Airship
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of
In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was
The envelope of an airship may form the gasbag, or it may contain a number of gas-filled cells. An airship also has engines, crew, and optionally also payload accommodation, typically housed in one or more
The main types of airship are
Airships were the first aircraft capable of controlled powered flight, and were most commonly used before the 1940s; their use decreased as their capabilities were surpassed by those of aeroplanes. Their decline was accelerated by a series of high-profile accidents, including the 1930 crash and burning of the British
Terminology
Airship
During the pioneer years of aeronautics, terms such as "airship", "air-ship", "air ship" and "ship of the air" meant any kind of navigable or dirigible flying machine.[6][7][8][9][10][11] In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to "ships of the air," with smaller passenger types as "air yachts."[12] In the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as "ships of the air" or "flying-ships".[13][14] Nowadays the term "airship" is used only for powered, dirigible balloons, with sub-types being classified as rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid.[3] Semi-rigid architecture is the more recent, following advances in deformable structures and the exigency of reducing weight and volume of the airships. They have a minimal structure that keeps the shape jointly with overpressure of the gas envelope.[15][16]
Aerostat
An
Blimp
A blimp is a non-rigid aerostat.[22] In British usage it refers to any non-rigid aerostat, including barrage balloons and other kite balloons, having a streamlined shape and stabilising tail fins.[23] Some blimps may be powered dirigibles, as in early versions of the Goodyear Blimp. Later Goodyear dirigibles, though technically semi-rigid airships, have still been called "blimps" by the company.[24]
Zeppelin
The term zeppelin originally referred to airships manufactured by the German Zeppelin Company, which built and operated the first rigid airships in the early years of the twentieth century. The initials LZ, for Luftschiff Zeppelin (German for "Zeppelin airship"), usually prefixed their craft's serial identifiers.
Streamlined rigid (or semi-rigid)[25] airships are often referred to as "Zeppelins", because of the fame that this company acquired due to the number of airships it produced,[26][27] although its early rival was the Parseval semi-rigid design.
Hybrid airship
Hybrid airships fly with a positive aerostatic contribution, usually equal to the empty weight of the system, and the variable payload is sustained by propulsion or aerodynamic contribution.[28][29]
Classification
Airships are classified according to their method of construction into rigid, semi-rigid and non-rigid types.[3]
Rigid
A rigid airship has a rigid framework covered by an outer skin or envelope. The interior contains one or more gasbags, cells or balloons to provide lift. Rigid airships are typically unpressurised and can be made to virtually any size. Most, but not all, of the German Zeppelin airships have been of this type.
Semi-rigid
A semi-rigid airship has some kind of supporting structure but the main envelope is held in shape by the internal pressure of the lifting gas. Typically the airship has an extended, usually articulated keel running along the bottom of the envelope to stop it kinking in the middle by distributing suspension loads into the envelope, while also allowing lower envelope pressures.
Non-rigid
Non-rigid airships are often called "blimps". Most, but not all, of the American
A non-rigid airship relies entirely on internal gas pressure to retain its shape during flight. Unlike the rigid design, the non-rigid airship's gas envelope has no compartments. However, it still typically has smaller internal bags containing air (ballonets). As altitude is increased, the lifting gas expands and air from the ballonets is expelled through valves to maintain the hull's shape. To return to sea level, the process is reversed: air is forced back into the ballonets by scooping air from the engine exhaust and using auxiliary blowers.
Construction
Envelope
The envelope itself is the structure, including textiles that contain the buoyant gas. Internally two ballonets are generally placed in the front part and in the rear part of the hull and contains air.[30]
The problem of the exact determination of the pressure on an airship envelope is still problematic and has fascinated major scientists such as
A few
Ballonet
A ballonet is an air bag inside the outer envelope of an airship which, when inflated, reduces the volume available for the lifting gas, making it more dense. Because air is also denser than the lifting gas, inflating the ballonet reduces the overall lift, while deflating it increases lift. In this way, the ballonet can be used to adjust the lift as required by controlling the buoyancy. By inflating or deflating ballonets strategically, the pilot can control the airship's altitude and attitude.
