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Wikipedia-Article "Airships"
An airship is a buoyant aircraft that can be steered and propelled through the air. Unlike aerodynamic craft (e.g. airplanes and helicopters) which stay aloft by moving an airfoil through the air in order to produce lift, aerostatic craft such as airships (and balloons) stay aloft primarily by means of a cavity (usually quite large) filled with a gas of lesser density than the surrounding atmosphere.
Airships are also known as dirigibles from the French dirigeable, meaning "steerable". The term airship is sometimes informally used to mean a machine capable of atmospheric flight. The term zeppelin is a genericized trademark that originally referred to airships manufactured by the Zeppelin Company. In modern common usage, the terms zeppelin, dirigible and airship are used interchangeably for any type of rigid airship, with the terms blimp or airship alone used to describe non-rigid airships. In modern technical usage however, airship is the term used for all aircraft of this type with zeppelin referring only to aircraft of that manufacture and blimp referring only to non-rigid airships.
In the early days of airships, the primary lifting gas was hydrogen. Until the 1950s, all airships, except for those in the United States continued to use hydrogen because it offered greater lift and was cheaper than helium. The United States (until then the sole producer) was also unwilling to export helium because of its rarity and the fact it was considered a strategic material. However, hydrogen is flammable when mixed with air, a quality that has caused disasterous effects. The buoyancy provided by hydrogen is actually only about 10% greater than that of helium. So the issue became one of safety versus cost. American airships have been filled with helium since the 1920s and modern passenger-carrying airships are, by law, now prohibited from being filled with hydrogen. Some small experimental ships still use hydrogen. Other small experimental airships are filled with hot air in a fashion similar to a hot air balloon.
In contrast to airships, balloons are buoyant aircraft that generally rely on wind currents for movement, though vertical movement can be controlled in both.
Airships are also distinct from aerostats which are tethered balloons that are shaped similarly to airships.
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Types
- Rigid airships (for example, Zeppelins) have rigid frames containing multiple, non-pressurized gas cells or balloons to provide lift. Rigid airships do not depend on internal pressure to maintain their shape.
- Non-rigid airships (blimps) use a pressure level in excess of the surrounding air pressure in order to retain their shape.
- Semi-rigid airships, like blimps, require internal pressure to maintain their shape, but have extended, usually articulated keel frames running along the bottom of the envelope to distribute suspension loads into the envelope and allow lower envelope pressures.
- Metal-clad airships have characteristics of both rigid and non-rigid airships, utilizing a very thin, airtight metal envelope, rather than the usual rubber-coated fabric envelope. Only two ships of this type, Schwarz's aluminium ship of 1897 and the ZMC-2, have been built to date.
- Hybrid airship is a general term for an aircraft that combines characteristics of heavier-than-air (airplane or helicopter) and lighter than air technology. Examples include helicopter/airship hybrids intended for heavy lift applications and dynamic lift airships intended for long-range cruising. It should be noted that most airships, when fully loaded with cargo and fuel, are typically heavier than air, and thus must use their propulsion system and shape to generate aerodynamic lift, necessary to stay aloft; technically making them hybrid airships. However, the term "hybrid airship" refers to craft that obtain a significant portion of their lift from aerodynamic lift and often require substantial take-off rolls before becoming airborne.
History
The development of airships was necessarily preceded by the development of balloons. See balloon (aircraft) for details.
Airship Pioneers
Airships were among the first aircraft to fly, with various designs flying throughout the 19th century. They were largely attempts to make relatively small balloons more steerable, and often contained features found on later airships. These early airships set many of the earliest aviation records.
In 1784 Jean-Pierre Blanchard fitted a hand-powered propeller to a balloon, the first recorded means of propulsion carried aloft.
The first person to make an engine-powered flight was Henri Giffard who, in 1852, flew 27 km (17 miles) in a steam-powered airship.
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.
Paul Haenlein flew an airship with an internal combustion engine on a tether in Vienna, the first use of such an engine to power an aircraft.
In 1880, Karl Wölfert and Ernst Baumgarten attempted to fly a powered airship in free flight, but crashed.
In the 1880's a Serb named Ogneslav Kostovic Stepanovic also designed and built an airship. However the craft was destroyed by fire before it flew.
