4225 Miles in Less than Four Days
The great Zeppelin sailed out of Jambol ([Plate 12]) at 9 o’clock in the morning, crossing northwestern Asia Minor, then the Aegian Sea, south of Smyrna and on between the Islands of Crete and Rhodes and across the Mediterranean, reaching the African Coast by daybreak the next day.
The great Sahara Desert was then crossed, the L-59 passing over the oasis of Farafrah and then Dakhla. Military headquarters at Berlin, meanwhile, were trying to reach the Zeppelin by wireless. The German Intelligence Office had intercepted a British wireless message to the effect that the Colonial troops had surrendered to the British. The L-59 had passed through a severe storm the night before and had taken in her radio antenna; and it was not until she was over Djebel Ain, west of Khartum that she listened in and picked up the message. In a day and a half the L-59 had traversed 1865 miles (3,000 kilometers). Without stopping the Zeppelin was turned about; and after retracing its path across the Sahara, thence over the Mediterranean to Adalia on the coast of Asia Minor, and flying high over Asia Minor and the Black Sea, arrived back in Jambol in less than four days from the time it set out from that port. There remained sufficient fuel aboard for two or three days additional flying. The ship, under the same conditions, could have flown from Hamburg to Khartum and return. As it was she traveled 4,225 miles (6,800 kilometers) on a non-stop flight which, though it occurred in 1917, today remains the world’s record for all kinds of aircraft, airship or airplane.