The airship (from the French diriger - “control”) is a self-propelled aircraft, lighter than air. We will tell about his history and ways to build this aircraft himself later in the article.
Structural elements
There are three main types of airships: soft, semi-rigid and hard. All of them consist of four main parts:
- cigar-shaped shell or balloon filled with gas, the density of which is less than the density of air;
- cockpit or gondola suspended under the shell, used to transport crew and passengers;
- propeller propulsion engines;
- horizontal and vertical rudders to help direct the airship.
What is a soft airship? This is a balloon with a cabin attached to it using ropes. If gas is released, the shell will lose its shape.
A semi-rigid airship (photo of it is given in the article) also depends on the internal pressure, which maintains its shape, but it still has a structural metal keel, which runs longitudinally along the base of the balloon and supports the cockpit.
Rigid airships consist of a lightweight aluminum alloy frame covered in fabric. Sealed, they are not. Inside this structure there are several balloons, each of which can be separately filled with gas. Aircraft of this type retain their shape, regardless of the degree of fullness of the cylinders.
What gases are used?
Typically, hydrogen and helium are used to lift airships. Hydrogen is the lightest known gas and, therefore, has a large payload. However, it is flammable, which has caused many fatal disasters. Helium is not so light, but much safer, since it does not burn.
The gas-containing balloons of the early airships were made of cotton fabric impregnated with rubber, which was eventually replaced by synthetic fabrics such as neoprene and lavsan.
History of creation
The first successful airship was built in 1852 in France by Henri Giffard. He created a 160-kilogram steam engine capable of developing a capacity of 3 liters. with., which was enough to propel a large propeller at a speed of 110 revolutions per minute. In order to increase the weight of the power plant, he filled a 44-meter balloon with hydrogen and, starting from the Paris hippodrome, flew at a speed of 10 km / h, covering a distance of about 30 km.
In 1872, the German engineer Paul Jaenlein first installed and used an internal combustion engine on the airship, the fuel for which was gas from a cylinder.
In 1883, the French Albert and Gaston Tissandier were the first to successfully operate an aerostat driven by an electric motor.
The first rigid airship with an aluminum sheet body was built in Germany in 1897.
Alberto Santos-Dumont, a native of Brazil who lived in Paris, set a number of records for a series of 14 non-rigid airships built by him from 1898 to 1905 driven by internal combustion engines.
Count von Zeppelin
The most successful operator of rigid balloons with a motor was the German Ferdinand Count von Zeppelin, who built his first airship in 1900 . What is the LZ-1? The Luftschiff Zeppelin, or Zeppelin’s aircraft, is a technically sophisticated ship, 128 meters long and 11.6 meters in diameter, made of an aluminum frame consisting of 24 longitudinal beams connected by 16 transverse rings and driven by two engines with power 16 l with.
The aircraft could reach speeds of up to 32 km / h. The count continued to improve the design during World War I, when many of his airships (called zeppelins) were used to bombard Paris and London. Aircraft of this type were also used by the Allies during World War II, mainly for anti-submarine patrols.
In the 20s and 30s of the last century, construction of airships continued in Europe and the United States. In July 1919, the British aircraft R-34 made a transatlantic flight twice.
Conquering the North Pole
In 1926, the Italian semi-rigid airship (photo in the article) “Norway” was successfully used by Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and General Umberto Nobile to explore the North Pole. The next expedition, already on another aircraft, was headed by Umberto Nobile.
In total, he planned to make 5 flights, but the airship built in 1924 crashed in 1928. The operation to return the polar explorers took more than 49 days, during which 9 rescuers died, including Amundsen.
What was the airship of 1924 called? The fourth N-series air transport , designed and built at the Umberto Nobile factory in Rome, is called Italy.
Heyday
In 1928, the German balloonist Hugo Eckener built the airship “Count Zeppelin”. Prior to decommissioning, nine years later, he completed 590 flights, including 144 transoceanic crossings. In 1936, Germany opened regular transatlantic passenger services at the Hindenburg.
Despite these achievements, in the late 1930s, the airships of the world almost ceased to be produced due to their high cost, low speed, and vulnerability to stormy weather. In addition, a series of disasters, the most famous of which is the explosion of a hydrogen-filled Hindenburg in 1937, combined with advances in aircraft construction in the 30s and 40s. made this type of transport commercially obsolete.
Technology progress
The gas cylinders of many early airships were made of the so-called “goldsmith skin”: cow intestines beat off and then stretched. The creation of one aircraft required two hundred and fifty thousand cows.
During the First World War, Germany and its allies ceased the production of sausages so that there was enough material for the production of air ships, which were used to bombard England. Advances in fabric manufacturing technology, including due to the invention in 1839 of vulcanized rubber by the American merchant Charles Goodyear, triggered an explosion of innovation in airship building. In the early thirties, the US Navy built two “flying aircraft carriers” Akron and Macon, whose hulls opened, releasing a fleet of F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes. Ships crashed after falling into a storm, and not having time to prove their fighting ability.
