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Airship
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For other uses, see Airship (disambiguation).
"Dirigible" redirects here. For the 1931 film, see Dirigible (film).
Not to be confused with Balloon (aeronautics).

A modern airship, Zeppelin NT D-LZZF in 2010

An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft
that can navigate through the air under its own power.[1] Aerostats gain their lift
from large gasbags filled with a lifting gas that is less dense than the
surrounding air.

Dirigible airships compared with related aerostats, from a turn-of-the-20th-century

encyclopedia
In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting
capacity and ready availability. Helium gas has almost the same lifting capacity
and is not flammable, unlike hydrogen, but is rare and relatively expensive.
Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while
helium was only used for airships in that country.[2] Most airships built since the
1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air.[note 1]

The envelope of an airship may form a gasbag, or may contain a number of internal
gas-filled cells. An airship also has engines, crew, and optionally also payload
accommodation, typically housed in one or more "gondolas" suspended below the
envelope.

The main types of airship are non-rigid, semi-rigid, and rigid.[3] Non-rigid
airships, often called "blimps", rely on internal pressure to maintain their shape.
Semi-rigid airships maintain the envelope shape by internal pressure, but have some
form of supporting structure, such as a fixed keel, attached to it. Rigid airships
have an outer structural framework that maintains the shape and carries all
structural loads, while the lifting gas is contained in one or more internal
gasbags or cells.[4] Rigid airships were first flown by Count Zeppelin and the vast
majority of rigid airships built were manufactured by the firm he founded. As a
result, rigid airships are often called zeppelins.[5]

Airships were the first aircraft capable of controlled powered flight, and were
most commonly used before the 1940s; their use decreased as their capabilities were
surpassed by those of aeroplanes. Their decline was accelerated by a series of
high-profile accidents, including the 1930 crash and burning of the British R101 in
France, the 1933 and 1935 storm-related crashes of the twin airborne aircraft
carrier U.S. Navy helium-filled rigids, the USS Akron and USS Macon respectively,
and the 1937 burning of the German hydrogen-filled Hindenburg. From the 1960s,
helium airships have been used where the ability to hover for a long time outweighs
the need for speed and manoeuvrability, such as advertising, tourism, camera
platforms, geological surveys and aerial observation.

Contents
1 Terminology
1.1 Airship
1.2 Aerostat
1.3 Dirigible
1.4 Blimp
1.5 Zeppelin
1.6 Hybrid airship
2 Classification
2.1 Rigid airships
2.2 Semi-rigid airships
2.3 Non-rigid airships
3 Construction
3.1 Structure
3.2 Envelope
3.3 Lifting gas
3.4 Gondola
3.5 Propulsion and control
4 Environmental benefits
5 History
5.1 Early pioneers
5.1.1 17th�18th centuries
5.1.2 19th century
5.2 Early 20th century
5.3 World War I
5.4 The interwar period
5.5 World War II
5.6 Postwar period
5.6.1 Postwar projects
6 Modern airships
6.1 Military airships
6.2 Passenger transport
6.3 Exploration
6.4 Thermal airships
6.5 Unmanned remotes
7 Current design projects
7.1 Heavy lifting
7.2 Metal-clad airships
7.3 Hybrid airships
7.4 Airships in space exploration
8 Comparison with heavier-than-air aircraft
9 Safety
10 See also
11 Notes
12 References
12.1 Citations
12.2 Bibliography
13 External links
Terminology
Airship
During the pioneer years of aeronautics, terms such as "airship", "air-ship", "air
ship" and "ship of the air" meant any kind of navigable or dirigible flying
machine.[6][7][8][9][10][11] In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as
referring to "ships of the air," with smaller passenger types as "air yachts."[12]
In the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to
as "ships of the air" or "flying-ships".[13][14] Nowadays the term "airship" is
used only for powered, dirigible balloons, with sub-types being classified as
rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid.[3] Semi-rigid architecture is the more recent,
following advances in deformable structures and the exigency of reducing weight and
volume of the airships. They have a minimal structure that keeps the shape jointly
with overpressure of the gas envelope.[15][16]

Aerostat
An aerostat is an aircraft that remains aloft using buoyancy or static lift, as
opposed to the aerodyne, which obtains lift by moving through the air. Airships are
a type of aerostat.[3] The term aerostat has also been used to indicate a tethered
or moored balloon as opposed to a free-floating balloon.[17] Aerostats today are
capable of lifting a payload of 3,000 pounds to an altitude of more than 4.5
kilometers above sea level.[18] They can also stay in the air for extended periods
of time, particularly when powered by an on-board generator or if the tether
contains electrical conductors.[18] Due to this capability, aerostats can be used
as platforms for telecommunication services. For instance, Platform Wireless
International Corporation announced in 2001 that it would use a tethered 1,250-
pound airborne payload to deliver cellular phone service to a 140-mile region in
Brazil.[19][20] The European Union's ABSOLUTE project was also reportedly exploring
the use of tethered aerostat stations to provide telecommunications during disaster
response.[21]

Dirigible
Airships were originally called dirigible balloons, from the French ballon
dirigeable or shortly dirigeable (meaning "steerable", from the French diriger � to
direct, guide or steer). This was the name that inventor Henri Giffard gave to his
machine that made its first flight on 24 September 1852.