Ballonets may typically be used in
Lifting gas
Lifting gas is generally hydrogen, helium or hot air.
Hydrogen gives the highest lift 1.1 kg/m3 (0.069 lb/cu ft) and is inexpensive and easily obtained, but is highly flammable and can detonate if mixed with air. Helium is completely non flammable, but gives lower performance-1.02 kg/m3 (0.064 lb/cu ft) and is a rare element and much more expensive.[37]
Thermal airships use a heated lifting gas, usually air, in a fashion similar to hot air balloons. The first to do so was flown in 1973 by the British company Cameron Balloons.[38]
Gondola
Propulsion and control
This section needs to be updated.(December 2019) |
Small airships carry their engine(s) in their gondola. Where there were multiple engines on larger airships, these were placed in separate nacelles, termed power cars or engine cars.[39] To allow asymmetric thrust to be applied for maneuvering, these power cars were mounted towards the sides of the envelope, away from the centre line gondola. This also raised them above the ground, reducing the risk of a propeller strike when landing. Widely spaced power cars were also termed wing cars, from the use of "wing" to mean being on the side of something, as in a theater, rather than the aerodynamic device.[39] These engine cars carried a crew during flight who maintained the engines as needed, but who also worked the engine controls, throttle etc., mounted directly on the engine. Instructions were relayed to them from the pilot's station by a telegraph system, as on a ship.[39]
If fuel is burnt for propulsion, then progressive reduction in the airship's overall weight occurs. In hydrogen airships, this is usually dealt with by simply venting cheap hydrogen lifting gas. In helium airships water is often condensed from the exhaust and stored as ballast.[40]
Fins and rudders
To control the airship's direction and stability, it is equipped with fins and rudders. Fins are typically located on the tail section and provide stability and resistance to rolling. Rudders are movable surfaces on the tail that allow the pilot to steer the airship left or right.
Empennage
The empennage refers to the tail section of the airship, which includes the fins, rudders, and other aerodynamic surfaces. It plays a crucial role in maintaining stability and controlling the airship's attitude.
Fuel and power systems
Airships require a source of power to operate their propulsion systems. This includes engines, generators, or batteries, depending on the type of airship and its design. Fuel tanks or batteries are typically located within the envelope or gondola.
To navigate safely and communicate with ground control or other aircraft, airships are equipped with a range of instruments, including GPS systems, radios, radar, and navigation lights.
Landing gear
Some airships have landing gear that allows them to land on runways or other surfaces. This landing gear may include wheels, skids, or landing pads.
Performance
Efficiency
The main advantage of airships with respect to any other vehicle is of environmental nature.[citation needed] They require less energy to remain in flight, compared to other air vehicles.[41][42] The proposed Varialift airship, powered by a mixture of solar-powered engines and conventional jet engines, would use only an estimated 8 percent of the fuel required by jet aircraft.[43][44] Furthermore, utilizing the jet stream could allow for a faster and more energy-efficient cargo transport alternative to maritime shipping.[45] This is one of the reasons why China has embraced their use recently.[46]
History
Early pioneers
17th–18th century
In 1670, the
In 1709, the Brazilian-Portuguese Jesuit priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão made a hot air balloon, the Passarola, ascend to the skies, before an astonished Portuguese court. It would have been on August 8, 1709, when Father Bartolomeu de Gusmão held, in the courtyard of the Casa da Índia, in the city of Lisbon, the first Passarola demonstration.[49][50] The balloon caught fire without leaving the ground, but, in a second demonstration, it rose to 95 meters in height. It was a small balloon of thick brown paper, filled with hot air, produced by the "fire of material contained in a clay bowl embedded in the base of a waxed wooden tray". The event was witnessed by King John V of Portugal and the future Pope Innocent XIII.[51]
A more practical dirigible airship was described by Lieutenant
19th century
The
In 1852,
In 1872, Paul Haenlein flew an airship with an internal combustion engine running on the coal gas used to inflate the envelope, the first use of such an engine to power an aircraft.[58][59] Charles F. Ritchel made a public demonstration flight in 1878 of his hand-powered one-man rigid airship, and went on to build and sell five of his aircraft.[59]
In 1874, Micajah Clark Dyer filed U.S. Patent 154,654 "Apparatus for Navigating the Air".[60][61][62] It is believed successful trial flights were made between 1872 and 1874, but detailed dates are not available.[63] The apparatus used a combination of wings and paddle wheels for navigation and propulsion.
