Army. The
German Army decided well before the German Navy that airship operations were
futile in the face of land-based heavier-than-air opposition. Anyone perusing
the list of SL airships below will notice that suddenly the customer
disappeared.
The
third was technical. Wood composites had a theoretical superiority as the
structural material in airships up to a certain size. After that the
superiority of aluminum (and later duralumin) in
tension was more important than the superiority of wood in compression.
There
are also political-economic factors to the failure of the company, which have
yet to be fully researched. There is certainly evidence for a pro-Zeppelin
lobby in the German military and government that wanted to exclude all other
airship manufacturers, regardless of what superior technical innovations they
proposed.
SL1
The Schütte-Lanz airship SL1 was the
first of 20 airships built by the company. Construction was carried out in a
large hangar at Rheinau near Mannheim. The
ship was powered by four 125 horsepower (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 SL1 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. The structure of the
SL1 is very evocative of the later "geodesic"
structure of the Wellington bomber, or Buckminster Fuller's domes.
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 WW I. Fifty-three
experimental flights were made between October 1911 and December 1912. The
longest flight was over 16 hours. The ship was handed over to the German army on December 12,
1912 but destroyed
soon afterwards when it was swept free of its temporary mooring in a storm.
[edit] SL2
The four engine gondolas hang under the hull in
this image from the 1920 Lexikon der gesamten Technik.
The Schütte-Lanz airship SL2
surpassed the contemporary Zeppelin airships in performance. It adopted the
Zeppelin ring-girder construction method, but retained the streamlined shape
and plywood construction of SL1. SL2 was also the most significant airship to
date in that it laid down two vital design innovations that were copied in
almost all subsequent rigid airships. The first was the cruciform tail plane,
with a single pair of rudders and elevators. The second was the location of the
engines in separate streamlined gondolas or cars. A third innovation, for war
service, was the mounting of heavy machine guns for defense against attacking
aircraft in each of the engine cars. SL2 was built between January and May 1914
and transferred to Austrian military control. It carried out six missions in
the first year of the war over Poland and France. After being enlarged in summer 1915, several more
missions were carried out before SL2 was stranded at Luckenwalde
on January
10, 1916 after
running out of fuel and decommissioned. The SL2 was a perfect example why the
advanced technology of Shutte-Lanz, and the advantages of wood in compression
as opposed to tension allowed the Shutte-Lanz type of airship to be technically
superior until a certain size had been reached.
[edit] SL3
Naval airship based at Seddin which flew
30 reconnaissance missions and one bombing mission over England. The
highlight of SL3's career was its attack on British submarine E4 on September
24, 1915. The
structure of the ship degraded because of atmospheric exposure and the ship was
stranded near Riga
on May 1, 1916.
[edit] SL4
Naval airship based at Seddin.
SL4 flew 21 reconnaissance missions and two bombing raids again enemy harbors on
the Eastern front. It was destroyed on December 14,
1915 after its
hangar collapsed due to snow accumulation on the roof.
[edit] SL5
SL5 was an army airship, based at
Darmstadt.
The structure was damaged during the first flight, but repaired after several
months work. During its second flight the ship was forced down by bad weather
at Gießen
and stricken from service on July 5, 1915
[edit] SL6
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 November 10, 1915.
[edit] SL7
Army airship based at Königsberg.
Carried out three reconnaissance missions and three bombing raids before
suffering structural failure. Repaired and possibly enlarged before being
decommissioned March
6, 1917 when the
army terminated airship operations.
[edit] SL8
Naval airship based at Seddin. Carried out
34 reconnaissance missions and three bombing raids, carrying 4,000 kg of bombs
each mission. Held the record for the greatest number of combat missions of any
Schütte-Lanz airship. Decommissioned due to age November 20,
1917.
[edit] SL9
Naval airship based at Seddin. Carried out
13 reconnaissance missions and four bombing raids carrying 4,230 kg of bombs
each mission. Crashed in Baltic, possibly after lightning strike on March 30, 1917.
[edit] SL10
Army airship based at Yambol, Bulgaria.
Carried out a 16 hour reconnaissance mission. Disappeared during a subsequent
attack on Sevastopol,
possibly due to bad weather July 28, 1916.
[edit] SL11
Army airship based at Spich. Shot down over
Hertfordshire by Lt. W.L. Robinson in a BE 2C with incendiary ammunition September 3,
1916.
[edit] SL12
Navy airship based at Alhorn.
Obsolete in design before completion, this ship only flew reconnaissance
missions. Badly damaged after hitting gasometer near hangar and deleted December 28,
1916
[edit] SL13
Army airship based at Leipzig.
Considered unfit for combat duty and used for training only. Badly damaged when
hangar collapsed because of heavy snow and stricken February 8,
1917.
[edit] SL14
Navy airship based at Seerapen and Wainoden.
Carried out two reconnaissance missions and two bombing raids. A later attack
on Riga was
abandoned because of engine failure. Rebuilt February 1917 but later damaged
before finally being scrapped on May 18, 1917.
[edit] SL15
Army airship based at Mannheim. No
active service. Decommissioned August 1917.
[edit] SL16
Intended for the Army, this ship
was never officially commissioned and was laid up at Spich. Scrapped
August 1917.
[edit] SL17
Intended for the Army, this ship
was never officially commissioned and was laid up at Allenstein.
Scrapped August 1917.
[edit] SL18
Construction completed at Leipzig base, but
ship destroyed by hangar collapse on February 8,
1917.
[edit] SL19
Never built due to lack of space
at Leipzig
base, due to hangar collapse on February 8,
1917.
[edit] SL20
Navy ship based at Alhorn.
Burnt in huge hangar explosion and fire with four zeppelin airships on January 5, 1918 after only two
missions.
[edit] SL21
Two-bladed props can be seen on two of the five
engines
Intended for Army but never
officially commissioned. Based at Zeesen and used for static testing. Decommissioned February
1918.
[edit] SL22
Intended for Navy but refused
acceptance on grounds of insufficient payload. Based at Gegen
and scrapped June 1920.
[edit] SL23
Never commissioned. First
Schütte-Lanz ship with tubular aluminum frame. May have been complete at war's
end but no further details are known.
[edit] SL24
Never commissioned. Second
Schütte-Lanz ship with tubular aluminum frame. May have been completed after
war, but no further details.
[edit] SL101
After the war, Schütte-Lanz came
up with several peacetime airship projects which were never realized. Based on
the metal framed SL23 and SL24, the first was the SL101. This was intended for
a regular transatlantic service to New York or South America.
[edit] SL102 Panamerica
This was intended for a regular
transatlantic service to New York or South America.
[edit] SL103 Pacific
This was intended for a regular
transatlantic service to New York or South America, although the name indicates
different aspirations.
