Talk:Airship

World War Two Bit

The statistics shown prove absolutely nothing. The fact that less ships were sunk near the US coast is presented as a direct consequence of US airships patrolling. The fact that there were remarkable advances in other areas (convoying, fixed wing aircraft, escort numbers, radar and HFDF technology) is completely left out. Furthermore the "fact" that a blimp was responsible for the last u-boat sinking is wrong. First of all, it makes it sound as if this was the "last uboat" left to the Germans, which is untrue. Furthermore, according to www.uboat.net U-881 was sunk my the USS Farquhar, an escort destroyer, not by the vessels mentioned.

I don't know about the "last uboat sinking". But on the other topic, there were many reports from u-boat captains that they would submerge and leave the area whenever a blimp was spotted. Were blimps responsible for all of the improvement, probably not. There should be some strong mention of the other technologies that contributed. If you are knowledgable, please add something appropriate. But remember NPOV and don't dismiss the blimps' contribution completely. Blimpguy 00:03, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The submarines used in WW II had very short range underwater, extremely short if they operated underwater at convoy speeds or higher (if possible). As a result all you had to do was drive them down and keep them down until the convoy had passed.

There was no system better for that than a blimp operating in close escort. Airplanes were better at ambushing submarines on the surface, and destroyers better at killing submarines near convoys.

But the blimp was a potent means of rendering submarines little more than slowly moving minefields.Mark Lincoln 22:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I just added details to show the actual scope of blimp operations in WW II. The entire US West Coast, as well as the approaches to Vancouver, B.C. were covered as was the the North and South Atlantic from Newfoundland to Argentina. The entire Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. My primary source was: Vaeth, Blimps & U-Boats, USNIP.

Other Stuff

"Modern passenger-carrying airships are, by law, now required to be filled with non-flammable helium." --Whose law? Is there some kind of international accord on this?

The text isn't quite accurate. It's not so much that helium is required, but more that hydrogen is prohibited. The FAA regulations prohibit hydrogen for US standard type certified aircraft in the US. In Europe, the JAR regulations do the same thing. Blimpguy 18:57, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is redundant. The page for "dirigible" has all of the same information and is a more formal term. This page also has some information that is duplicated on the "hindenberg disaster" page.

This page should be reduced to just a reference to the "dirigible" entry.

Hi # 24.91.229.111. I saw you did that earlier. Are they exact synonyms? If so, you're right, we should merge. I reverted your edit earlier because the content from here needs to be merged by hand into the other page -- Tarquin 22:15 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

No, they are not exact synonyms. On the contrary, there are several types of airship that are not dirigibles - notably blimps and balloons. This doesn't have to mean that the airship page should not go, however. There used to be a page on airplane/aeroplane (which was frequently renamed back and forth as US English and International English speakers argued the term) and this was reduced to a redirect and the content incorporated in aircraft. Even though a simple redirect to dirigible is inappropriate, I think there is a case for treating this in the same way as we treated airplane/aeroplane. Tannin 22:23 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

<POV mode> yeah but that was just plain wrong </POV mode> Mintguy

-- Hmm. I believe that I merged the content before reducing the "airship" page. That said, I have never heard anyone in the business use the term "airship" to include balloons. The distinction between the propelled and non-propelled craft is pretty standard. Do you have a reference?

-- Ah, I see the confusion now. Tannin is confusing dirigible with rigid airship. In fact, blimps and rigid airships are types of airships. See the dirigible page for details.

I don't know enough about this subject to be sure what's what. However, having a large "tree" of links at the top of several articles is a bad idea. Is there one term which encompases all of these? If so, let's make that a "parent" article, and the others can say "a foo is a type of [ [ bar ] ] ..." -- Tarquin 20:12 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

-- I'm pretty sure of the classifications. So, unless I hear otherwise, I'll consolidate under "airship" since it is the common terms. The term 'dirigible' is a technical term based on a french word. So I'll leave a pointer from "dirigible" to "airship" with an explanation of "dirigible's" french origin.

The "See also" list was there when I first started working on this page. I'll try to make the "airship" page more conforming. Blimpguy Thu Jan 23 21:08:25 GMT 2003

I've looked this up; my dictionary agrees with you, digigible & airship are synonyms. Best to make D. a redirect, merge th econtent, and explain the alternative name here. I've rewritten the opener to explain the terminology, please check for factual accuracy. the rest needs a merge; I've just done a paste -- Tarquin 11:14 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

The Airship Association has long and wide experience of the use of the word 'airship'. It is by far the most commonly used word when talking about powered-lighter-than-air flight. This page should stay and links to other similar words, such as dirigible and blimp should indicate that 'airship' is the best term. Secretary - The Airship Association - 26th January 2004.