In 1883, the first electric-powered flight was made by Gaston Tissandier who fitted a 1-1/2 horsepower Siemens electric motor to an airship. The first fully controllable free-flight was made in a French Army airship, La France, by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs in 1884. The 170 foot long , 66,000 cubic foot airship covered 8 km (5 miles) in 23 minutes with the aid of an 8-1/2 horsepower electric motor.
In 1888, Wölfert flew a Daimler-built petrol engine powered airship at Seelburg.
In 1896, a rigid airship created by Croatian engineer David Schwarz made its first flight at Tempelhof field in Berlin. After Schwarz's death, his wife, Melanie Schwarz, was paid 15,000 Marks by Zeppelin for information about the airship.
In 1901, Santos Dumont, in his airship "Number 6", a small blimp, won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize of 100,000 francs for flying from the Parc Saint Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in under thirty minutes. Many inventors were inspired by Santos-Dumont's small airships and a veritable airship craze began world-wide. Many airship pioneers, such as the American Thomas Scott Baldwin financed their activities through passenger flights and public demonstration flights. Others, such as Walter Wellman and Melvin Vaniman set their sights on loftier goals, attempting two polar flights in 1907 and 1909, and two trans-atlantic flights in 1910 and 1912.
The beginning of the "Golden Age of Airships" was also marked with the launch of the Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ1 in July of 1900 which would lead to the most successful airships of all time. These Zeppelins were named after the pioneer Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Von Zeppelin began experimenting with rigid airship designs in the 1890's leading to some patents and the LZ1 (1900) and the LZ2 (1906). At the beginning of WW1 the Zeppelin airships had a cylindrical aluminium alloy frame and a fabric-covered hull containing separate gas cells. Multi-plane tail fins were used for control and stability, and two engine/crew cars hung beneath the hull driving propellers attached to the sides of the frame by means of long drive shafts. Additionally there was a passenger compartment (later a bomb bay) located halfway between the two cars.
Airships in the First World War
The prospect of using airships as bomb carriers had been recognised in Europe well before the airships themselves were up to the task. H. G. Wells described the obliteration of entire fleets and cities by airship attack in The War in the Air (1908), and scores of less famous British writers declared in print that the airship had altered the face of world affairs forever. On 5 March 1912, Italian forces became the first to use dirigibles for a military purpose during reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines. It was World War I, however, that marked the airship's real debut as a weapon.
Count Zeppelin and others in the German military believed they had found the ideal weapon with which to counteract British Naval superiority and strike at Britain itself. More realistic airship advocates believed the Zeppelin was a valuable long range scout/attack craft for naval operations. Raids began by the end of 1914, reached a first peak in 1915, and then were discontinued after 1917. Zeppelins proved to be terrifying but inaccurate weapons. Navigation, target selection and bomb-aiming proved to be difficult under the best of conditions. The darkness, high altitudes and clouds that were frequently encountered by zeppelin missions reduced accuracy even further. The physical damage done by the zeppelins over the course of the war was trivial, and the deaths that they caused (though visible) amounted to a few hundred at most. The zeppelins also proved to be vulnerable to attack by aircraft and antiaircraft guns, especially those armed with tracer bullets. Several were shot down in flames by British defenders, and others crashed 'en route'. In retrospect, advocates of the naval scouting role of the airship proved to be correct, and the land bombing campaign proved to be disastrous in terms of morale, men and material. Many pioneers of the German airship service died bravely, but needlessly in these propaganda missions. They also drew unwanted attention to the construction sheds which were bombed by the British Royal Naval Air Service.
Meanwhile the Royal Navy had recognised the need for small airships to counteract the submarine threat in coastal waters, and beginning in February 1915, began to deploy the SS (Sea Scout) class of blimp. These had a small envelope of 60-70,000 cu feet and at first utilised standard single engined planes (BE2c, Maurice Farman, Armstrong FK) shorn of wing and tail surfaces as an economy measure. Eventually more advanced blimps with purpose built cars, such as the C (Coastal), C* (Coastal Star), NS (North Sea), SSP (Sea Scout Pusher), SSZ (Sea Scout Zero), SSE (Sea Scout Experimental) and SST (Sea Scout Twin) classes were developed. The NS class, after initial teething problems proved to be the largest and finest airships in British service. They had a gas capacity of 360,000 cu feet, a crew of 10 and an endurance of 24 hours. Six 230 lb bombs were carried, as well as 3-5 machine guns. British blimps were used for scouting, mine clearance, and submarine attack duties. During the war, the British built over 225 non-rigid airships, of which several were sold to the Russia, France, the US and Italy. Britain, in turn, purchased one M-type semi-rigid from Italy whose delivery was delayed until 1918. Eight rigid airships had been completed by the armistice, although several more were in an advanced state of completion by the wars end. The large number of trained crews, low attrition rate and constant experimentation handling techniques meant that at the wars end Britain was the world leader in non-rigid airship technology.
