Questions tagged [airship]
An airship, or dirigible, is a lighter-than-air powered craft typically using helium, or historically hydrogen, as the lifting gas.
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Is there an aerodynamic reason for airship fins to be at the tail?
I've read this interesting Stack Exchange question about why airships have fins:
Why do blimps have fins?
Which has me wondering why the fins are almost always located in the tail section.
After some ...
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Am I correct about how airships control their altitude?
I have read about how airships work, especially about how they control their altitude. Because what I understand from readings about the Zeppelin airships is that they were able to perform long range ...
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Would a sealed hot air balloon get more lifting at 20km+ of altitude?
So, the record altitude for a manned helium balloon is 40 km/25 miles/131234 feet, while the record altitude for a manned hot air balloon is 21 km/13 miles/68897,6 feet.
My guess is since the hot air ...
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Why do balloons no longer have nets?
In this 1944 documentary it is claimed that a netted balloon would work as a parachute when torn, other sources seem to confirm that. Disadvantages are not mentioned, nor can I think of any. Yet it ...
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Why can't blimps be economical for commuter / public transportation? [duplicate]
I dont know what the net load is for a blimp, but if they could somehow carry 100-400 people, why coudln't they be used like ferries in metro cities like SFO and NYC? Even if they could only scoot at ...
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Would the solid material inside an airship displace air and be counted towards lift?
The hydrogen inside an airship has a mass that is approximately 14 times lower than the mass of air and this difference results in lift.
However the solid material inside an airship including the ...
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Would atmosphere floating inside an airship be counted towards the mass of the airship?
Airships are filled with hydrogen. However as pointed out by Peter Kampf in the answer to the question below when an airship is on the ground only a portion of its hydrogen cells are filled with ...
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During WW1 Zeppelins began their missions with Hydrogen cells at 33% full. How did this provide enough lift to get off the ground?
During WW1 U Class Zeppelins had hydrogen cells that contained 55,795 cubic meters of gas.
According to Peter Kämpf's excellent, detailed explanation of Zeppelin mechanics they began missions with ...
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When an airship climbs the hydrogen in the ship's cells expand. Does this mean that when the airship descends the empty cells fill with air?
During WW1 a U Class Zeppelin had hydrogen cells that contained 55,795 cubic meters of hydrogen.
At sea level the cells were filled to 100% with hydrogen and this weighed roughly 4,500 Kilograms. The ...
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How does a hybrid airship take-off?
A hybrid airship generates lift from a combination of lighter-than-air buoyancy, and aerodynamic lift.
Some figures suggest that up to 40% of the lift comes from aerodynamic lift (wikipedia). So how ...
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Why aren't we using drone blimp/hybird airship for delivery? [duplicate]
Currently, the heaviest weight a commercial drone (the type that delivers Amazon package, not the type that delivers tons of stuff) can lift is 4.5kg with a 30-45 minute battery life. A drone blimp/...
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How are horsepower and standard displacement for a rigid airship calculated according to this book?
This is a follow-up based on a question posted here. I updated my initial question but came to the conclusion that a new post might be more manageable. For bibliographic reference(s) and/or getting a ...
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What are pro/cons of steam as lifting gas for airships?
I was reading Wikipedia page about hot air airship and another Wikipedia page about the first powered and steerable airship which was powered by a steam engine. So I ask myself "why didn't they ...
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How fixed air, gas and fixed weights in rigid airships is computed in this book?
I hope I am posting this in the right forum. My current problem is part aviation, part maths.
I have been struggling with the following computation ( Burgess, Charles Paine. Airship Design. Honolulu, ...
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Why does the zeppelin NT tail use 3 fins?
I don't if I use the correct vocabulary. By "fin", I mean the control surface at the tail of the airship. As a control surface, it contains a moving part.
As airship used to have at least 4 fins at ...
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What factors influence the maximum speed of an airship?
I'm interested in learning about the physics of airships; in particular, how you determine an airships maximum speed.
For example, the Hindenburg topped out at about 80 mph. The ship itself weighed ...
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Why don't nonrigid airships have multiple gas cells?
Nonrigid airships (blimps) differ from rigids and most semirigids in having the entire envelope form a single large gas chamber, rather than dividing the lifting gas among several redundant gas cells. ...
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Why was the Akron’s spy basket installation so remarkably unstable?
A spy basket (also known as a cloud car) is a type of airship appurtenance consisting of a streamlined one-(usually)-person gondola attached to its host airship by a long cable; to use it, the host ...
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Why was the Graf Zeppelin's endurance when fully fuelled with both fuels less than the sum of its endurances with each fuel separately?
The LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin used a unique dual-fuel system, with both a gasoline tank and a set of gas cells filled with blau gas; the airship could be flown using either fuel or both. The purpose of ...
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How much fuel did the N Class Navy blimp carry?
The Navy N Class blimp was powered by 2 Wright R-1300 Cyclone 7 radial engines and was able to cross the Atlantic and back again without refueling. How many gallons of fuel did it carry for a maximum ...
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Does Buoyant Lift Force scale with Load Factor?
Let's say I am flying an airplane that has a weight of 100,000 kg with a 1G load factor at normal steady flight. I have helium lift assist that is providing 50,000 kg (50%) worth of buoyant lift force ...