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Merge with Blimp  ? Airships tend to be manned. Blimps tend to be unmanned.--Jondel 07:27, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No. Blimps are a subset of airships -- specifically airship without rigid components. See the article for details. Blimpguy 20:28, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"The greatest number of airships in use during the Second World War were blimps used to form anti-aircraft defences. Thousands were put up tethered to the ground by steel cables to form obstacles to German aircraft flying on bombing missions over England."

These are barrage baloons, or aerostats, not airships Benvenuto 06:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

"American construction of airships for civilian purposes was halted in the 1930s by a series of fatal crashes. However, military development of airships was continued in the US."

Goodyear was building civilian blimps all through this period. several were taken over by the USN at the start of the war. What fatal crashes? Benvenuto 06:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

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This page and the page for the USS Macon have different figures for the crew count on the day of the crash. jdb 20:21, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

back to the airship term

There is one thing to consider, though most users will search for the term airship, dirigible should be a page unto itself because all dirigibles are steerable boyant craft (balloons), where-as airships also include heavier-than-air craft though that isn't common knowledge these days. The 747 is an actual airship and we should maybe note that difference in the two pages. Dirigible is the more acurate term for what we consider airship and though people say it is based on French it actually comes from a Latin term. The Italian, French, English, and Spanish terms are almost the same and derive from the origional term. I should look it up but not tonight (I think it was dirage). Anyway, I feel there should be slightly different pages for both airship and dirigible.

How one comes down on this issue depends upon whether one wishes to use the terms in their technical meaning or informally. Within the aviation field, the terms are (in modern times) always used as described in the article. There is a brief discussion in the article of the informal use of "airship" to mean all aircraft. There is also a discussion of "dirigible". Rather than making an entire "dirigible" article, perhaps you might want to flesh out the existing discussion(s). As for French vs Latin -- sure, the original root was Latin. However, France was the center of work in the field during the 1800's when the term was first applied. Thus, the English usage is usually described as being derived from the French rather than Latin.

Sounds like a good plan. I'll keep it on the stove for awhile.

I have been pursuing the history of aeroplanes, airplanes, airships and balloons for a lifetime. I have read a great deal of source material and the ambiguous use of "airship" to denote both heavier-than-air and lighter-than-air craft ended after the first decade of HTA flight.

Since WW I the use has been overwhelmingly unambiguous. "Airship" means lighter-than-air.

The slang term 'ship' for airplane remained in used through and just after WW II.

The B-747 is not an "airship." No matter how much hot air one pumps it up with.

The term "dirigible" describes an aircraft capable of being directed, or controlled. The origin of the flight related use comes from "dirigible balloon." Like "airship", "dirigible" was sometimes applied to airplanes before WW I, but rarely as far as I can tell. Before the war, and especially before 1910, people still had not yet decided WHAT to call all the the different things soaring overhead.

By 1910 the term seems exclusively used to describe LTA in the US.

For an excellent, albeit largely American, take on this, see Peterson, Houston, "See Them Flying, Houston Peterson's Air-Age Scrapbook, 1909-1910, New York, Richard Baron Publishing, 1969, LCC 73-88474. The book is a reproduction of the actual scrapbook, which allows one to see the source material as it appeared at the time. Very enlightening for subjects such as this.

As a 'final word" I will suggest that a "Chronology of Aviation" compiled by Octave Chanute in late 1909 shows his usage. He lists developments by "Motor Aeroplanes", "Dirigible Airships" and "Balloons."Mark Lincoln

I just dug up my copy of Jane's 1909 "all the world's Airships". Though the name of the publications is "Airships" the subject matter is mostly airplanes, and each nation's coverage is broken down into "Aeroplane" and "Dirigible" sections. I suspect that might be the most authoritative opinion we might ever have.Mark Lincoln 21:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that "zeppelin" is used in English only to refer to German airships (whoever the manufacturer, though maybe Zeppelin was the only one. In particular, in Britain the term generally refers to the military airships that were used as bombers in the First World War. In German, the term "Zeppelin" is the ordinary word for any airship. Escoville (talk) 16:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Up and down

Does anyone know how airships control thier altitude? The bellman 01:26, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)

Quick answer: They control their buoyancy. To go up, they might heat the lifting gas or allow it to expand. To go down, they might release some lifting gas or compress it. Finally, some airships use engines and a wing shaped body to generate lift, which requires that these airships have engines.