Blimp
A blimp is a non-rigid aerostat.[22] In American usage it refers specifically to a
non-rigid type of dirigible balloon or airship.[citation needed] In British usage
it refers to any non-rigid aerostat, including barrage balloons and other kite
balloons, having a streamlined shape and stabilising tail fins.[23]

Zeppelin
The term zeppelin is a genericized trademark that originally referred to airships
manufactured by the German Zeppelin Company, which built and operated the first
rigid airships in the early years of the twentieth century.[citation needed] The
initials LZ, for Luftschiff Zeppelin (German for "Zeppelin airship"), usually
prefixed their craft's serial identifiers.

Streamlined rigid (or semi-rigid) airships are usually referred to as "Zeppelin",

because of the fame that this company has acquired due to the number of airships it
produced.[24][25]

Hybrid airship
Hybrid airships fly with a positive aerostatic contribution, usually equal to the
empty weight of the system, and the variable payload is sustained by propulsion or
aerodynamic contribution.[26][27]

Classification
Airships are classified according to their method of construction into rigid, semi-
rigid and non-rigid types.[3]

Rigid airships
Main article: Rigid airship
A rigid airship has a rigid framework covered by an outer skin or envelope. The
interior contains one or more gasbags, cells or balloons to provide lift. Rigid
airships are typically unpressurised and can be made to virtually any size. Most,
but not all, of the German Zeppelin airships have been of this type.

Semi-rigid airships
Main article: Semi-rigid airship
A semi-rigid airship has some kind of supporting structure but the main envelope is
held in shape by the internal pressure of the lifting gas. Typically the airship
has an extended, usually articulated keel running along the bottom of the envelope
to stop it kinking in the middle by distributing suspension loads into the
envelope, while also allowing lower envelope pressures.

Non-rigid airships
Main article: Blimp
Non-rigid airships are often called "blimps". Most, but not all, of the American
Goodyear airships have been blimps.

A non-rigid airship relies entirely on internal gas pressure to retain its shape
during flight. Unlike the rigid design, the non-rigid airship's gas envelope has no
compartments. It typically has smaller internal bags or "ballonets" containing air,
however. At sea level, these are filled with air. As altitude is increased, the
lifting gas expands and air from the ballonets is expelled through valves to
maintain the hull's shape. To return to sea level, the process is reversed: air is
forced back into the ballonets by both scooping air from the engine exhaust and
using auxiliary blowers.

Construction

U.S. Navy airships and balloons, 1931: in the background, ZR-3, in front of it, (l
to r) J-3 or 4, K-1, ZMC-2, in front of them, "Caquot" observation balloon, and in
foreground free balloons used for training.
The two main parts of an airship are its gas-containing envelope and a gondola or
similar structure slung beneath and containing crew and other equipment. The
engines may be mounted in the gondola or elsewhere off the envelope.

Structure
[icon]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2016)
The basic structure of an airship may be rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid, as
described.

Envelope
The envelope itself is the structure, including textiles that contain the buoyant
gas. Internally two ballonets placed in the front part and in the rear part of the
hull contains air.[28] surrounding one or more gas-bags or ballonets within it.

The problem of the exact determination of the pressure on an airship envelope is

still problematic and has fascinated major scientists such as Theodor Von
Karman[29] over history.

Fins at the rear of the envelope stabilize the airship, allowing it to fly
straight. On some smaller designs these fins are themselves part of a gas bag and
gain their shape only when inflated.

A few airships have been metal-clad, with rigid and nonrigid examples made. Each
kind used a thin gastight metal envelope, rather than the usual rubber-coated
fabric envelope. Only four metal-clad ships are known to have been built, and only
two actually flew: Schwarz's first aluminum rigid airship of 1893 collapsed,[30]
while his second flew;[31] the nonrigid ZMC-2 built for the U.S. Navy flew from
1929 to 1941 when it was scrapped as too small for operational use on anti-
submarine patrols;[32] while the 1929 nonrigid Slate Aircraft Corporation City of
Glendale collapsed on its first flight attempt.[33][34] Both nonrigid ships
nevertheless had strong metal monocoque envelopes that, while they maintained their
shape uninflated, required an overpressure during flight.[citation needed]

Lifting gas
Early airships used hydrogen as their lifting gas, which is the lightest available.
Typically, hydrogen was generated during the filling process, by reacting dilute
sulphuric acid with metal filings. The first hydrogen balloon in 1783 used iron
filings, while the British Nulli Secundus of 1907 used zinc.

Later, the United States began to use helium because it is non-flammable and has
92.7% of the buoyancy (lifting power) of hydrogen. Following a series of airship
disasters in the 1930s, and especially the Hindenburg disaster where the airship
burst into flames, hydrogen fell into disuse.

