††††The world's first airship flight took place in France in 1852. The airship was powered by a steam engine and flew for 28 kilometres. But the airship did not become a practical reality until the petrol engine and lightweight aluminium for the structure were introduced in the 1880s. These were used by a former German Army Officer, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in his first airship, completed in 1900. The prototype Zeppelin, as it was called, was powered by two Daimler engines and contained about 11,000 cubic metres of hydrogen in 17 gas-tight bags.
The first commercial Zeppelin service started in 1910, and the airships were used to make bombing raids over Britain in the First World War. In the 1930s, Zeppelins were used for luxury passenger transport, but the construction and use of these hydrogen-filled airships was abandoned after several disasters in the 1920s and 1930s.