Blimps use large bags of lifting gas to stay up, and by compressing these bags they reduce their lifting power. Doesn't the article cover this? -- Ec5618 10:13, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

The "quick answer" above is wrong. It is a common misconception, but Helium-based airships do not change altitude by controlling bouyancy. Typically they fly a bit "heavy" and actually drive around using aerodynamic lift created by pitching the nose of the aircraft upward. When they want to come down, they just reduce power. The ballonettes inside the envelope are used only to compensate for changes in ambient pressure as well as internal temperature in order to maintain the Helium pressure within a very small range. Compressing Helium to change bouyancy is an very power hungry process (15 hp-minutes for 1 lb change in bouyancy) -- so nobody does it. The total lack of bouyancy control is what makes piloting an airship so difficult. In particular, if the ship takes off on a cool morning with full fuel and lands in the sunlight (heating the gas inside the envelope) and little fuel, the ship will often be "light". In this case the pilot needs to drive the ship at the ground and the ground crew needs to quickly attach sandbags or other ballast in order to keep the ship from floating away. An exciting event indeed. It is true that airships do carry some ballast and (particularly the "big rigids" of the last century) would adjust their bouyancy at the time of landing to reduce the excitement level. In fact, today the FAA requires that all airships carry suffient ballast so as to allow for "free ballooning" the ship to a safe landing should there be a total loss of enging power. However I believe that no operational airship ever adjusted altitude by means of ballast either (except Solomon Andrews and his Aereon back in the 1800's) Thermal airships (i.e. those using hot air rather than Helium) do control altitude by controlling bouyancy in the same way that a hot air balloon does. I guess I should add this stuff to the article at some point. Blimpguy 12:07, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You should definitely add your excellent explanation. It makes total sense. The gas only provides part of the lift, the engines and wings have to provide the balance of it along with the control (such as it is). Being almost-lighter-than-air sometimes, and actually-lighter-than-air at other times makes for inherent instability. That's probably why most of the famous airships ultimately crashed. Wahkeenah 12:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My sense is that the early airships crashed for basically the same reason that many early airplanes crashed. They were experimental craft in an era when there was much less known about aviation. Unfortunately, airships were so large that every accident made the papers. Early airplane crashes usually killed only one or two people and were thus less newsworthy. By WWII airships had evolved into robust, reliable machines. But it was too late. The early mishaps were deeply ingrained in the public perception and the technology was essentially abandoned after the war. Blimpguy 15:02, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's a good point. Even one of the Wright Brothers eventually died from a plane crash, as I recall. But planes, at least the big ones, almost never crash nowadays, whereas the lasting image in the public mind, whenever the term "airship", "dirigible" or "zeppelin" is used, is of the Hindenburg disaster. Wahkeenah 17:12, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, Wilbur worried himself to death over patent suits trying to stop everybody else (particularly Glen Curtis) from building aircraft and Orville died of natural causes as an old man. Orville did manage to kill one of his first passengers, an army captain he was training, in 1908. Lots and lots of pilots of early Wright flyers, as well as other early airplanes, also died largely because the aircraft were aerodynamically unstable. But again, the deaths were 1 and 2 at a time and so were never charactarized in the press as "catastrophes" the way that every early airship mishap seems to have been. The other issue at play is that it is easy to build a small airplane (anybody can make one out of a piece of paper or balsa wood) but hard to build a big airplane. The reverse is true with airships, big is easy -- small is hard. As a result, the first airships were hundreds of feet long and when something went wrong, the price was high in both gold and blood. Understandably, people quickly grew tired of paying that price and focused instead on airplanes that presented less dramatic risks. Blimpguy 15:46, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There was a famous incident caught on newsreel film, sometime in the 1920s I think, when a group was trying to tether an airship (maybe the Akron or the Macon), a gust of wind caught it, and three guys held onto the ropes too long. Two of them fell to their deaths because the balloon was too high by then, the third managed to hang on long enough for the ship to land again. I saw that clip on TV when I was in single-digits, and it made a strong impression, as you can tell.  :) Wahkeenah 12:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Controlling altitude on an airship could also be done by carrying ballast, such as water. To go up you drop ballast out of the ship, and to go down you release lifting gas.--Rob01

Some very early airships did indeed use this method of altitude control. However dynamic lift (point the nose up or down and using engine power to drive the ship in the desired direction) has been adopted by all modern airships (except thermal ships) as the preferred means of altitude control. Blimpguy 20:00, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that the German Zeppelins used this method (ballast and venting gas) of altitude control fairly commonly because hydrogen was a much cheaper lifting gas and could be vented at much less cost. The American Rigids tended to avoid venting gas to control altitude because they used helium which was much more expensive. In fact, the Aermican Rigid Airship program experimented (successfully) with water collection equipment (on the engines I think) to keep the ship's weight more constant and thus avoid venting gas as the ship got lighter (from fuel expenditure during a flight). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.204.2.121 (talk) 16:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The use of Ballonets

Ballonet are used not only to maintain pressure, but can shift the center of lift forward or backward. There have been single ballonet and they have not been notoriously successful (see USN J-1) There have been blimps with more than two ballonet, for example the Nan ships and ZPG-3W had four.