Thermal airships use a heated lifting gas, usually air, in a fashion similar to hot
air balloons. The first to do so was flown in 1973 by the British company Cameron
Balloons.[35]

Gondola

A gondola fitted with twin propellers

The term "gondola" is used to describe a crew car of an airship, slung beneath the
centre of the envelope. These may be short, for cockpit and landing gear alone, or
longer to provide passenger space. Early gondolas were open structures slung
beneath the envelope, while later ones were enclosed and hung directly from the
internal framing. A nonrigid blimp carries all of its passengers within a gondola.
Rigid airships may have further passenger or cargo space inside the envelope. The
large airship Graf Zeppelin was noted for its distinctively short passenger
gondola, mounted far forward so as to improve ground clearance. The majority of
crew accommodation and cargo holds were placed inside the envelope.

Propulsion and control

Small airships carry their engine(s) in their gondola. Where there were multiple
engines on larger airships, these were placed in separate nacelles, termed power
cars or engine cars.[36] To allow asymmetric thrust to be applied for maneuvering,
these power cars were mounted towards the sides of the envelope, away from the
centre line gondola. This also raised them above the ground, reducing the risk of a
propeller strike when landing. Widely spaced power cars were also termed wing cars,
from the use of "wing" to mean being on the side of something, as in a theater,
rather than the aerodynamic device.[36] These engine cars carried a crew during
flight who maintained the engines as needed, but who also worked the engine
controls, throttle etc., mounted directly on the engine. Instructions were relayed
to them from the pilot's station by a telegraph system, as on a ship.[36]

While elevators and swivelling propellers provide fine control of altitude, larger
changes of height used to be controlled by either venting gas to lose altitude or
dropping ballast to gain altitude. Large airships typically carried several water
tanks fore and aft, allowing them to adjust longitudinal trim as well as height.
Some modern designs instead pump lifting gas between the gas bags and storage
cylinders.

Environmental benefits
[icon]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2019)
The main advantage of airships with respect to any other vehicle is of
environmental nature. They require less energy to remain in flight, if compared to
any other air vehicle.[37][38]

History
Early pioneers

Francesco Lana de Terzi's Aerial Ship design of 1670.

Crossing of the English Channel by Blanchard in 1785.

A model of the 1852 Giffard Airship at the London Science Museum.

The navigable balloon developed by Henri Dupuy de L�me in 1872.

17th�18th centuries
In 1670 the Jesuit Father Francesco Lana de Terzi, sometimes referred to as the
"Father of Aeronautics",[39] published a description of an "Aerial Ship" supported
by four copper spheres from which the air was evacuated. Although the basic
principle is sound, such a craft was unrealizable then and remains so to the
present day, since external air pressure would cause the spheres to collapse unless
their thickness was such as to make them too heavy to be buoyant.[40] A
hypothetical craft constructed using this principle is known as a Vacuum airship.

A more practical dirigible airship was described by Lieutenant Jean Baptiste Marie
Meusnier in a paper entitled "M�moire sur l��quilibre des machines a�rostatiques"
(Memorandum on the equilibrium of aerostatic machines) presented to the French
Academy on 3 December 1783. The 16 water-color drawings published the following
year depict a 260-foot-long (79 m) streamlined envelope with internal ballonnets
that could be used for regulating lift: this was attached to a long carriage that
could be used as a boat if the vehicle was forced to land in water. The airship was
designed to be driven by three propellers and steered with a sail-like aft rudder.
In 1784 Jean-Pierre Blanchard fitted a hand-powered propeller to a balloon, the
first recorded means of propulsion carried aloft. In 1785 he crossed the English
Channel in a balloon equipped with flapping wings for propulsion and a birdlike
tail for steering.[41]

19th century
The 19th century saw continued attempts to add methods of propulsion to balloons.
The Australian William Bland sent designs for his "Atmotic Airship" to the Great
Exhibition held in London in 1851, where a model was displayed. This was an
elongated balloon with a steam engine driving twin propellers suspended underneath.
The lift of the balloon was estimated as 5 tons and the car with the fuel as
weighing 3.5 tons, giving a payload of 1.5 tons.[42][43] Bland believed that the
machine could be driven at 80 km/h (50 mph) and could fly from Sydney to London in
less than a week.

In 1852 Henri Giffard became the first person to make an engine-powered flight when
he flew 27 km (17 mi) in a steam-powered airship.[44] Airships would develop
considerably over the next two decades. In 1863 Solomon Andrews flew his aereon
design, an unpowered, controllable dirigible in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and offered
the device to the U.S. Military during the Civil War.[45] He flew a later design in
1866 around New York City and as far as Oyster Bay, New York. This concept used
changes in lift to provide propulsive force, and did not need a powerplant. In
1872, the French naval architect Dupuy de Lome launched a large navigable balloon,
which was driven by a large propeller turned by eight men.[46] It was developed
during the Franco-Prussian war and was intended as an improvement to the balloons
used for communications between Paris and the countryside during the siege of
Paris, but was completed only after the end of the war.

In 1872 Paul Haenlein flew an airship with an internal combustion engine running on
the coal gas used to inflate the envelope, the first use of such an engine to power
an aircraft.[47][48] Charles F. Ritchel made a public demonstration flight in 1878
of his hand-powered one-man rigid airship, and went on to build and sell five of
his aircraft.[48]

Dyer Airship 1874 Patent Drawing Page 1

In 1874 Micajah Clark Dyer filed U.S. Patent 154,654[49][50] "Apparatus for
Navigating the Air". It is believed successful trial flights were made between
1872�1874, but detailed dates are not available.[51] The apparatus used a
combination of wings and paddle wheels for navigation and propulsion.