In operating the machinery the wings receive an upward and downward motion, in the manner of the wings of a bird, the outer ends yielding as they are raised, but opening out and then remaining rigid while being depressed. The wings, if desired, may be set at an angle so as to propel forward as well as to raise the machine in the air. The paddle-wheels are intended to be used for propelling the machine, in the same way that a vessel is propelled in water. An instrument answering to a rudder is attached for guiding the machine. A balloon is to be used for elevating the flying ship, after which it is to be guided and controlled at the pleasure of its occupants.[64]
More details can be found in the book about his life.[65]
In 1883, the first electric-powered flight was made by
The first fully controllable free flight was made in 1884 by Charles Renard and Arthur Constantin Krebs in the French Army airship La France. La France made the first flight of an airship that landed where it took off; the 170 ft (52 m) long, 66,000 cu ft (1,900 m3) airship covered 8 km (5.0 mi) in 23 minutes with the aid of an 8.5 hp (6.3 kW) electric motor,[66] and a 435 kg (959 lb) battery. It made seven flights in 1884 and 1885.[59]
In 1888, the design of the Campbell Air Ship, designed by Professor Peter C. Campbell, was built by the Novelty Air Ship Company. It was lost at sea in 1889 while being flown by Professor Hogan during an exhibition flight.[67]
From 1888 to 1897,
In 1897, an airship with an aluminum envelope was built by the
From 1897 to 1899, Konstantin Danilewsky, medical doctor and inventor from Kharkiv (now Ukraine, then Russian Empire), built four muscle-powered airships, of gas volume 150–180 m3 (5,300–6,400 cu ft). About 200 ascents were made within a framework of experimental flight program, at two locations, with no significant incidents.[72][73]
Early 20th century
In July 1900, the Luftschiff
Alberto Santos-Dumont was a wealthy young Brazilian who lived in France and had a passion for flying. He designed 18 balloons and dirigibles before turning his attention to fixed-winged aircraft.[74]
On 19 October 1901 he flew his airship
In 1902 the Spanish engineer
Other airship builders were also active before the war: from 1902 the French company
On May 12, 1902, the inventor and
In Britain, the Army built their first dirigible, the Nulli Secundus, in 1907. The Navy ordered the construction of an experimental rigid in 1908. Officially known as His Majesty's Airship No. 1 and nicknamed the Mayfly, it broke its back in 1911 before making a single flight. Work on a successor did not start until 1913.
German airship passenger service known as DELAG (Deutsche-Luftschiffahrts AG) was established in 1910.
In 1910 Walter Wellman unsuccessfully attempted an aerial crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the airship America.
World War I
The prospect of airships as bombers had been recognized in Europe well before the airships were up to the task.
Many in the German military believed they had found the ideal weapon with which to counteract British naval superiority and strike at Britain itself, while more realistic airship advocates believed the zeppelin's value was as a long range scout/attack craft for naval operations. Raids on England began in January 1915 and peaked in 1916: following losses to the British defenses only a few raids were made in 1917–18, the last in August 1918.[94] Zeppelins proved to be terrifying but inaccurate weapons. Navigation, target selection and bomb-aiming proved to be difficult under the best of conditions, and the cloud cover that was frequently encountered by the airships reduced accuracy even further. The physical damage done by airships over the course of the war was insignificant, and the deaths that they caused amounted to a few hundred.[95] Nevertheless, the raid caused a significant diversion of British resources to defense efforts. The airships were initially immune to attack by aircraft and anti-aircraft guns: as the pressure in their envelopes was only just higher than ambient air, holes had little effect. But following the introduction of a combination of incendiary and explosive ammunition in 1916, their flammable hydrogen lifting gas made them vulnerable to the defending aeroplanes. Several were shot down in flames by British defenders, and many others destroyed in accidents. New designs capable of reaching greater altitude were developed, but although this made them immune from attack it made their bombing accuracy even worse.