Airplanes had essentially replaced airships as bombers by the end of the war, and Germany's remaining zeppelins were scuttled by their crews, scrapped or handed over to the Allied powers as spoils of war. The British rigid airship program, meanwhile, had been largely a reaction to the potential threat of the German one and was largely, though not entirely, based on imitations of the German ships.
Airships in the Inter-war period
Airships using the Zeppelin construction method are sometimes referred to as zeppelins even if they had no connection to the Zeppelin business. Several airships of this kind were built in the USA and Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly imitating original Zeppelin design derived from crashed or captured German World War I airships.
The British R33 and R34, for example, were near identical copies of the German L-33, which crashed virtually intact in Yorkshire on September 24, 1916. Despite being almost three years out of date by the time they were launched in 1919, these sister ships were two of the most successful in British service. On July 2, 1919 R34 began the first double crossing of the Atlantic by an aircraft. It landed at Mineola, Long Island on July 6, 1919 after 108 hours in the air. The return crossing commenced on July 8 because of concerns about mooring the ship in the open, and took 75 hours. Impressed, British leaders began to contemplate a fleet of airships that would link Britain to its far-flung colonies, but unfortunately post-war economic conditions lead to most airships being scrapped and trained personnel dispersed, until the R-100 and R-101 commenced construction in 1929.
Another example was the first American-built rigid dirigible USS Shenandoah , which flew in 1923, while the Los Angeles was under construction. The ship was christened on August 20 in Lakehurst, New Jersey and was the first to be inflated with the noble gas helium, which was still so rare at the time that the Shenandoah contained most of the world's reserves. So, when the Los Angeles was delivered, it was at first filled with the helium borrowed from ZR-1.
The Zeppelin works were saved by the purchase of what became called the USS Los Angeles by the United States Navy, paid for with "war reparations" money, owed according to the Versailles Treaty. The success of the Los Angeles encouraged the United States Navy to invest in larger airships of its own. Germany, meanwhile, was building the Graf Zeppelin, the first of what was intended to be a new class of passenger airships. Interestingly, the Graf Zeppelin burned un-pressurised blau gas, similar to propane, as fuel. Since its density was similar to that of air, it avoided the weight change when fuel was used.
Initially airships met with great success and compiled an impressive safety record. The Graf Zeppelin, for example, flew over 1 million miles (including the first circumnavigation of the globe by air) without a single passenger injury. The expansion of airship fleets and the growing (sometimes excessive) self-confidence of airship designers gradually made the limits of the type clear, and initial successes gave way to a series of tragic rigid airship accidents.
The "catastrophist theory" of airship development owes much to the sensationalist press of the 1920s and 1930s and ignores successful ships such as Graf Zeppelin, R100 and Los Angeles. The worst disasters - R101, USS Shenandoah, USS Akron and Hindenburg were all partially the result of political interference in normal airship construction and flight procedures.
Although the USS Los Angeles flew successfully for 8 years, the U.S. Navy eventually lost all three of its American-built rigid airships to accidents. USS Shenandoah flew into a severe thunderstorm during a poorly planned publicity flight over Ohio in 1925 and broke into pieces. USS Akron was caught by a microburst and driven down into the surface of the sea off the shore of New Jersey in 1933. The Akron carried no life boats and few life vests. As a result, most of the crew died from drowning or hypothermia. Both storm-related losses led to great loss of life. USS Macon broke up after suffering a structural failure in its upper fin off the shore of Point Sur in California in 1935. All but 2 of the 83 people aboard Macon survived the crash thanks to the inclusion of life jackets and inflatable rafts after the Akron disaster.
Britain suffered its own airship tragedy in 1930 when R101, a ship far advanced for its time but rushed to completion and sent on a trip to India before she was ready, crashed in France with the loss of 48 out of 54 aboard. Because of the bad publicity surrounding the crash, the Air Ministry grounded the competing R100 in 1930 and sold it for scrap in 1931.
