his first design of 1900–01 had only limited success and his second was not constructed until 1906, but his efforts became an enormous source of patriotic pride for the German people: so much so that when his fourth airship LZ 4 was wrecked in a storm a public collection raised more than six million marks to enable him to carry on his work. Using Zeppelins, the world's first airline, DELAG, was established in Germany in 1910, operating pleasure cruises rather than a scheduled transport service: by the outbreak of war in 1914 1588 flights had been made carrying 10,197 fare-paying passengers. The military threat posed by these large airships, greatly superior in carrying power and endurance to heavier-than air machines of the time, caused considerable concern in other countries, especially Britain. Germany was alone in constructing rigid airships, and airship development elsewhere concentrated on non-rigid and semi-rigid designs. The only British attempt to construct a large rigid airship, HMA No. 1, broke its back before making a single flight and was abandoned, and the single French-built rigid was not much more successful. Start of an industry Pre-1910, most aircraft builders were aviation enthusiasts, many from wealthy families. Blériot had financed his experiments out of the profits of his successful business manufacturing car headlights. In Great Britain Frederick Handley Page established an aircraft business in 1909 but was largely reliant on selling components such as connecting sockets and wire-strainers to other enthusiasts, while the Short Brothers, who had started in business manufacturing balloons, had transferred their interests to heavier-than air aviation and started licence production of the Wright design as well as working on their own designs. 1910 saw the involvement of people who saw aviation purely as a business opportunity. In January 1910 Sir George White, the chairman of Bristol Tramways, established the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company, investing £25,000 in the business The same year the silk broker Armand Deperdussin established the Société de Production des Aéroplanes Deperdussin, bearing the soon-to-be-famous SPAD acronym. In 1911 the armaments giant Vickers established an aircraft department. However most aircraft manufacturing during the period was on a small scale, and very few designs were produced in any quantity. Technical development A good indication of the progress during the era is provide by the annual Gordon Bennett races. The first competition, held in 1909 during the Grande Semaine d'Aviation at Reims, was over a