An airship, or dirigible, is a lighter-than-air powered craft typically using helium, or historically hydrogen, as the lifting gas.
Questions tagged [airship]
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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?
Mark Jones Jr.
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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 cells displaced roughly 68,000 Kilograms of air…
myNewAccount
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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 aerostat. I can't see how this airship would use…
Puzzled student
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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.
Antzi
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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 hydrogen.
During WW1 Zeppelins began their missions…
myNewAccount
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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 key difference between aerocraft aeroscraft and…
stardust
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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 frame, skin, walkways, gasbag material etc. would…
myNewAccount
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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 copy please refer to the linked question. Be that…
Sasquatch
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Why can't blimps be economical for commuter / public transportation?
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 60-100mph, they can cut clean across waterways…
user3638379
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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 does a fully laden hybrid airship achieve vertical…
ConanTheGerbil
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Lighter than Air Rocket
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 quick - something like 8 minutes from Earth's…
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Airship design principles
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 ellipse represents the balloon inflated with Hydrogen…
Ceddy Muhoza
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