The most spectacular and widely remembered airship accident, however, is the burning of the Hindenburg on 6 May 1937, which caused public faith in airships to evaporate in favour of faster, more cost-efficient (albeit less energy-efficient) airplanes. What is generally not remembered is that of the 97 people on board, 62 got out alive. There were 36 dead: 13 passengers, 22 aircrew, and one American groundcrewman.
Most probably, the airplane became the transport of choice also because it is less sensitive to wind. Aside from the problem of manoeuvring and docking in high winds, the trip times for an upwind versus a downwind trip of an airship can differ greatly, and even crabbing at an angle to a crosswind eats up ground speed. Those differences make scheduling difficult.
Airships in the Second World War
The greatest number of airships in use during the Second World War were blimps used to form anti-aircraft defences. Thousands were put up tethered to the ground by steel cables to form obstacles to German aircraft flying on bombing missions over England.
American construction of airships for civilian purposes was halted in the 1930s by a series of fatal crashes. However, military development of airships was continued in the US.
While Germany determined that airships were obsolete for military purposes in the coming war and concentrated on the development of airplanes, the United States pursued a program of military airship construction even though it had not developed a clear military doctrine for airship use. At the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 that brought the United States into World War II, it had 10 non-rigid airships:
- 4 K-class : K-2, K-3, K-4 and K-5 designed as a patrol ships built from 1938.
- 3 L-class : L-1, L-2 and L-3 as small training ships, produced from 1938.
- 1 G-class built in 1936 for training.
- 2 TC-class that were older patrol ships designed for land forces, built in 1933. The US Navy acquired them from Army in 1938.
Only K and TC class airships could be used for combat purposes and they were quickly pressed into service against Japanese and German submarines which at that time were sinking US shipping in visual range of US coast. US Navy command, remembering the airship anti-submarine success from WWI, immediately requested new modern anti-submarine airships and on 2 January 1942 formed the ZP-12 patrol unit based in Lakehurst from the 4 K airship. The ZP-32 patrol unit was formed from 2 TC and 2 L airship a month later, based at US Navy (Moffet Field) in Sunnyvale in California. An airship training base was created there as well.
In the years 1942-1944, approximately 1400 airship pilots and 3000 support crew members were trained in the military airship crew training program and the airship military personnel grew from 430 to 12400. The US airships were produced by the Goodyear factory in Akron, Ohio. From 1942 till 1945, 154 airships were built for the US Navy (133 K-class, 10 L-class, 7 G-class, 4 M-class) and 5 L-class for civilian customers (serial number L-4 to L-8).
The primary airship tasks were patrol and convoy escort near the US coastline. They also served as an organisation center for the convoys to direct ship movements and course, and were used during 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 US air force (87%). They were extremely successful in their primary goal of anti-submarine warfare as the below numbers illustrate:
During the war some 532 ships were sunk near the coast by submarines.
- 1942: 454 ships sunk near the US coast, 4-13 airships in service
- 1943: 65 ships sunk near the US coast, 17-53 airships in service
- 1944: 8 ships sunk near the US coast, 56-68 airships in service
- 1945: 3 ships sunk near the US coast, 53-48 airships in service
Not a single ship of the 89,000 or so in convoys escorted by blimps was sunk by enemy fire. Airships engaged submarines with depth charges, or rarely from other on-board weapons. They were very successful since they could match the slow speed of the submarine and bomb it until its destruction. Additionally, submerged submarines had no means of detecting an airship approaching.
Only one airship was ever destroyed by U-boat: on the night of 18/19 July 1943 a K-class airship (K-74) from ZP-21 division was patrolling the coastline near Florida. Using radar, the airship located a surfaced German submarine. Due to the failure of the depth charge release mechanism, the airship was unable to release the bombs during the bombing run and the German returned fire. The (K-74) received serious damage and was forced to make a water landing. The crew was rescued by patrol boats in the morning, but one crewman died from a shark attack. The U-Boat responsible was sunk a few hours later.
Some US airships saw action in the European war theater. The ZP-14 unit operating in the Mediterranean area from June 1944 completely denied the use of the Gibraltar Straits to Axis submarines. Airships from the ZP-12 unit took part in the sinking of the last U-Boat before German capitulation, sinking U-881 on 6 May 1945 together with destroyers Atherton and Mobery.
