SPIESS French rigid airship

[Armin Derer]

Kinda lost for the appropriate placement of this rigid airship which has not been introduced to the forum (as far as I can see):

The SPIESS was the first and only French rigid airship, built in 1913, named after its designer, Joseph Spiess. The patent for a rigid airship was registered first in 1873 by Joseph Spiess, one year before the Ferdinand von Zeppelin patent.

The Twitter account this is from is also quite interesting.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575488819796750338

 

[Dball]

Kinda lost for the appropriate placement of this rigid airship which has not been introduced to the forum (as far as I can see):

The SPIESS was the first and only French rigid airship, built in 1913, named after its designer, Joseph Spiess. The patent for a rigid airship was registered first in 1873 by Joseph Spiess, one year before the Ferdinand von Zeppelin patent.

The Twitter account this is from is also quite interesting.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575488819796750338

I always read that the patent for the Spiess Rigid airship was dated 1875 not 1873

 

[riggerrob]

Deep, triangular keel similar to some of the Italian airships (e.g. Norge).

 

[Jemiba]

To add a drawing :
(From Daniel G. Riddley-Kitts "Military, Naval and Civil Airships since 1783")

 

[Armin Derer]

Kinda lost for the appropriate placement of this rigid airship which has not been introduced to the forum (as far as I can see):

The SPIESS was the first and only French rigid airship, built in 1913, named after its designer, Joseph Spiess. The patent for a rigid airship was registered first in 1873 by Joseph Spiess, one year before the Ferdinand von Zeppelin patent.

The Twitter account this is from is also quite interesting.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575488819796750338

I always read that the patent for the Spiess Rigid airship was dated 1875 not 1873

Just an assumption: maybe „registered first in 1873“ means the patent was entered into the system, and 1875 was the year the actual patent was awarded to Spiess.
If one looks at patent documents (of which are plenty elsewhere in the forum) there are always two dates on them, the entry date and the date when the patent is awarded. The time in between the dates often is two years.

 

[Armin Derer]

Kinda lost for the appropriate placement of this rigid airship which has not been introduced to the forum (as far as I can see):

The SPIESS was the first and only French rigid airship, built in 1913, named after its designer, Joseph Spiess. The patent for a rigid airship was registered first in 1873 by Joseph Spiess, one year before the Ferdinand von Zeppelin patent.

The Twitter account this is from is also quite interesting.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575488819796750338

I always read that the patent for the Spiess Rigid airship was dated 1875 not 1873

The french Wikipedia entry fo Spiess writes:

Spiess est un ingénieur français qui déposa en 1873 un brevet pour un aérostat à coque rigide.

Spiess is a French engineer who filed a patent in 1873 for a rigid hull aerostat.

Recon my guess is correct: patend filed in 1873, patent awarded in 1875

 

[Bessymachinist]

The "SPIESS" was the sole French unbending carrier, worked in 1913, named after its creator, Joseph Spiess. The patent for an unbending carrier was enlisted first in 1873 by Joseph Spiess, one year before the Ferdinand von Dirigible patent.
please contact me here: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/spiess-dorado manana-french-astro luna-rigid-californialoteryresults-airship.40193/
Thanks.

 

[nuuumannn]

The SPIESS was the first and only French rigid airship, built in 1913, named after its designer, Joseph Spiess. The patent for a rigid airship was registered first in 1873 by Joseph Spiess, one year before the Ferdinand von Zeppelin patent.

A bit of information from Peter Brooks' Putnam volume Zeppelin, rigid airships 1893-1940 on Spiess and his patent:

"In 1873, an Alsatian, Joseph Spiess, patented in Paris a crude design for a rigid, incorporating a number of separate gas cell, an idea which had been advocated by Sir George Cayley in 1837 and adopted in model form by H Vannaise in 1863. Spiess had taken out another patent, this time in Germany, in 1895."

The book has quite a bit on the Zodiac-Spiess airship, which began construction in September 1909 and with respect to the author I won't reproduce in full here, but contains the following:

"In September [1909], a model was shown at the Paris Salon. Spiess claimed that his ideas for rigids pred-dated those of Zeppelin, the basis of his claim being a patent (No.100695) taken out in Paris on 27 February 1873. He also took out a German patent (No.98580) in 1895. However, the device described in both these patents was a monstrosity which bore no relationship to the later 1909 design. It is evident that the latter was as much a copy of Zeppelin as was the Vickers No.1."

 

[nuuumannn]

Deep, triangular keel similar to some of the Italian airships (e.g. Norge).

Originally applied to LZ 2 and LZ 1 was so modified after construction. The triangular structure was the ship's keel, which stabilised it structurally and aerodynamically. On early rigids, this was placed externally so as to not interrupt the space within the rigid structure for the fitting of the gas cells. In the Italian ships, being semi-rigids, the keel was naturally below the gas cell, which is why it was called a semi-rigid. The gas cell had no rigid endo-skeleton and held its shape through pressure, as in non-rigid vessels. Later rigids incorporated the keel inside the metal structure as it was aerodynamically better to do so.

 

[publiusr]

Perhaps today’s materials are light enough for both—a lower keel being a gondola…or holding a gondola pod with ‘chutes?