In 1894 at the age of 56 years, with the assistance of an Engineer, Kober, he had completed the design of a rigid airship, and the modern rigid airship of today is not essentially different from Zeppelin’s first design. He submitted these designs to a special committee that had been appointed by the most famous of the German scientific authorities and was greatly disappointed over the decision of the committee which, although they could not find any essential faults in the Count’s design, could not recommend that an airship be built in accordance with Zeppelin’s plans. Admitting that he was not the first to conceive the idea of rigid airships, Count Zeppelin, however, insisted that he had arrived at new principles and that these principles were sound. There had been several attempts to build rigids, but there always had been too much weight of the necessarily voluminous framework, which so anchored the craft with its own weight that it could not lift itself. The discovery of aluminum made this problem less difficult, however, and many models were designed with the framework of this light material. Two years after Count Zeppelin had completed his first designs and while he was still endeavoring to arouse enough interest to warrant the construction of a rigid ship, an aluminum framework rigid ship was built by another group near Berlin. This ship was of approximately 150 feet in length, but of an essentially different design from Zeppelin’s. The outer cover was made of metal. On its first trial flight it was compelled to land, due to engine trouble and the fact that the framework of the ship was not strong enough to stand the stresses of the landing, caused it to go to pieces and this failure was quickly seized upon by the then existing adversaries of the rigid airship as an argument against the construction of rigid airships with a metal framework. This was unfortunate to the cause of rigid airships, because while Zeppelin had not been identified with that attempt, all experimenters were included in the popular condemnation. Zeppelin’s improvements were beginning to be recognized and admitted, but the money necessary for the development was not forthcoming. Financing the First Zeppelin Company [PLATE 4: Zeppelin “LZ-5” On an Excursion With Members of the German Parliament Aboard. Autumn 1908. Zeppelin “LZ-6” and “Deutschland” in the First Double Shed at Friedrichshafen.] Zeppelin, in spite of many difficulties, succeeded in enlisting the necessary private capital and in 1898 organized a stock company (Aktiengesellschaft zur Foerderung der Motorluftschiffahrt) to promote motor airship flights. It had a paid in capital of one million marks ($238,000).