Zeppelin’s engineer goes it alone

Theodor Kober had helped Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin design his first airship, the LZ 1, in the 1890s. In 1912, at 47, he earned a pilot’s licence at Johannisthal, which made him the third-oldest aviator in Germany, and on 17 June that year he founded his own company in Friedrichshafen, the Lake Constance town already synonymous with airships. The count backed him with money. Kober moved into the old Zeppelin shed at Manzell and began by building seaplanes modelled on those of the American Glenn Curtiss, then the world leader in what were still called hydroplanes. In 1913 Karl Gehlen took over the design office.

The navy’s seaplane maker

War turned a small lakeside workshop into the Imperial Navy’s main seaplane supplier. According to the navy’s seaplane acceptance commission, 908 of the 2,150 seaplanes delivered to the Kaiserliche Marine were Friedrichshafen designs, more than 40 per cent. The most important was the FF.33 family of two-seat floatplanes, built in many versions for patrol, reconnaissance and fighting, which also served in Finland, Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands. Branch works followed at Warnemünde on the Baltic in 1916 and, for floats, in a former spinning mill at Weingarten in 1917. By the end of 1918 the company employed 3,240 people.

A floatplane on a submarine

Its aircraft collected some odd firsts. On Christmas Day 1914 an FF.29 flew the type’s first reconnaissance over the English coast, dropped two small bombs on Sheerness to no effect, came down with engine trouble and taxied for hours across the North Sea before drifting ashore in occupied Belgium. A month later an FF.29 became the first aircraft carried by a submarine: U-12 surfaced beneath it off Zeebrugge and lifted it out of the water, though choppy seas cut the trial short. After the war a Friedrichshafen FF.49 flew the first Danish Air Lines service, from Copenhagen to Warnemünde, on 7 August 1920.

The G.III, Germany’s workhorse bomber

On land, Friedrichshafen built twin-engined pusher bombers. The G.II went into small-scale production in 1916, and the bigger G.III of early 1917, with a nose wheel added to stop it tipping over and killing the nose gunner, became the most numerous German bomber type. Some 730 G.III and G.IIIa were built by Friedrichshafen, Daimler and Hansa-Brandenburg. Crews liked its reliability and its useful load, which was larger than the Gotha’s. It bombed targets behind the Western Front and raided Paris, but as far as is known never took part in the raids on Britain. After the Armistice some were turned into mail planes and rough airliners until the Treaty of Versailles stopped them.

Swallowed by Dornier

Peace left Friedrichshafen with nothing to build. The Warnemünde yard was sold to Dinos-Automobilwerke in 1920; in 1921 the Zeppelin company bought into the firm and Dornier took over the production facilities at Manzell. The company went into liquidation at the end of 1925. One of its designers, Rudolph Gehringer, had left in 1916 to create the Pfalz D.III, and the Manzell sheds became a home of Dornier.

Factories

• Manzell works · Manzell, Friedrichshafen — The old Zeppelin shed; main plant, taken over by Dornier in 1921
• Warnemünde yard · Warnemünde, Baltic coast — Branch works from summer 1916; sold to Dinos-Automobilwerke in 1920
• Weingarten float works · Weingarten, Württemberg — Former spinning mill making floats from March 1917, 100–120 staff

People

• Theodor Kober · founder — Worked on Zeppelin LZ 1; born Stuttgart 1865, died 1930
• Ferdinand von Zeppelin · financial backer
• Karl Gehlen · head of design from 1913
• Rudolph Gehringer · designer — Left for Pfalz in November 1916

Records and firsts

• FF.29: first aircraft carried by a submarine, U-12 off Zeebrugge, January 1915
• FF.49: aircraft of the first Danish Air Lines service, Copenhagen–Warnemünde, 7 August 1920