Unfortunately those editing specifications for blimps do not comprehend the importance of ballonets to blimp operations and delete all reference to them.Mark Lincoln 17:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Russian and Italian Zeppelins

"Airships using the Zeppelin construction method are sometimes referred to as zeppelins even if they had no connection to the Zeppelin business. Several airships of this kind were built in the USA, Britain, Italy, and the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly imitating original Zeppelin design derived from crashed or captured German World War I airships"

As far as I know... Italy never built rigid airships, only semi-rigids. They did take delivery of three zeppelins as war spoils. The first two were wrecked due to incompetant ground handling, the third "Esperia" (LZ120-Bodensee) operated sporadically until 1925. Russia never recieved or bult any zeppelins and built up to 12 semi-rigids based on the designs of Umberto Nobile in the 1930's and 1940's Benvenuto 09:29, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The US-rigids USS Akron and USS Macon werde build by the Goodyear Zeppelin-Coorporation. So they could be partially called "real Zeppelins". UK build several rigids (many copied from german Zeppelin and Schütte-Lanz-airships) and the German firm Schütte-Lanz too. In de:Liste der Starrluftschiffe (List of the rigids) should most rigids be mentioned. Hadhuey 09:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

All of this is true. But I think it probably belongs on a separate "rigid airship" article. The general airship article is getting pretty long and complicated. Similarly the "Airships in WWII" could also reasonably be moved to a separate article. Blimpguy 14:19, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The Italians operated two of three actual Zeppelins surrendered after WW I, The L-62 was operated as the Italia, which was damaged beyond repair in January 1921. The Bodensee, which was operated as the Esperia until 1928, and the LZ-120, which was renamed Ausonia, but was wrecked by the collapse of the hanger roof during a gale in June 1921.

Italy built a number of semi-ridged airships before, during and after WW I. Italian airships were operated by Italy, the US and Japan.

The Russians built a number of semi-rigid airships designed by General Nobile, who designed the last generation of Italian ships.Mark Lincoln 22:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to split up article

This article has grown quite large. It seems appropriate at this point to consider breaking it into some pieces. I suggest taking the detailed historical information and moving it to a separate article or articles on History of Airships and/or History of Airships in WWII. There would still be a paragraph or two of history in this article but most of the details would be elsewere. Thoughts? Blimpguy 14:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The article is not very long, 1/3 of it are references. I think a special article about the military airships would be useful. WW1 has seen many more Airships than WW2. Hadhuey 23:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is long. Some of the detail could be moved to new articles on a nation by nation basis. there is a lot of detail missing at the moment which doesn't sit comfortably in the existing catagoriesBenvenuto 06:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Helium in Eary non US Blimps

This article states that "In the early days of airships, the primary lifting gas was hydrogen", but the Hindenburg_disaster article states that "The Hindenburg was originally intended to be filled with helium", might sugest that the use of helium was not limited to the US .

What be the thoughts?

The folks at Zeppelin, in particular Eckener, lobbied hard to get Helium for the Hindenburg. At the time, the US had a near monopoly on Helium (which was a biproduct of some natural gas wells in the Oklahoma/Texas area.) But the federal government, in particular Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, were concerned about the potential military use of airships and were thus reluctant to provide the Helium. Eckener, et al went ahead with the construction of a helium-based design even though the weren't sure that they would be able to get Helium in the end. As it happened, they didn't. So, both articles are right. Blimpguy 16:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Dupuy du Lome

In the article, it says that Dupuy du Lome's balloon was used in the Franco-Prussian War. I couldn't find anything about that in the article on the war. Maybe I just missed it, but could someone give me some verification on that, and maybe a link to some info? Scourgeofsmallishinsects 15:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I double-checked. It was developed during the war, but only launched after, in 1872. I modified the article accordingly. Regards. PHG 07:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Turtle Airships and Half High Mile Club

This is about the "half mile high club" [1] that is linked from the article under as "Turtle Airships". I have browsed through the few pages that comprised the site and I found absolutely nothing credible about it. At best it's a commersial site (and those get tossed too)... at worse - and this is what I suspect - it is a scam site. user:Blimpguy vouces for the site but I remain sceptical. After Googling for "Turtle Airships" I found nothing other than a hotmail address and an empty webpage.

Befire this turns into a revert war, I want to hear opinions from others. My opinion is that the paragraphs that link to www.halfmilehighclub.com under the name "Turtle Airships" should be removed because the site 1) does not contain any informtion that is of value to Wikipedia 2) is not credible 3) is commersial, possibly fradulent.