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Do ballonets control the buoyancy of a Zeppelin NT?
Ballonets are bags of air inside the lifting body of the airship.
I have read about Zeppelin NT, a semi rigid helium filled airship. It uses ballonets to maintain constant over-pressure inside the ...
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What is the ground clearance area required for certification for a blimp/airship that needs to be tethered?
Does anyone know how much ground space needs to be allocated for keeping a blimp/airship tethered? I assume it is likely a circular area with the diameter being (2 x total length) + safety factor.
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Could a blimp maneuver using a sail? [closed]
How do you build a sail for a blimp/hybrid airship and what would it look like? Similar to a sail boat how could a blimp maneuver without propellers? Can a blimp sail against the wind? Wind can travel ...
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What are the airworthiness requirements for transport category hybrid airships?
According to section 1.2 of the Airship Design Criteria (FAA P-8110-2), the FAA limits the applicability of airship airworthiness requirements to aircraft "capable of achieving zero static heaviness ...
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How exactly can an airship lose lift?
On this wiki page (under 'Comparison with heavier-than-air aircraft'), the altitude record of the L-55 Airship states:
The ultimate altitude record for a rigid airship was set in 1917 by the L-55 ...
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Throughout aviation history, what airships were metal clad?
Throughout aviation history, what airships were built with metal skin instead of fabric or other material?
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What was the mass of the Hindenburg?
What was the mass of a fully fueled Hindenburg (discounting any cargo other than fuel/gaz) ?
I do mean to exclude any lift provided by buoyancy.
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Why can't helicopters or Zeppelins drop fire-fighting material on burning buildings?
There have been a number of tragic cases where tall buildings have caught fire for various reasons, and fire-fighters on the ground appear to have been unable to reach the upper stories with fire ...
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What is the quickest way to get an airship rating?
I already have private pilot for single engine land with instrument and commercial ratings.
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Lighter than Air Rocket [closed]
So I was looking at old airships and a thought crossed my mind. Would a rocket that benefited from being lighter than air travel faster than standard rockets. I know the current designs are pretty ...
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Does any company (or country) still use Zeppelins or airships? Why not?
I just like them a lot when I see'em in movies and I was wondering, are they still being used anywhere? Are there any companies working on them?
If the answer is, as I expect, "Nope", I have to ask ...
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Airship design principles [closed]
Close your eyes for a second, and try to imagine you're designing this new generation Airship.
The above diagram is a simple sketch to bring it to life and make it more realistic.
Key
Blue ...
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What materials are used for the gas bags in hydrogen airships?
I heard that to construct a hydrogen blimp or airship, the gas bag must be coated with aluminium, which got me confused: doesn't it add significantly to the weight? Is aluminium really used, and is ...
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Can balloons be stacked in a climable daisy chain to the edge of space? [closed]
How high can a balloon/s be and still be tethered to the ground?
The most common problem was finding the calmest place on Earth.
The longest balloon chain is 20 km
Pictures below are basic ...
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Why don't airships / blimps use frontal stabilizers or thrusters?
Is there any reason why frontal stabilizers aren't used on blimps or airships to ease maneuverability in, e.g., gusty winds? Even the indoor blimps have a tail rotor, not the nose rotor for rapid yaw ...
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Would it be feasible to develop a dirigible-based refueling station for fighter aircraft?
The impossibly bad 2005 film Stealth featured a dirigible-based, mid-air refueling tanker station for the stealth fighters to use.
At first, this seemed like it might have been the singular good ...
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How would we calculate the load factor on an aerial vehicle while landing due to sudden gust loads?
In order to design the landing gear (wheels and suspension) of our model Airship, [say "m" kg -expected mass], I wanted to know, is there any way to calculate the loads which might be experienced by ...
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a single castor wheel as compared to 2 wheels in an airship?
I am working on a project to create a mid-size airship having a payload of 25kg. I am in a bit of problem regarding choosing the appropriate landing gear design for it.
Which design would be better, ...
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What is the difference between an aeroscraft and an airship?
I stumbled across this site when I was searching for info about airships. They have main three products - aerocraft aeroscraft, airship and aerostat. Aerostat is clear for me somehow. But what is the ...
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Longitudinal stability of airships: How is the critical speed defined?
Airships are unstable in pitch above a certain speed, called the critical speed. What causes the instability, how does it manifest itself for the pilot, and how is the critical speed defined and ...
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Could I build an airship (rigid dirigible) that used a vacuum rather than lifting gas?
There are other questions (c.f. What gas is used in airships to give them buoyancy?) that discuss the use of lifting gasses such as Helium and Hydrogen in airships. Helium is rare and Hydrogen is ...
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Why are airships not more popular?
There is this question but I am hoping for more general answers to why airships are not more commonplace.
The previous question does bring up the cost of production (mainly because of hi-tech fibers ...
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What gas is used in airships to give them buoyancy?
In the 1930s Zeppelins used hydrogen as the lighter-than-air gas to fill the envelope and give the ship buoyancy.
What kind of gas is used today?
Is it still as flammable as the Hydrogen from ...
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How do blimps control altitude?
If you have an airship filled with helium, how can you adjust your altitude? i.e. how do you "go up" or "go down"?
Even staying still would be a challenge: The way I see it, you'll never have ...
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