In operating the machinery the wings receive an upward and downward motion, in the
manner of the wings of a bird, the outer ends yielding as they are raised, but
opening out and then remaining rigid while being depressed. The wings, if desired,
may be set at an angle so as to propel forward as well as to raise the machine in
the air. The paddle-wheels are intended to be used for propelling the machine, in
the same way that a vessel is propelled in water. An instrument answering to a
rudder is attached for guiding the machine. A balloon is to be used for elevating
the flying ship, after which it is to be guided and controlled at the pleasure of
its occupants.[52]

More details can be found in the book about his life.[53]

In 1883 the first electric-powered flight was made by Gaston Tissandier, who fitted
a 1.5 hp (1.1 kW) Siemens electric motor to an airship.

The first fully controllable free flight was made in 1884 by Charles Renard and
Arthur Constantin Krebs in the French Army airship La France. La France made the
first flight of an airship that landed where it took off; the 170 ft (52 m) long,
66,000 cu ft (1,900 m3) airship covered 8 km (5.0 mi) in 23 minutes with the aid of
an 8.5 hp (6.3 kW) electric motor,[54] and a 435 kg (959 lb) battery. It made seven
flights in 1884 and 1885.[48]

In 1888 the design of the Campbell Air Ship, designed by Professor Peter C.
Campbell, was submitted to aeronautic engineer Carl Edgar Myers for examination.
[55] After his approval it was built by the Novelty Air Ship Company. It was lost
at sea in 1889 while being flown by Professor Hogan during an exhibition flight.
[56]

In 1888�97 Frederich W�lfert built three airships powered by Daimler Motoren

Gesellschaft-built petrol engines, the last of which caught fire in flight and
killed both occupants in 1897.[57] The 1888 version used a 2 hp (1.5 kW) single
cylinder Daimler engine and flew 10 km (6 mi) from Canstatt to Kornwestheim.[58]
[59]

Santos-Dumont No.6 rounding the Eiffel Tower in 1901.

In 1897, an airship with an aluminum envelope was built by the Hungarian-Croatian
engineer David Schwarz. It made its first flight at Tempelhof field in Berlin after
Schwarz had died. His widow, Melanie Schwarz, was paid 15,000 marks by Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin to release the industrialist Carl Berg (airship builder)
from his exclusive contract to supply Schwartz with aluminium.[60]

In 1897�99 Konstantin Danilewsky, medical doctor and inventor from Kharkiv (now
Ukraine, then Russian Empire), built four muscle-powered airships, of gas volume
150�180 m3 (5,300�6,400 cu ft). About 200 ascents were made within a framework of
experimental flight program, at two locations, with no significant incidents [61]
[62]

Early 20th century

LZ1, Count Zeppelin's first airship

In July 1900, the Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ1 made its first flight. This led to the
most successful airships of all time: the Zeppelins, named after Count von Zeppelin
who began working on rigid airship designs in the 1890s, leading to the flawed LZ1
in 1900 and the more successful LZ2 in 1906. The Zeppelin airships had a framework
composed of triangular lattice girders covered with fabric that contained separate
gas cells. At first multiplane tail surfaces were used for control and stability:
later designs had simpler cruciform tail surfaces. The engines and crew were
accommodated in "gondolas" hung beneath the hull driving propellers attached to the
sides of the frame by means of long drive shafts. Additionally, there was a
passenger compartment (later a bomb bay) located halfway between the two engine
compartments.

Alberto Santos-Dumont was a wealthy Brazilian who lived in France and had a passion
for flying. He designed 18 balloons and dirigibles before turning his attention to
fixed-winged aircraft.[63] On 19 October 1901 he flew his airship Number 6, a small
semi-rigid with a detached keel, from the Parc Saint Cloud to and around the Eiffel
Tower and back in under thirty minutes.[64] This feat earned him the Deutsch de la
Meurthe prize of 100,000 francs. Many inventors were inspired by Santos-Dumont's
small airships and a veritable airship craze began worldwide. Many airship
pioneers, such as the American Thomas Scott Baldwin, financed their activities
through passenger flights and public demonstration flights. Stanley Spencer built
the first British airship with funds from advertising baby food on the sides of the
envelope.[65] Others, such as Walter Wellman and Melvin Vaniman, set their sights
on loftier goals, attempting two polar flights in 1907 and 1909, and two trans-
Atlantic flights in 1910 and 1912.[66]

An Astra-Torres airship
In 1902, the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo published details of an
innovative airship design in Spain and France. With a non-rigid body and internal
bracing wires, it overcame the flaws of these types of aircraft as regards both
rigid structure (zeppelin type) and flexibility, providing the airships with more
stability during flight, and the capability of using heavier engines and a greater
passenger load. In 1905, helped by Captain A. Kindel�n, he built the airship
"Espa�a" at the Guadalajara military base. Next year he patented his design without
attracting official interest. In 1909 he patented an improved design that he
offered to the French Astra company, who started mass-producing it in 1911 as the
Astra-Torres airship. The distinctive three-lobed design was widely used during the
Great War by the Entente powers.