The Soviet Union used 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 runs with 300 metric tons of cargo until 1945. On 1 February 1945 the Soviets constructed a second airship, a Pobieda-class unit (used for mine-sweeping and wreckage clearing in the Black Sea) which later crashed on 21 January 1947. Another W-class - W-12bis Patriot was commissioned in 1947 and was mostly used for crew training, parades and propaganda.
Continued use
Although airships abandoned carrying passengers, they continued to be used for other purposes. In particular, the US Navy as above.
In recent years, the Zeppelin company has reentered the airship business. Their new model, designated the Zeppelin NT made its maiden flight on September 18, 1997. There are currently three NT aircraft flying. One has been sold to a Japanese company, and was planned to be flown to Japan in the summer of 2004. However, due to delays getting permission from the Russian government, the company decided to transport the airship to Japan by ship. An airship was flown over Athens during the 2004 Summer Olympics as part of security anti-terrorism measures.
Blimps continue to be used for advertising and as TV camera platforms at major sporting events.
Several companies, such as Cameron Balloons in Bristol, UK, 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 not inflated by helium, but by hot air (as in a balloon), which provides the lifting force. A small gondola, carrying the pilot (and sometimes between 1 and 3 passengers), a small engine and the burners to provide the hot air is suspended below the envelope, below an opening through which the burners protrude.
The advantages with the hot-air airship are that is costs less to buy and maintain than a standard modern blimp and it can be quickly deflated at the end of a flight, meaning it is easily transported on a trailer or truck, without the need for expensive storage arrangements. Such craft usually are very slow moving, with a typical top speed of 15-20 mph. They are used mainly for advertising, but several have been used in rainforests for wildlife observation, because they could easily be transported into remote areas.
Present-day research
Recently, several companies have begun exploring the possibilities of airships with their potentially huge lifting capacities, near-VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) capabilities, and potentially lower freight costs, though none has demonstrated economic viability yet.
In addition to the research on conventional blimp designs, several unconventional prototype designs continue to be investigated. One example is a design commissioned by the United States Military for a massive solar powered spy and communication blimp, 25 times larger than the Goodyear Blimp, which it is hoped will be able to carry tons of payload far above the range of antiaircraft weapons. The company developing the design, JP Aerospace, claims to have long-range plans to develop an "orbital airship" capable of lifting cargo into low earth orbit with a marginal transportation cost of $1 per short ton per mile of altitude.
Contracts are underway with Lockheed for high-altitude airships (HAAs). Airships are being investigated as a possible alternative to LEO (low Earth orbit) satellite communications. One proposed system involves sending unmanned airships high above cities at 70,000 feet (21 km). These aircraft would provide cellular voice and data service to a city with service similar to what LEOs provide. Due to the fact that these would be located in the stratosphere, one company currently working on this calls their proposed airships "Stratellites".
With the September 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. military has been forced to reassess threats and evaluate strategies for aerial defence. Two major defense contractors are pitching the zeppelin as a potential piece in the homeland security jigsaw. Military planners envision unmanned airships as high-altitude radar platforms keeping watch for anything threatening U.S. airspace.
In February 2005, the US Department of Defense announced a research program named the WALRUS HULA [1] [2] to explore the development of very large airships. The primary goal of the research program is determine the feasibility of building an airship capable of carrying 500 short tons (450 metric tons) of payload a distance of 12,000 miles (20,000 km) and land on an unimproved location without the use of external ballast or ground equipment (e.g. masts.)
Fiction
Airships were a popular theme in scientific romance (prototypical science fiction) and adventure fiction published in the late 19th century and the earliest years of the 20th century. The theme of aeronautical exploration was most famously explored in this period by Jules Verne (The Clipper of the Clouds) and H. G. Wells (The War in the Air).
After the invention of the airplane, airships were largely forgotten by mainstream fiction, and today appear mainly in historical fiction and alternate history (particularly the steampunk genre and the work of Michael Moorcock, most notably The Warlord of the Air). In his "Anome" trilogy (The Anome aka The Faceless Man, The Brave Free Men, and The Asutra), Jack Vance depicts a system of airships tethered to unmanned monorail dolleys which keep them on fixed courses.
In Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass), which takes place in a parallel universe, airships are the only method of air travel. Airships' strengths and weaknesses are well portrayed in these novels: their great lifting capacity makes them valuable for transporting supplies and soldiers, but they are easily destroyed.
