Zeppelin L 30 (LZ 62)

Zeppelin L 30, factory number LZ 62, was the first R-class Super Zeppelin of the German Empire and the prototype of the R class, designed by Dr Arnstein in April 1915 from the experience of the first months of the war. Built by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin at Friedrichshafen, it was the first with gondolas at the sides and, when built, the largest Zeppelin in the world; with six engines it could exceed 100 kilometres an hour. It served with the Imperial German Navy from 1916 to 1917 and is called the most successful airship of the First World War, with 31 reconnaissance flights and ten bombing runs dropping 23,305 kilograms of bombs, the first on England and the last four on Livonia and Saaremaa. It was decommissioned in 1917 and awarded to Belgium as reparations in July 1920, but was dismantled at Seerappen. Its gondolas, the only surviving war Zeppelin gondolas, are in the Royal Military Historical Museum in Brussels.