Other airship builders were also active before the war: from 1902 the French
company Lebaudy Fr�res specialized in semirigid airships such as the Patrie and the
R�publique, designed by their engineer Henri Julliot, who later worked for the
American company Goodrich; the German firm Sch�tte-Lanz built the wooden-framed SL
series from 1911, introducing important technical innovations; another German firm
Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft built the Parseval-Luftschiff (PL) series from 1909,[67]
and Italian Enrico Forlanini's firm had built and flown the first two Forlanini
airships.[68]

On May 12, 1902, the inventor and Brazilian aeronaut Augusto Severo de Albuquerque
Maranhao and his French mechanic, Georges Sach�, died when they were flying over
Paris in the airship called Pax. A marble plaque at number 81 of the Avenue du
Maine in Paris, celebrates the location of Augusto Severo accident.[69][70] The
Catastrophe of the Balloon "Le Pax" is a 1902 short silent film recreation of the
catastrophe, directed by Georges M�li�s.

In Britain, the Army built their first dirigible, the Nulli Secundus, in 1907. The
Navy ordered the construction of an experimental rigid in 1908. Officially known as
His Majesty's Airship No. 1 and nicknamed the Mayfly, it broke its back in 1911
before making a single flight. Work on a successor did not start until 1913.

In 1910 Walter Wellman unsuccessfully attempted an aerial crossing of the Atlantic

Ocean in the airship America.

World War I
Main article: German strategic bombing during World War I

German airship Sch�tte Lanz SL2 bombing Warsaw in 1914.

The prospect of airships as bombers had been recognized in Europe well before the
airships were up to the task. H. G. Wells' The War in the Air (1908) described the
obliteration of entire fleets and cities by airship attack. The Italian forces
became the first to use dirigibles for a military purpose during the Italo�Turkish
War, the first bombing mission being flown on 10 March 1912.[71] It was World War
I, however, that marked the airship's real debut as a weapon. The Germans, French
and Italians all used airships for scouting and tactical bombing roles early in the
war, and all learned that the airship was too vulnerable for operations over the
front. The decision to end operations in direct support of armies was made by all
in 1917.[72][73]

Many in the German military believed they had found the ideal weapon with which to
counteract British naval superiority and strike at Britain itself, while more
realistic airship advocates believed the zeppelin's value was as a long range
scout/attack craft for naval operations. Raids on England began in January 1915 and
peaked in 1916: following losses to the British defenses only a few raids were made
in 1917�18, the last in August 1918.[74] Zeppelins proved to be terrifying but
inaccurate weapons. Navigation, target selection and bomb-aiming proved to be
difficult under the best of conditions, and the cloud cover that was frequently
encountered by the airships reduced accuracy even further. The physical damage done
by airships over the course of the war was insignificant, and the deaths that they
caused amounted to a few hundred.[75] Nevertheless, the raid caused a significant
diversion of British resources to defense efforts. The airships were initially
immune to attack by aircraft and anti-aircraft guns: as the pressure in their
envelopes was only just higher than ambient air, holes had little effect. But
following the introduction of a combination of incendiary and explosive ammunition
in 1916, their flammable hydrogen lifting gas made them vulnerable to the defending
aeroplanes. Several were shot down in flames by British defenders, and many others
destroyed in accidents. New designs capable of reaching greater altitude were
developed, but although this made them immune from attack it made their bombing
accuracy even worse.

Countermeasures by the British included sound detection equipment, searchlights and

anti-aircraft artillery, followed by night fighters in 1915. One tactic used early
in the war, when their limited range meant the airships had to fly from forward
bases and the only zeppelin production facilities were in Friedrichshafen, was the
bombing of airship sheds by the British Royal Naval Air Service. Later in the war,
the development of the aircraft carrier led to the first successful carrier-based
air strike in history: on the morning of 19 July 1918, seven Sopwith 2F.1 Camels
were launched from HMS Furious and struck the airship base at T�nder, destroying
zeppelins L 54 and L 60.[76]

View from a French dirigible approaching a ship in 1918.

Wreckage of Zeppelin L31 or L32 shot down over England 23 Sept 1916.
The British Army had abandoned airship development in favour of aeroplanes before
the start of the war, but the Royal Navy had recognized the need for small airships
to counteract the submarine and mine threat in coastal waters.[77] Beginning in
February 1915, they began to develop the SS (Sea Scout) class of blimp. These had a
small envelope of 1,699�1,982 m3 (60,000�70,000 cu ft) and at first used aircraft
fuselages without the wing and tail surfaces as control cars. Later, more advanced
blimps with purpose-built gondolas were used. The NS class (North Sea) were the
largest and most effective non-rigid airships in British service, with a gas
capacity of 10,200 m3 (360,000 cu ft), a crew of 10 and an endurance of 24 hours.
Six 230 lb (100 kg) bombs were carried, as well as three to five machine guns.
British blimps were used for scouting, mine clearance, and convoy patrol duties.
During the war, the British operated over 200 non-rigid airships.[78] Several were
sold to Russia, France, the United States, and Italy. The large number of trained
crews, low attrition rate and constant experimentation in handling techniques meant
that at the war's end Britain was the world leader in non-rigid airship technology.