The world record for flight duration was set in 1937 by the USSR-V6 Osoaviahim balloon. The aircraft spent 130 hours 27 minutes in the air. The cities that the airship visited during the flight are Nizhny Novgorod, Belozersk, Rostov, Kursk, Voronezh, Penza, Dolgoprudny and Novgorod.
Balloons Sunset
Then the airships disappeared. So, on May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg exploded over Lakehurst in New Jersey - 36 passengers and crew members were killed in a ball of fire. The tragedy was shot on film, and the world saw a German airship explode.
What hydrogen is, and how dangerous it is, it has become clear to everyone, and the idea that people can comfortably move under a container with this gas in one instant has become unacceptable. In modern aircraft of this type, only helium is used, which is not flammable. Aircraft, such as high-speed "flying boats" of Pan American Airways, became more and more popular and economical.
Modern engineers designing this type of aircraft complain that until 1999, when a collection of articles on how to build an airship called “Airship Technology” was published, the only textbook available was Charles Burgess's Designing Aircraft book. released in 1927
Modern developments
In the end, the airship designers abandoned the idea of transporting passengers and focused on cargo transportation, which today is not efficiently implemented by rail, road and sea, and is inaccessible in many areas.
The first few such projects are gaining momentum. In the seventies, William Miller, a former US Navy fighter pilot, tested an aerodynamic deltoid ship called Aereon 26 in New Jersey. But Miller’s money ended after his first test flight. The creation of a prototype cargo aircraft required huge investments, and potential buyers were not enough.
In Germany, Cargolifter AG came to the construction of the world's largest freestanding building with a length of more than 300 m, in which the company planned to build a helium semi-rigid cargo airship. What it was like to be a pioneer in this field of aeronautics became clear in 2002, when the company, faced with technical difficulties and limited funding, filed for bankruptcy. The hangar, located near Berlin, was later turned into the largest indoor water park in Europe, “Tropical Islands”.
Chasing Championship
A new generation of design engineers, some of which are backed by significant government and private investment, is convinced that given the availability of new technologies and new materials, society will benefit from the construction of airships. In March last year, the US House of Representatives organized a meeting on this type of air transport, the purpose of which was to accelerate the process of their development.
In recent years, the development of airships involved aerospace heavyweights Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Russia, Brazil and China have built or are developing their own prototypes. Canada has created designs for several aircraft, including the Solar Ship, which looks like a swollen stealth bomber with solar panels placed over the entire top of its helium-filled wings. Everyone is racing to become the first and monopolize the freight market, which can be measured in billions of dollars. Currently, three projects are attracting the most attention:
- English Airlander 10, Hybrid Air Vehicles - currently the largest airship in the world;
- LMH-1, Lockheed Martin;
- Aeroscraft, a Worldwide Aeros Corp company created by an immigrant from Ukraine Igor Pasternak.
DIY radio-controlled balloon
To assess the problems encountered in the construction of aircraft of this type, you can build a children's airship. Its dimensions are smaller than any model that can be purchased, and it has the best combination of stability and maneuverability.
To create a miniature airship, you will need the following materials:
- Three miniature motors weighing 2.5 g or less.
- A micro receiver weighing up to 2 g (for example, DelTang Rx33, which, along with other parts, can be purchased in specialized online stores, such as Micron Radio Control, Aether Sciences RC or Plantraco), operating from a single lithium-polymer cell. Make sure the motor and receiver connectors are compatible, otherwise soldering is required.
- Compatible transmitter with three or more channels.
- 70-140 mAh LiPo battery and suitable charger. To ensure that the total weight does not exceed 10 g, you need a battery weighing up to 2.5 g. A large battery capacity will provide a longer flight duration: at 125 mAh, you can easily achieve its duration of 30 minutes.
- Wires connecting the battery to the receiver.
- Three small propellers.
- Carbon core (1 mm), 30 cm long.
- A piece of depron 10 x 10 cm.
- Cellophane, adhesive tape, superglue and scissors.
You need to purchase a latex balloon filled with helium. A standard or any other one with a carrying capacity of at least 10 g is suitable. To achieve the desired weight, ballast is added, which is removed as helium leaks.
The components are attached to the rod using tape. The front motor is used to move forward, and the rear motor is installed perpendicularly. The third engine is located at the center of gravity and is directed downward. The propeller is attached to it by the opposite side so that he can push the airship up. Motors should be glued with superglue.
By attaching a tail stabilizer, you can significantly improve forward movement, since the lift propeller gives a small rotational movement, and the tail rotor is too powerful. It can be made of their depron and attached with tape.
The forward movement should be compensated by a slight rise.
In addition, you can install an inexpensive camera on the airship, for example, used in key chains.