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TIL: cow gut balloons where filled with hydrogen gas for WW1 Airships/Zeppelins 🎈 (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz to c/todayilearned@lemmy.ml
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… yes they used cow gut/intestines πŸ„πŸ„. 7 layers of cow gut where sewn onto a carrier layer of fabric to create an airtight balloon that could hold hydrogen lifting gas for some days 🎈. 50.000 cows where slaughtered for one gas-cell

Advantages over rubber of cow gut:

  • rubber-cotton balloons got brittle with repeated uses with hydrogen filling. Cow gut is a flexible material that lasted longer, though expensive.
  • rubber balloons can get statically charged. A small spark can flame all the hydrogen at once. Cattle gut does not charge as quickly as rubber.

Source:

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[-] glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Also German-empire had unreliable access to colonies that produced rubber or cotton during ww1. So they used cow gut as a rubber-balloon replacement.

Layers where sewn in secret alternating patterns to make it airtight.

[-] remotelove@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

they realized that if layers of goldbeater’s skin were laid on top of each other when wet, they fuse together as they dry.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/zeppelins-made-out-of-cow-intestines.html

If the skin was moistened again and pieces were patch-worked together into large sheets, they'd dry with airtight seals. No other material β€” including rubber β€” could be this tightly sealed.

https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/ridiculous-history-nation-sacrifices-sausage-to-fight-war.htm

I couldn't find anything on a specific pattern of the "fabric", but what I did find was the natural glues(?) worked fine for it being airtight.

Oh, I am not doubting that there were specific patterns of this stuff, but I can't find any references. (I have an interest in wartime engineering, s'all)

[-] glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago

thank you for adding more sources! I am also interested in this. They stacked 7 layers on top of each other. Alternating layer patterns (similar to a brick wall stacked alternating overlap) to prevent gas escape seems logical to me.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Why was it important that the patterns be secret?

[-] glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

So company manufacturing it can make more money with monopoly. Also it had military relevance, if your enemies copy this shit … yout get air-raided. The family holding secret knowledge on this was "Weinling". Later germans found out on this smh and knitted them in a 7 layer pattern.

The method of preparing and making gas-tight joins in the skins was known only to a family called Weinling, from the Alsatia London area. The sheets were joined together and folded into impermeable layers

this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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