What's you opinon? --J-Star 18:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you have good cause to be skeptical. And I appreciate you're starting a discussion before reverting. As for the topic at hand, while I agree that the Turtle airships site is a bit over the top, I don't believe that it can reasonably be characterized as fraudulent. I've met the prime mover behind this site, a chap named Darrell Campbell, once or twice at airship conferences. And, in my opinion, he's anything but a con man. He's a professional baker with a passion for airships. For many years he had a site at www.turtleairships.com. I don't know why he switched domains. (If you care, you can check out the old site at the WayBack machine at www.archive.org ) If the concern is that the site is commercial, then by that standard, we should remove the links to all of the manufacturers and operators as well as nearly all of the prototype designs. I think that would be a serious loss to the article. If the concern is that it is non-credible, then question becomes "credible to whom?" I could find you one airship "expert" or another who could make an strong argument that every single design listed in the article lacked credibility. I don't see any particular reason to pick on Turtle Airships just because their site is a bit more goofy than the others listed under "proposed designs". Like the other folks listed in that section, these folks have an idea and have given it some thought. Just because there is a link to his site doesn't mean that anybody is endorsing their work. But if there is a consensus to remove the link, of course I'll go along. No revert war from me. Lastly, to be clear, I have no connection with these folks other than as an observer of the field. Blimpguy 21:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Well... I have found as much: there is something called "Turtle Airships" and there is indeed someone named Darrel Campbell behind it... as evidenced by this DARPA document. However I can find no connection between Turtle Airships and "Half Mile High Club", can you? I don't think this guy Campbell is behind that site. www.halfmilehighclub.com is not credible is because it:

• Begs us for money.
• Has no real Contact Info.
• Has no verifyable facts.
• Has extremely poor design. It looks like something someone made up in the course of an hour with stolen pics and miniscule knowledge in HTML.

My (revised) opinion is that "Turtle Airships" can stay but that the link has to go or be replaced by a credible link. --J-Star 10:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I think the connection between Turtle Airships and the halfmilehighclub.com was made by the person who added the link and text initially. So I just assumed it was Mr. Cambpell. So I'm convinced. I'd remove both the reference to "Turtle Airships" since we don't know if this the same people as well as the link and text re halfmilehighclub.com pending more concrete info about a possible connection. Blimpguy 16:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. --J-Star 17:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Airship&curid=58005&diff=42132997&oldid=42049891

Called sounds right to me. David R. Ingham 08:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Either with or without "called" works I think. Blimpguy 15:07, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

WW2

Are there any stats on how many U-boats were sunk or damaged by airships? Scourgeofsmallishinsects 14:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe that no U-boats were sunk or damaged by direct fire from airship. I believe there was only one direct engagement. However, many U-boats were sunk indirectly when spotted by airships who then directed fire from cruisers and destroyers in the area. It was in their role as spotters that airships made their greatest contribution. Blimpguy 12:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

In WW2 I dont know any sunk u-boat by airship, but there were several situations where airships also threw water bombs or fired on the submarine (e.g. K-16 and K-58 with U 853; 6. May 1945). One airship (K-74) was sunk (shot down and sunk after emergency landing on the ocean) by the submarine U 143 (18.06.1943).

In WW 1 there were several fights between german submarines and british airships too. Hadhuey 20:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

And one ship (Norweigan, I think) was captured by a German airship, also in World War I. I don't have a reference for this at present. Willy Logan 22:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Airships in fiction

The Airships in fiction category of this article is getting disproportionately large. I suggest we break it off into a new article, Airships in fiction or Airships in culture. Any thoughts? Willy Logan 00:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. A separate section seems appropriate at this point. I'd also consider a separate section for Airships in WWII. Blimpguy 12:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Done. I chose Airships in culture so I could also include Led Zeppelin, etc. Willy Logan 22:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Neither section seems to exist at all anywhere anymore. What happened? The cultural ramifications of airships are important. (Elustran (talk) 23:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC))

Nagy Airships

The Nagy Airships page has pretty bad spelling/grammar. (ex:"Cruz ships). Are you sure it is real?

I'm not sure I can say that it is measurably less real as any of the other "proposed designs". Blimpguy 16:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Mooring?

Anyone know where these were moored in the alps?

Imperial Measurements?

Some of the measurements in this article are only in the Imperial System. Can someone please add metric conversions to these?

Difference?

What's the difference between a derigable, a zeppelin and a blimp?

These terms are described in detail in the "Terminology" and "Types" sections of the article. Blimpguy 17:40, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Inline citations

The GA criteria has recently been changed, and you may need to convert your references to internal citations. Because they all seem to be books, if nobody can actually find them and figure out whether they actually back up the information in the article, then i'm afraid there's no way to confirm whether or not most of this article has actually been verified, so this article may have to be delisted. Homestarmy 14:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Worldwide Aeros Corp.?

