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TIL: cow gut balloons where filled with hydrogen gas for WW1 Airships/Zeppelins ๐ŸŽˆ (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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โ€ฆ yes they used cow gut/intestines ๐Ÿ„๐Ÿ„. 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 ๐ŸŽˆ. 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.

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[-] 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 โ€ฆ 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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