blimps.... airships.... dirigibiles

[untitled]

According to Defination
Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft.

Since blimps, airships and hot air balloons are lighter-than-air aircraft therefore they are just a small part of the aviation industry according to the above definition.

Airships are or 3 kinds: Rigid, Semi Rigid and Non Rigid (Blimps)

A rigid airship is a type of airship in which the envelope retained its shape by the use of an internal structural framework rather than by being forced into shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope as used in blimps (also termed pressurized airships) and semi-rigid airships.

Internal structure of a rigid airship (USS Shenandoah)

Some examples of Rigid Airships

R34, British airship and the first aircraft to traverse the Atlantic Ocean from east to west, in 1919.

USS Shenandoah, American naval airship which served the U.S. Navy from 1923 until its crash in Ohio in 1925. The frame above is that of the USS Shenandoah

USS Los Angeles, German airship sold to the United States in 1924 as part of German reparations from World War I. The ship served with distinction from 1924 to 1931.

And the most famous of them all

The Hindenburg

The dining hall of the Hindenburg

Lounge room (Sure beats economy class )

And the famous photo of the fire

Contd..........................

 

[untitled]

Semi-rigid airship

O-1 built by SCDA, Italy, and the only true semi-rigid airship to serve with United States Navy (Can't find picture )


Forlanini airships F6

N 1 Norge, 19,000 m³, reached the North Pole in 1926

 

[untitled]

A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is a floating airship without an internal supporting framework or keel

Steerable ducted fans on a Skyship 600 provide thrust, limited direction control, and also serve to inflate the ballonets to maintain the necessary overpressure

Good year blimp

 

[untitled]

At 785 ft (239 m) long, 20 ft (6.1 m) shorter than the German commercial airship Hindenburg, USS Akron and her sister USS Macon were among the largest flying objects in the world. Although the Hindenburg was longer, it was filled with hydrogen, so the two U.S. airships still hold the world record for helium-filled airships.

Both served as a "flying aircraft carriers", launching Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters

USS AKRON
USS Akron (ZRS-4) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

USS MACON
USS Macon (ZRS-5) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Both were Rigid Airships

Picture of a parasitic fighter in Akron's hangar

 

[alimobin memon]

AT LAST A NICE THREAD!!

 

[untitled]

AT LAST A NICE THREAD!!

what do you mean by that ?

You dont like my threads

 

[fatman17]

its a nice historical thread having nothing to do with PAF - mods kindly move to mil-history or mil-forum section thanks

 

[untitled]

its a nice historical thread having nothing to do with PAF - mods kindly move to mil-history or mil-forum section thanks

Wont happen again

 

[untitled]

Dirigible (airship) terminal .... EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

The building's distinctive Art Deco spire was originally designed to be a mooring mast and depot for dirigibles. The 102nd floor was originally a landing platform with a dirigible gangplank. A particular elevator, traveling between the 86th and 102nd floors, was supposed to transport passengers after they checked in at the observation deck on the 86th floor. However, the idea proved to be impractical and dangerous after a few attempts with airships, due to the powerful updrafts caused by the size of the building itself, as well as the lack of mooring lines tying the other end of the craft to the ground.

 

[untitled]

Here is an article I found

 

[Chogy]

Airships are cool - amazing structures that really had just a very short life span, but for a while, they were thought to be the future of air travel.

While the Middle East has oil, the U.S. has helium, pretty much a monopoly on it. It comes from big wells in Texas and Oklahoma. Interestingly, it is made in the crust from radioactive decay...

Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements (thorium and uranium), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation.

I'm not sure why there isn't much helium in other parts of the globe. It's an interesting question.

I can see airships acting in a defensive role. Imagine the airship carrying GIANT planar AESA antennas - it'd have spectacular range and resolution. Now, pair the radars with a bank of AIM-120's or better yet, Patriot missiles. Reach out and touch someone! But the mass, and especially the power required, would call for a pretty large airship. And of course it'd be vulnerable.

 

[Donatello]

Airships are cool - amazing structures that really had just a very short life span, but for a while, they were thought to be the future of air travel.

While the Middle East has oil, the U.S. has helium, pretty much a monopoly on it. It comes from big wells in Texas and Oklahoma. Interestingly, it is made in the crust from radioactive decay...



I'm not sure why there isn't much helium in other parts of the globe. It's an interesting question.

I can see airships acting in a defensive role. Imagine the airship carrying GIANT planar AESA antennas - it'd have spectacular range and resolution. Now, pair the radars with a bank of AIM-120's or better yet, Patriot missiles. Reach out and touch someone! But the mass, and especially the power required, would call for a pretty large airship. And of course it'd be vulnerable.

Hi,

I remember i built a radio controlled blimp for GIKI all Pakistan science fair back when i was in my AS levels. We got the runner trophy at GIKI. I did use Helium and it is readily available in Karachi.

You can contact BOC (Dockyard Road, Karachi) and they happily supply Helium, Argon, Nitrogen etc. Back in the day we got Helium pretty cheap.......Rs 6000 for a 6 cubic meter of 99.9% Helium gas.


Navy also uses blimps for weather surveys, but they use the lighter, more dangerous Hydrogen.

 

[untitled]

Navy also uses blimps for weather surveys, but they use the lighter, more dangerous Hydrogen.

Are you sure they are not barage ballons ?

 

[Chogy]

Good stuff. There was a science fiction author who postulated 100 years ago, that the ultimate lighter-than-air dirigible would use vacuum tanks to provide lift. It's fantasy, but imagine a rigid balloon that you could pump the air out of... make a vacuum inside. It'd become buoyant, much more so that helium or hydrogen.

 

[untitled]

Airship revival

Barry Prentice, professor in transport economics at the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, says that airships are poised to make a huge comeback. “We’ve got to look for more fuel efficient, less polluting forms of transport, and airships are shining stars in that regard,” he says.

To start Prentice says cargo airships will likely have a 20-tonne lift capacity. But that could reach 150 tonnes as the technology develops. Once airships are big enough they will carry loads across the oceans more economically than airplanes. A trip from Montreal or Toronto to Europe might take anywhere from 24 hours to 36 hours, but it’s faster than an ocean-going cargo vessel.