In Theodore Judson's post-apocalyptic Fitzpatrick's War, the neo-feudal Yukon Confederacy makes heavy use of airships as military and civilian transports.
Kim Stanley Robinson in his Mars Trilogy envisages rigid airships being used as a major form of transport for the emerging settlements of Mars.
Kenneth Oppel's novel Airborn, a young adult adventure set in an alternate history in which airship travel is common, won the 2004 Governor General's Award for children's literature. www.airborn.ca. There is also a sequel, Skybreaker.
In Philip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles , which takes place in the distant future, airships are the primary form of travel because of the mobile nature of cities in the books. In the series, it is mentioned that airship technology had advanced beyond the imaginations of the "Ancients". Airships include freighters, sky yachts, fighter airships and immense air destroyers.
In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series the airship is a significant and popular form of transport.
David Brin's 1990 Hugo nominated near-future, post global-warming science fiction novel, "Earth" (set in 2038), portrays a future where there is regular use of airships for passenger transportation.
China Miéville's Bas Lag novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council) feature airships ("dirigibles") as a common mode of transport; they are used as taxis and military scouts. The Scar featured two large war airships controlled by the pirate city of Armada: The Arrogance (a captured New Crobuzon airship used as a crow's nest) and the Trident.
Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld novels feature a giant rigid and several non-rigid airships which are used to reach the north pole of the Riverworld
More than a few video games, such as Crimson Skies, Skies of Arcadia and the Final Fantasy series, utilize airships in their fictional worlds as a major mode of transportation. (In some cases (most notably in the Final Fantasy series), the "airship" is actually a ship with wings, propellers, etc..) Also, in Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, the Soviets' most lethal conventional weapons are their extremely tough but slow Kirov Airships, which drop incredibly powerful bombs.
The anime television series Last Exile centers around airships, which are the primary weapon of war between the two rival nations Anatoray and Disith. These airships are given lighter-than-air qualities by an exotic anti-gravity technology, bestowed on the humans of this alternate world by the mysterious Guild.
See also
- List of airship accidents
- List of Zeppelins
- Zeppelin
- Schütte-Lanz
- Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement
- Stratellite
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References
- Rich Archbold and Ken Marshall,Hindenberg, an Illustrated History, 1994 ISBN 0446517844
- William F. Althoff , USS Los Angeles: The Navy's Venerable Airship and Aviation Technology , 2003, ISBN 1574886207
- Peter Brooks , Zeppelin: Rigid Airships 1893-1940 , 2004, ISBN 0851778453
- Charles P. Burgess, Airship Design, (1927) 2004 ISBN 1410211738
- Wilbur Cross, Disaster at the Pole, 2002 ISBN 1-58574-496-4
- Arthur Frederick et al., Airship saga: The history of airships seen through the eyes of the men who designed, built, and flew them , 1982, ISBN 0713710012
- Manfred Griehl and Joachim Dressel, Zeppelin! The German Airship Story, 1990 ISBN 1-85409-045-3
- Gabriel Alexander Khoury (Editor), Airship Technology (Cambridge Aerospace Series) , 2004, ISBN 0521607531
- Alexander McKee, Ice crash, 1980, ISBN 0312403828
- Andrzej Morgała, Sterowce w II Wojnie Światowej (Airships in the Second World War), Lotnictwo, 1992
- Ces Mowthorpe, Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War, 1995 ISBN 0905-778-138
- US War Department , Airship Aerodynamics: Technical Manual, (1941) 2003 , ISBN 1410206149
- Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik, Jane's Pocket Book 7 - Airship Development, 1976 ISBN 0356-04656-7
External links
General
- Airship Home Page - Provides a list of airship related websites. Also contains airship mailing list.
- Airship and Blimp Resources - This site focuses more on how to build your own airship with a particular focus on hot air airships (a.k.a "hotships")
- Airships Mailing List - A forum for the discussion and design of lighter-than-air craft.
Associations
- The Airship Association - British based association for people interested in all things to do with airships.
- Lighter than Air Society - US based association for people interested in all things to do with airships.
- The Association of Balloon and Airship Constructors - Maintains an extensive technical library on airship technology old and new.
Historical
- Navy Lakehurst Historical Society - airship history with a focus on activities at the historically most active airship base in the US.
- Airships Online - website of the Airships Heritage Trust. It contains an extensive history relating British Airships from 1900 to the present day.