Countermeasures by the British included sound detection equipment, searchlights and anti-aircraft artillery, followed by night fighters in 1915. One tactic used early in the war, when their limited range meant the airships had to fly from forward bases and the only zeppelin production facilities were in Friedrichshafen, was the bombing of airship sheds by the British Royal Naval Air Service. Later in the war, the development of the aircraft carrier led to the first successful carrier-based air strike in history: on the morning of 19 July 1918, seven Sopwith 2F.1 Camels were launched from HMS Furious and struck the airship base at Tønder, destroying zeppelins L 54 and L 60.[96]
The British Army had abandoned airship development in favour of aeroplanes before the start of the war, but the Royal Navy had recognized the need for small airships to counteract the submarine and mine threat in coastal waters.
The Royal Navy continued development of rigid airships until the end of the war. Eight rigid airships had been completed by the armistice, (
Aeroplanes had almost entirely replaced airships as bombers by the end of the war, and Germany's remaining zeppelins were destroyed by their crews, scrapped or handed over to the Allied powers as war reparations. The British rigid airship program, which had mainly been a reaction to the potential threat of the German airships, was wound down.
The interwar period
Britain, the United States and Germany built rigid airships between the two world wars. Italy and France made limited use of Zeppelins handed over as war reparations. Italy, the Soviet Union, the United States and Japan mainly operated semi-rigid airships.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was not allowed to build airships of greater capacity than a million cubic feet. Two small passenger airships, LZ 120 Bodensee and its sister ship LZ 121 Nordstern, were built immediately after the war but were confiscated following the sabotage of the wartime Zeppelins that were to have been handed over as war reparations: Bodensee was given to Italy and Nordstern to France. On May 12, 1926, the Italian built semi-rigid airship Norge was the first aircraft to fly over the North Pole.
The British
During World War I, the U.S. Navy acquired its first airship, the DH-1,
America then started constructing the
In 1922,
The Locarno Treaties of 1925 lifted the restrictions on German airship construction, and the Zeppelin company started construction of the Graf Zeppelin (LZ 127), the largest airship that could be built in the company's existing shed, and intended to stimulate interest in passenger airships. The Graf Zeppelin burned blau gas, similar to propane, stored in large gas bags below the hydrogen cells, as fuel. Since its density was similar to that of air, it avoided the weight change as fuel was used, and thus the need to valve hydrogen. The Graf Zeppelin had an impressive safety record, flying over 1,600,000 km (990,000 mi) (including the first circumnavigation of the globe by airship) without a single passenger injury.[109]
The U.S. Navy experimented with the use of airships as
Eventually, the U.S. Navy lost all three U.S.-built rigid airships to accidents. USS Shenandoah flew into a
The Empire State Building was completed in 1931 with a dirigible mast, in anticipation of future passenger airship service, but no airship ever used the mast. Various entrepreneurs experimented with commuting and shipping freight via airship.[112]
In the 1930s, the German Zeppelins successfully competed with other means of transport. They could carry significantly more passengers than other contemporary aircraft while providing amenities similar to those on ocean liners, such as private cabins, observation decks, and dining rooms. Less importantly, the technology was potentially more energy-efficient than heavier-than-air designs. Zeppelins were also faster than ocean liners. On the other hand, operating airships was quite involved. Often the crew would outnumber passengers, and on the ground large teams were necessary to assist mooring and very large hangars were required at airports.
