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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.
The Giffard dirigible or Giffard airship was an airship built in France in 1852 by Henri Giffard, it was the first powered and steerable airship to fly. The craft featured an elongated hydrogen -filled envelope that tapered to a point at each end.
Giffard was born in Paris in 1825. He invented the injector and the Giffard dirigible, an airship powered with a steam engine and weighing over 180 kilograms (400 lb). It was the world's first passenger-carrying airship (then known as a dirigible, from French). [2]
Construction of USS Shenandoah, 1923, showing the framework of a rigid airship. A rigid airship is a type of airship (or dirigible) in which the envelope is supported by an internal framework rather than by being kept in shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope, as in blimps (also called pressure airships) and semi-rigid airships.
A non-rigid airship, commonly called a blimp , is an airship (dirigible) [1] without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of their lifting gas (usually helium, rather than flammable hydrogen) and the strength of the envelope to maintain their shape. Blimps ...
To win the prize, Alberto Santos-Dumont decided to build dirigible No. 5, a larger craft than his earlier designs. On August 8, 1901 during one of his attempts, the airship began to lose gas, causing the envelope to lose shape and making it necessary to shut down the engine, which also powered the ventilator which inflated the internal ballonet ...
With lengths of 785 ft (239 m), Akron and Macon were among the largest flying objects in the world and still hold the world record for helium-filled airships. [citation needed] They were just 20 ft (6.1 m) shorter than the German hydrogen-filled airship Hindenburg. Akron first flew on 8 August 1931 and Macon followed on 21 April 1933. The ...
Graf Zeppelin was the only rigid airship to burn Blau gas; [39] [40] the engines were started on petrol [nb 6] and could then switch fuel. [24] A liquid-fuelled airship loses weight as it burns fuel, requiring the release of lifting gas, or the capture of water from exhaust gas or rainfall, to avoid the vessel climbing. Blau gas was about the ...