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Airship

For other uses, see Airship (disambiguation). "Dirigible" redirects here. For the 1931 film, see Dirigible (film). Not to be confused with Balloon (aeronautics).

A modern airship, Zeppelin NT D-LZZF in 2010
The LZ 129 Hindenburg was the largest airship ever built and was destroyed in 1937.
Dirigible airships compared with related aerostats, from the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1890–1907

An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power.[1] Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air to achieve the lift needed to stay airborne.

In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability, but the inherent flammability led to several fatal accidents that rendered hydrogen airships obsolete. The alternative lifting gas, helium gas is not flammable, but is rare and relatively expensive. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while helium was only available for airship usage in North America.[2] Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air.[a]

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 gondolas suspended below the envelope.

The main types of airship are non-rigid, semi-rigid and rigid airships.[3] Non-rigid airships, often called "blimps", rely solely on internal gas pressure to maintain the envelope shape. Semi-rigid airships maintain their shape by internal pressure, but have some form of supporting structure, such as a fixed keel, attached to it. Rigid airships have an outer structural framework that maintains the shape and carries all structural loads, while the lifting gas is contained in one or more internal gasbags or cells.[4] Rigid airships were first flown by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin and the vast majority of rigid airships built were manufactured by the firm he founded, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. As a result, rigid airships are often called zeppelins.[5]

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 R101 in France, the 1933 and 1935 storm-related crashes of the twin airborne aircraft carrier U.S. Navy helium-filled rigids, the USS Akron and USS Macon respectively, and the 1937 burning of the German hydrogen-filled Hindenburg. From the 1960s, helium airships have been used where the ability to hover for a long time outweighs the need for speed and manoeuvrability, such as advertising, tourism, camera platforms, geological surveys and aerial observation.

  1. ^ "Definition of AIRSHIP". merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  2. ^ "Discovery of Helium in Natural Gas at the University of Kansas". National Historic Chemical Landmarks. American Chemical Society. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference ege was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Mowthorpe, C. E. S. Battlebags, British Airships of the First World War, Phoenix Mill, United Kingdom. Alan Sutton Publishing, 1995, p. xx. ISBN 0-7509-0989-7.
  5. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". EtymOnline.com. Retrieved 2016-09-04.


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