By the mid-1930s, only Germany still pursued airship development. The Zeppelin company continued to operate the Graf Zeppelin on passenger service between Frankfurt and
Hindenburg's identical sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin II (LZ 130), could not carry commercial passengers without helium, which the United States refused to sell to Germany. The Graf Zeppelin made several test flights and conducted some electronic espionage until 1939 when it was grounded due to the beginning of the war. The two Graf Zeppelins were scrapped in April, 1940.
Development of airships continued only in the United States, and to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had several semi-rigid and non-rigid airships. The semi-rigid dirigible SSSR-V6 OSOAVIAKhIM was among the largest of these craft, and it set the longest endurance flight at the time of over 130 hours. It crashed into a mountain in 1938, killing 13 of the 19 people on board. While this was a severe blow to the Soviet airship program, they continued to operate non-rigid airships until 1950.
World War II
While Germany determined that airships were obsolete for military purposes in the coming war and concentrated on the development of aeroplanes, the United States pursued a program of military airship construction even though it had not developed a clear military doctrine for airship use. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, bringing the United States into World War II, the U.S. Navy had 10 nonrigid airships:
- 4 K-class: K-2, K-3, K-4 and K-5 designed as patrol ships, all built in 1938.
- 3 L-class: L-1, L-2 and L-3 as small training ships, produced in 1938.
- 1 G-class, built in 1936 for training.
- 2 TC-class that were older patrol airships designed for land forces, built in 1933. The U.S. Navy acquired both from the United States Army in 1938.
Only K- and TC-class airships were suitable for combat and they were quickly pressed into service against Japanese and German
In the years 1942–44, approximately 1,400 airship pilots and 3,000 support crew members were trained in the military airship crew training program and the airship military personnel grew from 430 to 12,400. The U.S. airships were produced by the Goodyear factory in Akron, Ohio. From 1942 till 1945, 154 airships were built for the U.S. Navy (133 K-class, 10 L-class, seven G-class, four M-class) and five L-class for civilian customers (serial numbers L-4 to L-8).
The primary airship tasks were patrol and convoy escort near the American coastline. They also served as an organization centre for the convoys to direct ship movements, and were used in naval search and rescue operations. Rarer duties of the airships included aerophoto reconnaissance, naval mine-laying and mine-sweeping, parachute unit transport and deployment, cargo and personnel transportation. They were deemed quite successful in their duties with the highest combat readiness factor in the entire U.S. air force (87%).
During the war, some 532 ships without airship escort were sunk near the U.S. coast by enemy submarines. Only one ship, the tanker Persephone, of the 89,000 or so in convoys escorted by blimps was sunk by the enemy.
Only one airship was ever destroyed by
Fleet Airship Wing One operated from Lakehurst, New Jersey, Glynco, Georgia, Weeksville, North Carolina,
Some Navy blimps saw action in the European war theater. In 1944–45, the U.S. Navy moved an entire squadron of eight Goodyear
Other airships patrolled the
Navy blimps of Fleet Airship Wing Five, (ZP-51) operated from bases in
Fleet Airship Wing Three operated squadrons, ZP-32 from Moffett Field, ZP-31 at NAS Santa Ana, and ZP-33 at NAS Tillamook, Oregon. Auxiliary fields were at Del Mar, Lompoc, Watsonville and Eureka, California, North Bend and Astoria, Oregon, as well as Shelton and Quillayute in Washington.
From 2 January 1942 until the end of war airship operations in the Atlantic, the blimps of the Atlantic fleet made 37,554 flights and flew 378,237 hours. Of the over 70,000 ships in convoys protected by blimps, only one was sunk by a submarine while under blimp escort.[117]
The Soviet Union flew a single airship during the war. The W-12, built in 1939, entered service in 1942 for paratrooper training and equipment transport. It made 1432 flights with 300 metric tons of cargo until 1945. On 1 February 1945, the Soviets constructed a second airship, a Pobeda-class (Victory-class) unit (used for mine-sweeping and wreckage clearing in the Black Sea) that crashed on 21 January 1947. Another W-class – W-12bis Patriot – was commissioned in 1947 and was mostly used until the mid-1950s for crew training, parades and propaganda.