The Royal Navy continued development of rigid airships until the end of the war.
Eight rigid airships had been completed by the armistice, (No. 9r, four 23 Class,
two R23X Class and one R31 Class), although several more were in an advanced state
of completion by the war's end.[79] Both France and Italy continued to use airships
throughout the war. France preferred the non-rigid type, whereas Italy flew 49
semi-rigid airships in both the scouting and bombing roles.[80]

Aeroplanes had essentially replaced airships as bombers by the end of the war, and
Germany's remaining zeppelins were destroyed by their crews, scrapped or handed
over to the Allied powers as war reparations. The British rigid airship program,
which had mainly been a reaction to the potential threat of the German airships,
was wound down.

The interwar period

The Bodensee 1919

The Nordstern 1920

"Norge" airship in flight 1926

Rescuers scramble across the wreckage of British R-38/USN ZR-2, 24 August 1921.
A number of nations operated airships between the two world wars. Britain, the
United States and Germany were the only constructors of rigid airships, with Italy
and France making limited use of Zeppelins handed over as war reparations. Italy,
the Soviet Union, the United States and Japan mainly operated semi-rigid airships.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was not allowed to build
airships of greater capacity than a million cubic feet. Two small passenger
airships, LZ 120 Bodensee and its sister ship LZ 121 Nordstern, were built
immediately after the war but were confiscated following the sabotage of the
wartime Zeppelins that were to have been handed over as war reparations: Bodensee
was given to Italy and Nordstern to France. On May 12, 1926, the Italian semi-rigid
airship Norge was the first aircraft to fly over the North Pole.

The British R33 and R34 were near-identical copies of the German L 33, which had
come down almost intact in Yorkshire on 24 September 1916.[81] Despite being almost
three years out of date by the time they were launched in 1919, they became two of
the most successful airships in British service. The creation of the Royal Air
Force (RAF) in early 1918 created a hybrid British airship program. The RAF was not
interested in airships while the Admiralty was, so a deal was made where the
Admiralty would design any future military airships and the RAF would handle
manpower, facilities and operations.[82] On 2 July 1919, R34 began the first double
crossing of the Atlantic by an aircraft. It landed at Mineola, Long Island on 6
July after 108 hours in the air; the return crossing began on 8 July and took 75
hours. This feat failed to generate enthusiasm for continued airship development,
and the British airship program was rapidly wound down.

During World War One, the U.S. Navy acquired its first airship, the DH-1,[83] but
it was destroyed while being inflated shortly after delivery to the Navy. After the
war, the U.S. Navy contracted to buy the R 38, which was being built in Britain,
but before it was handed over it was destroyed because of a structural failure
during a test flight.[84]
USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) during construction, 1923

USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) beside tender USS Patoka February 1931
America then started constructing the USS Shenandoah, designed by the Bureau of
Aeronautics and based on the Zeppelin L 49.[85] Assembled in Hangar No. 1 and first
flown on 4 September 1923[86] at Lakehurst, New Jersey, it was the first airship to
be inflated with the noble gas helium, which was then so scarce that the Shenandoah
contained most of the world's supply. A second airship, USS Los Angeles, was built
by the Zeppelin company as compensation for the airships that should have been
handed over as war reparations according to the terms of the Versailles Treaty but
had been sabotaged by their crews. This construction order saved the Zeppelin works
from the threat of closure. The success of the Los Angeles, which was flown
successfully for eight years, encouraged the U.S. Navy to invest in its own, larger
airships. When the Los Angeles was delivered, the two airships had to share the
limited supply of helium, and thus alternated operating and overhauls.[87]

In 1922 Sir Dennistoun Burney suggested a plan for a subsidised air service
throughout the British Empire using airships (the Burney Scheme).[82] Following the
coming to power of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government in 1924, the scheme was
transformed into the Imperial Airship Scheme, under which two airships were built,
one by a private company and the other by the Royal Airship Works under Air
Ministry control. The two designs were radically different. The "capitalist" ship,
the R100, was more conventional, while the "socialist" ship, the R101, had many
innovative design features. Construction of both took longer than expected, and the
airships did not fly until 1929. Neither airship was capable of the service
intended, though the R100 did complete a proving flight to Canada and back in 1930.
[88] On 5 October 1930, however, the R101, which had not been thoroughly tested
after major modifications, crashed on its maiden voyage at Beauvais in France
killing 48 of the 54 people aboard. Among the dead were the craft's chief designer
and the Secretary of State for Air. The disaster put an end to further British
airship development.

