David Schwarz (aviation Inventor) - Airship Thoughts

Airship Thoughts

Schwarz first interested himself with airships in the 1880s. This occurred as he stayed in a Croatian log cabin at the start of winter to supervise the treefelling in a newly purchased forest. As the work took longer than planned he had his wife send him literature to while away the evenings. Because the works of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo did not appeal to him, an assumption arising from one of his wife's letters, she sent him a work from Aristotle and a Mechanics textbook. Although Schwarz became excited, it is not altogether clear this inspired him to build his own airship. The wood business suffered due to his obsession and, like other aviation pioneers, his project attracted mockery. Nevertheless his wife Melanie supported him. Schwarz busied himself using aluminium for construction, then a very new material.