Postwar period
Although airships are no longer used for major cargo and passenger transport, they are still used for other purposes such as
There were several studies and proposals for
In the 1980s, Per Lindstrand and his team introduced the GA-42 airship, the first airship to use fly-by-wire flight control, which considerably reduced the pilot's workload.
An airship was prominently featured in the
The world's largest thermal airship (300,000 cubic feet; 8,500 cubic metres) was constructed by the Per Lindstrand company for French botanists in 1993. The AS-300 carried an underslung raft, which was positioned by the airship on top of tree canopies in the rain forest, allowing the botanists to carry out their treetop research without significant damage to the rainforest. When research was finished at a given location, the airship returned to pick up and relocate the raft.[125]
In June 1987, the U.S. Navy awarded a US$168.9 million contract to
The SVAM CA-80 airship, which was produced in 2000 by Shanghai Vantage Airship Manufacture Co., Ltd., had a successful trial flight in September 2001. This was designed for advertisement and propagation, air-photo, scientific test, tour and surveillance duties. It was certified as a grade-A Hi-Tech introduction program (No. 20000186) in Shanghai. The CAAC authority granted a type design approval and certificate of airworthiness for the airship.[128]
In the 1990s the Zeppelin company returned to the airship business. Their new model, designated the Zeppelin NT, made its maiden flight on 18 September 1997. As of 2009[update] there were four NT aircraft flying, a fifth was completed in March 2009 and an expanded NT-14 (14,000 cubic meters of helium, capable of carrying 19 passengers) was under construction. One was sold to a Japanese company, and was planned to be flown to Japan in the summer of 2004. Due to delays getting permission from the Russian government, the company decided to transport the airship to Japan by sea. One of the four NT craft is in South Africa carrying diamond detection equipment from De Beers, an application at which the very stable low vibration NT platform excels. The project included design adaptations for high temperature operation and desert climate, as well as a separate mooring mast and a very heavy mooring truck. NT-4 belonged to Airship Ventures of Moffett Field, Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area, and provided sight-seeing tours.
The Switzerland-based Skyship 600 has also played other roles over the years. For example, it was flown over
Los Angeles-based
In May 2006, the U.S. Navy began to fly airships again after a hiatus of nearly 44 years. The program uses a single
In November 2006 the U.S. Army bought an A380+ airship from American Blimp Corporation through a Systems level contract with Northrop Grumman and Booz Allen Hamilton. The airship started flight tests in late 2007, with a primary goal of carrying 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) of payload to an altitude of 15,000 ft (4,600 m) under remote control and autonomous waypoint navigation. The program will also demonstrate carrying 1,000 lb (450 kg) of payload to 20,000 ft (6,100 m) The platform could be used for intelligence collection. In 2008, the CA-150 airship was launched by Vantage Airship. This is an improved modification of model CA-120 and completed manufacturing in 2008. With larger volume and increased passenger capacity, it is the largest manned nonrigid airship in China at present.[131]
In late June 2014 the
Postwar projects
Hybrid designs such as the
In 2005, a short-lived project of the U.S.
Modern
This section needs additional citations for verification. (July 2010) |
Military
In 2010, the U.S. Army awarded a $517 million (£350.6 million) contract to
A-NSE , a French company, manufactures and operates airships and aerostats. For 2 years, A-NSE has been testing its airships for the French Army. Airships and aerostats are operated to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support. Their airships include many innovative features such as water ballast take-off and landing systems, variable geometry envelopes and thrust–vectoring systems.