I know that the Aeros Corp. deserves mention in the article, because of Aeroscraft (which has its own article, natürlich,) and WALRUS, but do the appearance / placement of the various hyperlinks just added to the end of the article by User talk:24.199.11.182 strike anyone else (as they do me) as just a bit too "commercial"? --Eliyahu S ^Talk 23:37, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Possible early radical design?

In John Toland's fascinating The Great Dirigibles: Their triumphs and disasters (1972, Dover, ISBN 0-486-21397-8), a lightly-edited newer edition of his 1950's Ships in the Sky, The Story of the Great Dirigibles, he recounts the story of a US inventor circa 1860 whose airship was propelled by up/down tacking using its buoyancy -- even into the wind, without machine power! This airship was supposedly flown.

I would give more details but the book is not now available to me. --Wfaxon 08:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

You are no doubt referring to the Aereon invented by Solomon Andrews. It was also described in some detail by John McPhee in his excellent book "The Deltoid Pumpkinseed." I agree it should be added to the noteworthy experiments section. Blimpguy 15:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

proposed merge of non-rigid airship into airship

I think this is a bad idea. If anything, the airship article is too larger already. Merging in information from the non-rigid article, such as the discussion of the origin of the term 'blimp' will only make the problem worse. However, the non-rigid article is fairly small. The better approach would be to move some of the non-rigid specific information that is currently in the airship article to the non-rigid article. The non-rigid article could also use some clean-up and fleshing out of its text. Blimpguy 21:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

should create a new section on operations

The mention of ground crew in the opening paragraph raises in my mind the topic of operation in general. There should probably be a section on operation including discussion of ballast, superheat, ground operations, etc. I've left the point about ground crew in the opening paragraph until such a section is created (I don't have time now - others are invited to take the lead.) at which point it should be moved. Blimpguy 17:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Getting long

As noted above, in the response to a former proposed merge, this article is rather long. Its external links section alone is over 10K, and contains numerous commercial links that might be better suited for DMOZ than here. I've also spotted a couple of lines containing conflicting or redundant statements that I've tried to repair, but are there any others that might be reworked? MrZaius^talk 10:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

I recently purchased a book from a store about the history of airships. i think i know the problem with this article it covers every single point everyone of them be that those points have very little concerned with ariships anyway i think it should just expand on the necessary stuff like it says a sentence about Count Von Zeplin. I mean if he is considered the father of airships and you just put up a sentence for him. That's not fair don't you think so?--Missionimpossible 02:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I count over 30 references to him and his firm in the article, and links to separate articles for the man, the firm, and the ship. If there's a way to tweak what's already here to make it stronger than what we've got, go for it, but I'd be reluctant to increase the length of this article further per WP:LENGTH. MrZaius^talk 09:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry i guess i would do it but i am going to chicken out with that offer. but if someone else can i will provide the required information--Missionimpossible 22:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Rough edit of hydrogen / helium

I only had a short time so I made a rough edit for the details of hydrogen vs helium. I think its straightforward enough to include in the article; its a fact that can be demonstrated.

I also tagged all the things that should be cited; basically every sentence was subject to needing a reference, however if there is one source that can cover the whole paragraph just cite it at the end of the paragraph.

Sorry for the quick sloppy work, I'm outta time. - Davandron | Talk 23:33, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Would it be out of line to move the mathematical chunks to lighter than air? If I'm right to assume that the new bits here are applicable to other uses, it might make a lot of sense to generalize & post in a central location. MrZaius^talk 02:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thats a good idea, and then here wikilink something like "As explained in lighter than air, hydrogen provides only 8% more lift..." Great thinking, I'd say go ahead and do it! - Davandron | Talk 13:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Dirac66 03:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it could be imbedded into the article that hydrogen is being considered again as a clean source of lifting gas (helium is not bio-degradable or clean; it damages ozone layer). See this site for hydrogen ideas and this site for additional info on renewed use of hydrogen (see comments; do a quick-find on hydrogen) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.64.203.46 (talk) 09:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

more citations than a speed trap

Someone is unimpressed with the caliber of the references cited in the airship article. Someone thinks that more citations are needed. Ok.Mark Lincoln 21:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

That'd be me - Quite pleased by your recent work - Just moved the unreferenced tag to a couple of other sections where the tag was equally valid. MrZaius^talk 21:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll keep plugging on it. I have been cracking a few books lately and have not used them all yet. I'll try to pin down the critical points in each section.Mark Lincoln 23:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Major overhaul complete

The original author(s) had some things right and some stuff that was not. Pretty easy to do in a field where much of the 'information' comes from romantics and disaster mongers.

I hope that everyone is satisfied, the article is pretty well documented, and I tried very hard to make it dispassionate as well as thorough yet concise.