The Locarno Treaties of 1925 lifted the restrictions on German airship

construction, and the Zeppelin company started construction of the Graf Zeppelin
(LZ 127), the largest airship that could be built in the company's existing shed,
and intended to stimulate interest in passenger airships. The Graf Zeppelin burned
blau gas, similar to propane, stored in large gas bags below the hydrogen cells, as
fuel. Since its density was similar to that of air, it avoided the weight change as
fuel was used, and thus the need to valve hydrogen. The Graf Zeppelin was a great
success and had an impressive safety record, flying over 1,600,000 km (990,000 mi)
(including the first circumnavigation of the globe by airship) without a single
passenger injury.[89]

USS Macon over Lower Manhattan, summer 1933

The U.S. Navy experimented with the use of airships as airborne aircraft carriers,
developing an idea pioneered by the British. The USS Los Angeles was used for
initial experiments, and the USS Akron and Macon, the world's largest at the time,
were used to test the principle in naval operations. Each carried four F9C
Sparrowhawk fighters in its hangar, and could carry a fifth on the trapeze. The
idea had mixed results. By the time the Navy started to develop a sound doctrine
for using the ZRS-type airships, the last of the two built, USS Macon, had been
lost. The seaplane had become more capable, and was considered a better investment.
[90]

Eventually, the U.S. Navy lost all three U.S.-built rigid airships to accidents.
USS Shenandoah flew into a severe thunderstorm over Noble County, Ohio while on a
poorly planned publicity flight on 3 September 1925. It broke into pieces, killing
14 of its crew. USS Akron was caught in a severe storm and flown into the surface
of the sea off the shore of New Jersey on 3 April 1933. It carried no life boats
and few life vests, so 73 of its crew of 76 died from drowning or hypothermia. USS
Macon was lost after suffering a structural failure offshore near Point Sur
Lighthouse on 12 February 1935. The failure caused a loss of gas, which was made
much worse when the aircraft was driven over pressure height causing it to lose too
much helium to maintain flight.[91] Only two of its crew of 83 died in the crash
thanks to the inclusion of life jackets and inflatable rafts after the Akron
disaster.

The Empire State Building was completed in 1931 with a dirigible mast, in
anticipation of passenger airship service. Various entrepreneurs experimented with
commuting and shipping freight via airship.[92]

In the 1930s the German Zeppelins successfully competed with other means of
transport. They could carry significantly more passengers than other contemporary
aircraft while providing amenities similar to those on ocean liners, such as
private cabins, observation decks, and dining rooms. Less importantly, the
technology was potentially more energy-efficient than heavier-than-air designs.
Zeppelins were also faster than ocean liners. On the other hand, operating airships
was quite involved. Often the crew would outnumber passengers, and on the ground
large teams were necessary to assist mooring and very large hangars were required
at airports.

The Hindenburg catches fire, 6 May 1937

By the mid-1930s only Germany still pursued airship development. The Zeppelin
company continued to operate the Graf Zeppelin on passenger service between
Frankfurt and Recife in Brazil, taking 68 hours. Even with the small Graf Zeppelin,
the operation was almost profitable.[93] In the mid-1930s work started to build an
airship designed specifically to operate a passenger service across the Atlantic.
[94] The Hindenburg (LZ 129) completed a successful 1936 season, carrying
passengers between Lakehurst, New Jersey and Germany. The year 1937 started with
the most spectacular and widely remembered airship accident. Approaching the
Lakehurst mooring mast minutes before landing on 6 May 1937, the Hindenburg burst
into flames and crashed. Of the 97 people aboard, 36 died: 13 passengers, 22
aircrew, and one American ground-crewman. The disaster happened before a large
crowd, was filmed and a radio news reporter was recording the arrival. This was a
disaster that theater goers could see and hear in newsreels. The Hindenburg
disaster shattered public confidence in airships, and brought a definitive end to
their "golden age". The day after the Hindenburg crashed, the Graf Zeppelin landed
at the end of its flight from Brazil. This was the last international passenger
airship flight.

Hindenburg's sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin II (LZ 130), could not carry commercial
passengers without helium, which the United States refused to sell to Germany
during wartime. The Graf Zeppelin made several test flights and conducted some
electronic espionage until 1939 when it was grounded due to the beginning of the
war. The two Graf Zeppelins were scrapped in the spring of 1940.

Development of airships continued only in the United States, and to a smaller

extent, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had several semi-rigid and non-rigid
airships. The semi-rigid dirigible SSSR-V6 OSOAVIAKhIM was among the largest of
these craft, and it set the longest endurance flight at the time of over 130 hours.
It crashed into a mountain in 1938, however, killing 13 of the 19 people on board.
While this was a severe blow to the Soviet airship program, they continued to
operate non-rigid airships until 1950.
World War II
While Germany determined that airships were obsolete for military purposes in the
coming war and concentrated on the development of aeroplanes, the United States
pursued a program of military airship construction even though it had not developed
a clear military doctrine for airship use. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor
on 7 December 1941, bringing the United States into World War II, the U.S. Navy had
10 nonrigid airships:

4 K-class: K-2, K-3, K-4 and K-5 designed as patrol ships, all built in 1938.
3 L-class: L-1, L-2 and L-3 as small training ships, produced in 1938.
1 G-class, built in 1936 for training.
2 TC-class that were older patrol airships designed for land forces, built in 1933.
The U.S. Navy acquired both from the United States Army in 1938.

