Ludwig Dürr
Ludwig Dürr ( born June 4, 1878 in Stuttgart, † 1 January 1956 in Friedrichshafen) was airship designer.
Life
Ludwig Dürr was born on 4 June 1878 in Stuttgart. Dürr made after completion of the public school teaching as a mechanic. In addition, he attended the Higher School of Mechanical Engineering in Esslingen in time. During his studies he worked from 1899 in Stuttgart engineering office of the " Society for the Promotion of Aeronautics " with. Here he learned the basis of the construction of the LZ 1, the basic ideas of rigid airship construction of Zeppelin know.
After successful completion of his studies he followed Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen, where Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin had its headquarters now published. Here he experienced three successful ascents of LZ 1, but also the resolution of the mining company. At times he was the only remaining employee Zeppelin and sometimes worked without pay and accident insurance. In simple shacks on the lake shore Manzell he designed under the most primitive conditions that lightweight construction, which would generally be the way for all future Zeppelin airships fundamentally and for aviation.
All the following designs Zeppelin ( 119 ) originate from Ludwig Dürr. He was of the LZ 2 to no longer completed LZ 131 of the chief engineer. From 1913 until the dissolution on July 8, 1945, he was the Technical Director of the airship Zeppelin GmbH. Early in his career, he built a small light metal foundry and developed the kink and rigid triangular carrier. He examined the elasticity and tensile strength of various shell materials and checked the gas tightness of cell materials. He examined and recorded the efficiency of different propellers and created the first wind tunnel. In all his research, he was going very systematic and created extensive series of measurements. During the First World War Dürr left a vacuum chamber for altitude test flight build engines. Ludwig Dürr but was not a pure theorist. Between 1906 and 1909 he stood for almost all trips from Zeppelin airships on the height control. In this role, he drove LZ 5 on May 31, 1909 after a 37 -hour trip completely exhausted at Göppingen in a pear tree.
After the First World War it came to the prohibition of the airship (except for reparation for the USA ), and Ludwig Dürr rescued the company with the construction of car parts made of light metal. On July 19, 1923 ( according to other sources 1925), he married Lydia Beck and was with her two daughters and two sons. The peak of his reputation reached Ludwig Dürr with the construction of large airships LZ 126 LZ 127, LZ 129 and LZ 130 He received six universities and technical colleges honorary doctorate. In his life he received high honors, decorations and medals of the German Emperor, the King of Württemberg, the Federal President Theodor Heuss, the Association of German Engineers and other institutions. As one of the first he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
Nevertheless, he was always modest in the shadow of the famous airship captains. His modest and restrained manner, remained all his life determinant for him. In 1950, Ludwig Dürr took a position on the Supervisory Board of metal Friedrichshafen GmbH, the successor to the air Zeppelin GmbH.
Private Ludwig Dürr was of a sporting nature. He went every day to cycle to work, like was skiing and was an avid balloonist. He loved the mountains and was from 1920 to 1945 the head of the Friedrichshafeners Alpinist Association. A mountain path in Verwall that connects the Darmstädterhütte with the Friedrichshafen hut bears his name. Ludwig Dürr was the first biker his hometown. He died on 1 January 1956.
Graf Zeppelin put him earlier in his diary a monument: "The name Dürr will be connected to the Zeppelin airship on forever."
Awards
Writings
- Twenty-five years Zeppelin airship. VDI -Verlag, Berlin, 1924 - Reproduction in. Kleinheins Peter, Wolfgang Meighörner (ed. ): The great Zeppelins. The history of the airship. Springer, Berlin, 3rd revised edition, 2005. ISBN 3-540-21170-5. Pp. 27-111.