There was much going on in the inter-war period I did not address in any depth. Certainly one might argue Nobile's arctic flights and his efforts in Russia deserved a tip of my hat, but I felt that aside from publicity, there was little contribution to the larger story.

That was from Mark Lincoln, on 24 July 2007. -Ashley Pomeroy 00:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Review by Gadget850

In response for a review request: I have only a casual, but probably better than average knowledge of airship history. The content seems quite good. There are some organization issues that can be easily fixed and a few style issues. There are some short paragraphs that break up the flow of text. You might want to consult User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a for help.

• Lead needs expansion to fully cover the article; the definitions here aren't real clear— either expand them or remove them and leave it for the Terminology section

 Done--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 18:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Terminology and Types should be merged to eliminate redundancy; for example: zepplin is defined in each section; the Wictionary link belongs under See also or External links
• Lifting gas obviously needs cites
• Buoyancies of hydrogen and helium is overly technical for this article; move it to Lighter than air and make a simple statement in Lifting gas with a link  :: Done-- Dirac66 03:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
• History: Golden Age should probably be capitalized consistently as an era; the case for zepplin is mixed between upper and lower; don't use links in section titles; ship names should consistently be italicized; Second World War wanders into current day applications and should be clearly split; stray link to Hot air airship made by Gefa-Flug;
• Prototypes and experimental models and Proposed designs and applications should be merged up with Present-day research
• See also is a bit long— most of these could be worked into the article; for example, Stratellite could be worked into Present-day research
• Footnotes: There are some mixed in-line links, such as in the K-74 section that and at the end of History that need to be converted to footnotes; recommend the use of citation templates, although not mandatory it is considered a best practice by many editors and makes the references accessible to reference management software such as Zotero
• References: If it is decided to use citation templates, then these should be converted as well; there is a stray ISBN midway down
• External links: try to work these into the article; the {{dmoz}} template works very nicely for DMOZ links

Images:

• Recommend the free images use {{information}}, not mandatory but considered a best practice by many and it makes FAC a bit easier
• Image:Airship types.gif is very useful but problematic; either contact ThinkQuest and have it released under GFDL, or have an original drawing created; this is a non-free image that is replaceable and will get deleted upon any close examination; any replacement should be in PNG or SVG format; you can ask over at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab for help
  • [[[Zepplin]] has a very nice diagram: Image:Zeppelin diagram.png. You might check with the author to see if it could be expanded.
• Image:Saucisse caquot 1972.jpg— I'm not sure about that PD release
• Image:1918 view from French dirigible.jpg— needs description

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Article also has several very short paragraphs, sometimes only one or two sentences. Such very short paragraphs are generally not looked upon favorably. Maybe they could be combined into longer paragraphs where they are present today. John Carter 16:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Power required for fixed wing

I believe the section on power requirements is incorrect for fixed wing aircraft:

In airplanes, lift and drag increase together with speed, so that for a given lift the drag is effectually constant at any speed, and so the power required only increases linearly with speed until close to the speed of sound.

Parasitic drag, and thus power required, increases with the square of the speed, as described by the drag equation, not linearly as this text states. Autopilot (talk) 05:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Be bold! Correct the entry yourself. Binksternet (talk) 16:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to make sure that there wasn't something that I was missing... Any problems with my reasoning?

The volume of a spherical airship goes up linearly with lifting mass, so the radius goes up with the cube root of the mass and the wetted frontal cross-sectional area goes up with the square of that, or $m^{2/3}$. The drag equation says that the drag at a given weight and constant speed goes up with the same value. For a fixed wing aircraft, the lifting area of the wing goes up linearly with the mass, so the length of the wing goes up with the square root of the mass, but the frontal area only goes up linearly with the length, assuming a constant airfoil) so the drag at a given weight and constant speed goes up with $m^{1/2}$.

Practically, this means that to double the weight of an airship causes the drag to go up by 1.5 times, while for a fixed wing it only goes up 1.1 times.

Autopilot (talk) 03:37, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

All this makes sense, except "assuming a constant airfoil". Surely larger fixed wing aircraft do have deeper-section wings than smaller ones, and so the frontal area of these must also go up with the square of the length? --Richard New Forest (talk) 19:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Horizontal Movement

I understand how an airship moves up and down, but it wasn't clear from the article how an airship moves horizontally. E.g. does it have a gas-powered engine? Also, how far could a hypothetical modern airship go before it had to land? stealthymatt (talk) 01:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hypothetically, it would never have to land. It could be nuclear powered and/or supplied by transfers from shuttle aircraft. Binksternet (talk) 16:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear power is not a realistic option for an airship (or indeed, some might say, for anything...). What I think Stealthymatt is asking is how airships are actually powered, and what their operational range is. My understanding is that fuel efficiency, range and maximum flight time are all much higher than for fixed-wing aircraft of similar payload. It would be nice to have some discussion of these, other than buried in the descriptions of various stages of development. As for motors, I know there are some interesting and innovative motor designs under consideration (and testing?), including two-stroke diesels, double-ended cylinder designs etc. --Richard New Forest (talk) 21:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Energy efficiency