The U.S. government has funded two major projects in the high altitude arena. The
On 31 January 2006 Lockheed Martin made the first flight of their secretly built
Dirigibles have been used in the
Passenger transport
In the 1990s, the successor of the original Zeppelin company in Friedrichshafen, the Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH, reengaged in airship construction. The first experimental craft (later christened Friedrichshafen) of the type "Zeppelin NT" flew in September 1997. Though larger than common blimps, the Neue Technologie (New Technology) zeppelins are much smaller than their giant ancestors and not actually Zeppelin-types in the classical sense. They are sophisticated semirigids. Apart from the greater payload, their main advantages compared to blimps are higher speed and excellent maneuverability. Meanwhile, several Zeppelin NT have been produced and operated profitably in joyrides, research flights and similar applications.
In June 2004, a Zeppelin NT was sold for the first time to a Japanese company, Nippon Airship Corporation, for tourism and advertising mainly around Tokyo. It was also given a role at the
In 2008, Airship Ventures Inc. began operations from Moffett Federal Airfield near Mountain View, California and until November 2012 offered tours of the San Francisco Bay Area for up to 12 passengers.
Exploration
In November 2005,
Thermal
Several companies, such as Cameron Balloons in Bristol, United Kingdom, build hot-air airships. These combine the structures of both hot-air balloons and small airships. The envelope is the normal cigar shape, complete with tail fins, but is inflated with hot air instead of helium to provide the lifting force. A small gondola, carrying the pilot and passengers, a small engine, and the burners to provide the hot air are suspended below the envelope, beneath an opening through which the burners protrude.
Hot-air airships typically cost less to buy and maintain than modern helium-based blimps, and can be quickly deflated after flights. This makes them easy to carry in trailers or trucks and inexpensive to store. They are usually very slow moving, with a typical top speed of 25–30 km/h (16–19 mph; 6.9–8.3 m/s). They are mainly used for advertising, but at least one has been used in rainforests for wildlife observation, as they can be easily transported to remote areas.
Unmanned remote
Adventures
In 2008, French adventurer Stephane Rousson attempted to cross the English Channel with a muscular pedal powered airship.[150][151][152]
Stephane Rousson also flies the Aérosail, a sky sailing yacht.[153][154][155]
-
Aerosail
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Mlle Louise pedal Airship by Stephane Rousson
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Zeppy 3 by Stephane Rousson
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Zeppy One
Current design projects
This section needs additional citations for verification. (June 2008) |
Today, with large, fast, and more cost-efficient
Heavy lifting
It has periodically been suggested that airships could be employed for
An impediment to the large-scale development of airships as heavy haulers has been figuring out how they can be used in a cost-efficient way. In order to have a significant economic advantage over ocean transport, cargo airships must be able to deliver their payload faster than ocean carriers but more cheaply than airplanes. William Crowder, a fellow at the
Metal-clad airships
A metal-clad airship has a very thin metal envelope, rather than the usual fabric. The shell may be either internally braced or
Hybrid airships
A
For example, the
The Patroller P3 hybrid airship developed by Advanced Hybrid Aircraft Ltd, BC, Canada, is a relatively small (85,000 cu ft / 2,400 m3) buoyant craft, manned by the crew of 5 and with the endurance of up to 72 hours. The flight-tests with the 40% RC scale model proved that such a craft can be launched and landed without a large team of strong ground-handlers.[160] Design features a special "winglet" for aerodynamic lift control.[161]
Airships in space exploration
Airships have been proposed as a potential cheap alternative to surface rocket launches for achieving Earth orbit.
NASA has proposed the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept, which comprises a series of five missions including manned missions to the atmosphere of Venus in airships.[163][164][165][166] Pressures on the surface of the planet are too high for human habitation, but at a specific altitude the pressure is equal to that found on Earth and this makes Venus a potential target for human colonization.
