![]() The engines may be mounted in the gondola or elsewhere off the envelope. The two main parts of an airship are its gas-containing envelope and a gondola or similar structure slung beneath and containing crew and other equipment. US Navy airships and balloons, 1931: in the background, ZR-3, in front of it, (l to r) J-3 or 4, K-1, ZMC-2, in front of them, "Caquot" observation balloon, and in foreground free balloons used for training. ClassificationĪirships are classified, according to their method of construction, into rigid, semi-rigid and non-rigid types. In modern common usage, the terms zeppelin and airship are used interchangeably for any type of rigid airship. In technical usage, rigid airship is the term used for all aircraft of this type, with Zeppelin referring only to aircraft of that manufacture. The initials LZ, for Luftschiff Zeppelin (German for "Zeppelin airship"), usually prefixed their craft's serial identifiers. The term zeppelin is a genericized trademark which originally referred to airships manufactured by the German Zeppelin Company, built and operated the first rigid airships in the early years of the twentieth century. 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. In American usage it refers specifically to a non-rigid type of dirigible balloon or airship. DirigibleĪirships were originally called dirigible balloons from the Latin dirigere, meaning to direct or steer. The term aerostat has also been used to indicate a tethered or moored balloon as opposed to a free-floating balloon. AerostatĪn aerostat is an aircraft which remain aloft using buoyancy or static lift, as opposed to the aerodyne which obtains lift by moving through the air. Nowadays the term "airship" is used only for powered, dirigible balloons, with sub-types being classified as rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid. In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to "ships of the air," with smaller passenger types as "Air yachts." In the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as "ships of the air" or "flying-ships". 7 Comparison with heavier-than-air aircraftĭuring 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.From the 1960s, helium airships have been used in applications where the ability to hover in one place for an extended period outweighs the need for speed and manoeuvrability such as advertising, tourism, camera platforms, geological surveys, and aerial observation. Their decline was accelerated by a series of high-profile accidents, including the 1930 crash and burning of British R101 in France, the 1933 storm-related crash of the USS Akron and the 1937 burning of the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg. Īirships were the first aircraft capable of controlled powered flight, and were most commonly used before the 1940s, but their use decreased over time as their capabilities were surpassed by those of aeroplanes. As a result, all rigid airships are sometimes called zeppelins. Rigid airships were first flown by Count Zeppelin and the vast majority of rigid airships built were manufactured by the firm he founded. Rigid airships have an outer structural framework which maintains the shape and carries all structural loads, while the lifting gas is contained in one or more internal gas bags or cells. ![]() Semi-rigid airships maintain the envelope shape by internal pressure, but have some form of supporting structure, such as a fixed keel, attached to it. Non-rigid airships, often called "blimps", rely on internal pressure to maintain the shape of the airship. The main types of airship are non-rigid, semi-rigid, and rigid. An airship also has engines and crew and/or payload accommodation, typically housed in one or more "gondolas" suspended below the envelope. The envelope of an airship may form a single gas bag, or may contain a number of internal gas-filled cells. ![]() Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while helium was only used for airships by the United States. Helium gas has almost the same lifting capacity and is not flammable, unlike hydrogen, but is rare and relatively expensive. In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability. Dirigible airships compared with related aerostats, from a turn-of-the-20th-century encyclopedia
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