The cost of fuel for flying is now a major issue. What are the basic facts about energy efficiency, for modern heavier-than-air vs. lighter-than air flying, of goods and/or passengers? -69.87.200.75 (talk) 13:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Original research! According to [2] the 70,000 cubic metre LZ 126 traveled 7830 kilometre using 23,000 kilogram of gasoline and 1300 kilogram of oil, making about 290 kilogram fuel for every 100 kilometer. The problem was it had to sacrifice 24,000 cubic metre of lifting gas to stay static. Ignoring the wasted hydrogen, that is 370 litres/100 km or 81 Imperial gallons /62 miles or 0.765 miles per Imperial gallon (or 0.634 miles per US gallon). If one US gallon gives 125,000 BTU, the LZ 126 used (97.7 US Gall) 122,175 BTU, or about 122,000,000 Joules per kilometre.

I wanted to do a similar calculation for the 105,000 cubic metre LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, it managed a 11,246 km non-stop leg in 1929. The problem is, it used a mix of Blau gas and gasoline, depending on the journey and its payload. I cannot find how much of either it might have used, and also I cannot find the BTU of Blau gas. My wild guesses for Blau gas range from 800 to 1400 BTU per cubic foot, but it could be more. I'll assume 1400 here.

Let's assume it used only its 30,000 cubic metres of Blau gas to do this. So the Graf used 2.66 cubic metres per kilometre. 2.66 times 35.3 is 93.9 cubic feet. 93.9 * 1400 BTU is 131,460 BTU (138,690,300 Joules) per kilometre.

Those figures might be accurate to plus or minus 20% if I'm lucky. But the next problem is how to compare them with modern passenger and cargo energy consumption? Energy per tonne of cargo per kilometre? Per passenger kilometre? I leave that to someone else. -84user (talk) 11:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

A large slow moving airship must be more fuel efficient than a jet aircraft on a tons per miles per gallon (tonnes per km per L). We must get a nice chart with figures to put on this article. Compared aircraft must be in the same lift class (i.e. a 737 lifts X-tonnes; airship to compare with must lift the same). Jigen III (talk) 12:02, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Did a blimp ever actually sink a sub in WW2?

The World War 2 section is very coy about the blimps actually attacking submarines. There is a lot of talk of depth charges, and of one sub being damaged by one; but did a blimp ever actually sink a sub? (My default assumption, and I'll admit ignorance on my part, is "no, they were spotters".) Tempshill (talk) 05:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

After writing this, I troubled to read the whole discussion page and noted that above there's a statement that no U-boats were sunk, and there was only one direct engagement. It would be great if this could be added to the WW2 section - but I have no source to cite - does someone else? Tempshill (talk) 05:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

in popular culture

perhaps a "in popular culture" section can be made. examples of movies and games (mostly fantasy airships):

movies:

• The golden compass
• Stardust

games:

• Oddworld:munch's odyssee
• Crimson Skies series
• Sudeki

The Second Paragraph: Links Needed

The second paragraph mentions "several high-profile catastrophic accidents" but doesn't link them in any way. It'd seem like an appropriate place for 'em. The only one that comes to mind is the most obvious, the Hindenburg. Khono (talk) 06:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Airships and (Hot air) Balloons

Airships and balloons are known as lighter-than-aircraft because, instead of wings, they use a large envelope, or bag, full of gas or hot air that is lighter than the air in the atmosphere around it. The air pushes the envelope upwards, just as water pushes a submerged air-filled ball upwards. In 1783, the Montgolfer brothers achieved the first manned flight ever by sending a hot-air ballon over Paris. Balloons fly where the wind blows them; airships have engines and can be steered. Today, airships are used for aerial filming and coast-guard patrols, and ballooning is a popular sport. 81.152.126.122 (talk) 12:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I removed the following two sentences from the "Golden Age" section: They were popular in DC Comics during the comic "Golden Age". In most cases they were used by villains.

This section of the article is about airships' role in history, not in fiction; the passage above is not relevent. Skald the Rhymer (talk) 18:02, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

House airship

do house airships exist (similar to houseboats)? If so, include in article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.162.60 (talk) 08:48, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Found such a design, see the cloud city and cloud skippers proposal of studio lindfors (http://www.studiolindfors.com/work/speculative/index.html) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.171.164 (talk) 08:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

practical comparisions

well considering the US hedges heavily on oil, it is not viable ..or is it? ;)