Hypothetically, there could be an airship lifted by a vacuum—that is, by material that can contain nothing at all inside but withstand the atmospheric pressure from the outside. It is, at this point, science fiction, although NASA has posited that some kind of vacuum airship could eventually be used to explore the surface of Mars.[167]
Cruiser feeder transport airship
EU FP7 MAAT Project[168] has studied an innovative cruiser/feeder airship system,[169] for the stratosphere with a cruiser remaining airborne for a long time and feeders connecting it to the ground and flying as piloted balloons.[170]
Airships for humanitarian and cargo transport
Google co-founder Sergey Brin founded LTA Research in 2015 to develop airships for humanitarian and cargo transport. The company's 124-meter-long airship Pathfinder 1 received from the FAA a special airworthiness certificate for the helium-filled airship in September 2023.[171]
The certificate allowed the largest airship since the ill-fated Hindenburg to begin flight tests at Moffett Field, a joint civil-military airport in Silicon Valley.
Comparison with heavier-than-air aircraft
The advantage of airships over aeroplanes is that static lift sufficient for flight is generated by the lifting gas and requires no engine power. This was an immense advantage before the middle of World War I and remained an advantage for long-distance or long-duration operations until World War II. Modern concepts for high-altitude airships include photovoltaic cells to reduce the need to land to refuel, thus they can remain in the air until consumables expire. This similarly reduces or eliminates the need to consider variable fuel weight in buoyancy calculations.
The disadvantages are that an airship has a very large reference area and comparatively large drag coefficient, thus a larger drag force compared to that of aeroplanes and even helicopters. Given the large frontal area and wetted surface of an airship, a practical limit is reached around 130–160 kilometres per hour (80–100 mph). Thus airships are used where speed is not critical.
The lift capability of an airship is equal to the buoyant force minus the weight of the airship. This assumes standard air-temperature and pressure conditions. Corrections are usually made for water vapor and impurity of lifting gas, as well as percentage of inflation of the gas cells at liftoff.[172] Based on specific lift (lifting force per unit volume of gas), the greatest static lift is provided by hydrogen (11.15 N/m3 or 71 lbf/1000 cu ft) with helium (10.37 N/m3 or 66 lbf/1000 cu ft) a close second.[173]
In addition to static lift, an airship can obtain a certain amount of dynamic lift from its engines. Dynamic lift in past airships has been about 10% of the static lift. Dynamic lift allows an airship to "take off heavy" from a runway similar to fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. This requires additional weight in engines, fuel, and landing gear, negating some of the static lift capacity.
The altitude at which an airship can fly largely depends on how much lifting gas it can lose due to expansion before stasis is reached. The ultimate altitude record for a rigid airship was set in 1917 by the L-55 under the command of Hans-Kurt Flemming when he forced the airship to 7,300 m (24,000 ft) attempting to cross France after the "Silent Raid" on London. The L-55 lost lift during the descent to lower altitudes over Germany and crashed due to loss of lift.[174] While such waste of gas was necessary for the survival of airships in the later years of World War I, it was impractical for commercial operations, or operations of helium-filled military airships. The highest flight made by a hydrogen-filled passenger airship was 1,700 m (5,500 ft) on the Graf Zeppelin's around-the-world flight.[175]
The greatest disadvantage of the airship is size, which is essential to increasing performance. As size increases, the problems of ground handling increase geometrically.
So long as the
This is in face-to-face tactical situations. Currently, a
Safety
The most commonly used lifting gas, helium, is
Licensing
In the United Kingdom, the basic pilot licence for airships is the PPL(As), or private pilot licence, which requires a minimum of 35 hours instruction on airships.[181] To fly commercially, an Commercial Pilot Licence (Airships) is required.
See also
- Airborne aircraft carrier
- Aircruise
- Airship hangar
- Barrage balloon
- Conrad Airship CA 80 (1975–1977)
- Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement
- High-altitude platform station
- Hyperion, fictional airship type.
- List of airship accidents
- List of British airships
- List of current airships in the United States
- List of Zeppelins
- Mystery airship
- Stratellite
- SVAM CA-80
- Worldwide Aeros Corp
- Zeppelin mail
Notes
- ^ A few airships after World War II used hydrogen. The first British airship to use helium was the Chitty Bang Bang of 1967.
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External links
- Airships at Curlie
- Should Airships Make a Comeback? – Veritasium YouTube channel