- US Navy Airship History
- Ferdinand von Zeppelin, US 621,195 Patent, "Navigable Ballon". March 14, 1899.
- Harold G. Dick Airship Collection - biography of Harold G. Dick
- Postcards from Harold G. Dick Airship Collection
- The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships: The Collection of Harold G. Dick
- US Centennial of Flight Commission
Manufacturers and commercial operators
- Airship Association Net Links Page for a comprehensive list of companies throughout the world focusing on the development of airships.
- American Blimp Corporation In association with The Lightships Group, this company builds and operates the world's largest fleet of airships.
- GEFA-FLUG GmbH - The Air Company -- makers of hot air airships
- Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH -- The Zeppelin Company and the Zeppelin NT.
- The Goodyear Blimps -- The most famous modern airships. These aircraft are owned and operated by the Lockheed Martin Corporation.
- Airship Management Services -- Operators of several type-certified airships including the Fuji Blimp. These aircraft were originally built by the Westinghouse Corporation with the designation Skyship 600. They also own and operate a sightseeing airship in Switzerland under the name Skycruiser Switzerland
- Cameron Airships -- Hot air airships manufactured by Cameron Balloon - the world's largest manufacturer of hot air balloons.
- Lindstrand Airships - Hot air airships manufactured by hot air balloon company Lindsrand - a subsidiary of Cameron Balloon.
- Augur Aerostatic Systems -- Russian company making both gas and hot air airships
Experiments, prototypes and one-offs
- 21st Century Airships Inc. Developers of spherical, finless airships. From June 12, 2003 until December 13, 2004, a 21st Century Airship craft held the absolute FAI altitude record for airships of 6,234 m (20,450 ft).
- Aeros Corporation - In addition to producing several small airships, this company is one of the winners of Phase I funding from DARPA for Project WALRUS.
- USA Airships
- White Dwarf - A small, human-powered airship
- Zeppy - Human powered airship -- website in French.
- Voliris -- French company that has built a small 2 person ship
Designs under development
- Lockheed-Martin HAA Project
- Sanswire Stratellite
- Dynalifter
- Advanced Technologies Group Until August of 2005, when it went into receivership, this company was developing a range of products such as UAV's - Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, heavier-than-air airships and HAPS' - High Altitude Platform Stations for telecommunication.
Proposed designs
- Vertical Airships
- Airship Holland
- Nagy High Speed Airship
- Millennium Airship
- Quantum Aerostatics
- Hybrid Aircraft Corporation
- Advanced Hybrid Aircraft
Wikipedia-Article "Balloons"
A balloon is a flexible bag normally filled with gas. Some balloons are purely decorative, others are used for specific purposes. Early balloons were made of dried animal bladders. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, chloroprene or a nylon fabric.
Contents |
Usage of balloons
- small balloons (volume of a few litres)
- toy balloon
- decoration
- solar balloon
- balloon mail as part of a balloon flight competition or to spread information
- Balloon helicopter
- Demonstration of rocket propulsion by letting the gas stream away (balloon rocket)
- Ceiling balloon
- medium balloons (volume of hundreds to thousands of litres)
- transport of bombs (in World War II, FUGU-Balloon)
- transport of propaganda (in World War II and in the Cold War)
- Ceiling balloon
- Weather balloon used with a Radiosonde
- as fixed balloon
- for carrying advertising signs
- to carry antennae for LF and VLF
- party balloon
- large balloons (volume up to 12000 cubic metres)
- fixed balloon
- as manned observation post (before World War II)
- barrage balloon
- observation balloon for military reconnaissance
- positioning atomic bombs for bomb tests in the atmosphere
- free flying balloons
- lifting people, usually with a hot air balloon
- airship actually a buoyant aircraft rather than a balloon
- research balloon with instrumentation, also to carry telescopes
- rockoon
- balloon satellite for space research.
- espionage balloon for military reconnaissance
- fixed balloon
Balloons as flying machines
Large balloons filled with hot air or buoyant gas have been used as flying machines since the 18th century. See Balloon (aircraft) and Hot air balloon
Such balloons, which lift a payload using buoyancy, should not be confused with balloons in space, launched with a rocket, which are simply large deployable structures.
Balloons are sometimes used in form of a rockoon as carrier for rockets.
Examples:
- Echo satellite
- Decoys accompanying ICBMs in midcourse, see also countermeasure
Balloons as decoration or entertainment
Party balloons are mostly made of natural