this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
14 points (93.8% liked)

Today I learned

8195 readers
69 users here now

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
sonder@lemmy.ml
14
TIL: cow gut balloons where filled with hydrogen gas for WW1 Airships/Zeppelins 🎈 (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz to c/todayilearned@lemmy.ml
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

… 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:

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

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 1 points 21 hours 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)

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why was it important that the patterns be secret?

[–] glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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