Control car (gondola) of the Goodyear ZNPK (K-28) later operated by Goodyear as
Puritan VI
Only K- and TC-class airships were suitable for combat and they were quickly
pressed into service against Japanese and German submarines, which were then
sinking American shipping within visual range of the American coast. U.S. Navy
command, remembering airship's anti-submarine success in World War I, immediately
requested new modern antisubmarine airships and on 2 January 1942 formed the ZP-12
patrol unit based in Lakehurst from the four K airships. The ZP-32 patrol unit was
formed from two TC and two L airships a month later, based at NAS Moffett Field in
Sunnyvale, California. An airship training base was created there as well. The
status of submarine-hunting Goodyear airships in the early days of World War II has
created significant confusion. Although various accounts refer to airships Resolute
and Volunteer as operating as "privateers" under a Letter of Marque, Congress never
authorized a commission, nor did the President sign one.[95]

A view of six helium-filled blimps being stored in one of the two massive hangars
located at NAS Santa Ana, during World War II.
In the years 1942�44, approximately 1,400 airship pilots and 3,000 support crew
members were trained in the military airship crew training program and the airship
military personnel grew from 430 to 12,400. The U.S. airships were produced by the
Goodyear factory in Akron, Ohio. From 1942 till 1945, 154 airships were built for
the U.S. Navy (133 K-class, 10 L-class, seven G-class, four M-class) and five L-
class for civilian customers (serial numbers L-4 to L-8).

The primary airship tasks were patrol and convoy escort near the American
coastline. They also served as an organization centre for the convoys to direct
ship movements, and were used in naval search and rescue operations. Rarer duties
of the airships included aerophoto reconnaissance, naval mine-laying and mine-
sweeping, parachute unit transport and deployment, cargo and personnel
transportation. They were deemed quite successful in their duties with the highest
combat readiness factor in the entire U.S. air force (87%).

During the war, some 532 ships without airship escort were sunk near the U.S. coast
by enemy submarines. Only one ship, the tanker Persephone, of the 89,000 or so in
convoys escorted by blimps was sunk by the enemy.[96] Airships engaged submarines
with depth charges and, less frequently, with other on-board weapons. They were
excellent at driving submarines down, where their limited speed and range prevented
them from attacking convoys. The weapons available to airships were so limited that
until the advent of the homing torpedo they had little chance of sinking a
submarine.[97]

Only one airship was ever destroyed by U-boat: on the night of 18/19 July 1943, the
K-74 from ZP-21 division was patrolling the coastline near Florida. Using radar,
the airship located a surfaced German submarine. The K-74 made her attack run but
the U-boat opened fire first. K-74's depth charges did not release as she crossed
the U-boat and the K-74 received serious damage, losing gas pressure and an engine
but landing in the water without loss of life. The crew was rescued by patrol boats
in the morning, but one crewman, Aviation Machinist's Mate Second Class Isadore
Stessel, died from a shark attack. The U-Boat, submarine U-134, was slightly
damaged and the next day or so was attacked by aircraft, sustaining damage that
forced it to return to base. It was finally sunk on 24 August 1943 by a British
Vickers Wellington near Vigo, Spain.[98][99]

Fleet Airship Wing One operated from Lakehurst, New Jersey, Glynco, Georgia,
Weeksville, North Carolina, South Weymouth NAS Massachusetts, Brunswick NAS and Bar
Harbor Maine, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Argentia, Newfoundland.

K-class blimps of USN Blimp Squadron ZP-14 conducted antisubmarine warfare

operations at the Strait of Gibraltar in 1944�45.
Some Navy blimps saw action in the European war theater. In 1944�45, the U.S. Navy
moved an entire squadron of eight Goodyear K class blimps (K-89, K-101, K-109, K-
112, K-114, K-123, K-130, & K-134) with flight and maintenance crews from
Weeksville Naval Air Station in North Carolina to Naval Air Station Port Lyautey,
French Morocco.[100] Their mission was to locate and destroy German U-boats in the
relatively shallow waters around the Strait of Gibraltar where magnetic anomaly
detection (MAD) was viable. PBY aircraft had been searching these waters but MAD
required low altitude flying that was dangerous at night for these aircraft. The
blimps were considered a perfect solution to establish a 24/7 MAD barrier (fence)
at the Straits of Gibraltar with the PBYs flying the day shift and the blimps
flying the night shift. The first two blimps (K-123 & K-130) left South Weymouth
NAS on 28 May 1944 and flew to Argentia, Newfoundland, the Azores, and finally to
Port Lyautey where they completed the first transatlantic crossing by nonrigid
airships on 1 June 1944. The blimps of USN Blimp Squadron ZP-14 (Blimpron 14, aka
The Africa Squadron) also conducted mine-spotting and mine-sweeping operations in
key Mediterranean ports and various escorts including the convoy carrying United
States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
to the Yalta Conference in 1945. Airships from the ZP-12 unit took part in the
sinking of the last U-Boat before German capitulation, sinking the U-881 on 6 May
1945 together with destroyers Atherton and Mobery.

Other airships patrolled the Caribbean, Fleet Airship Wing Two, Headquartered at
NAS Richmond, Florida, covered the Gulf of Mexico from Richmond and Key West,
Florida, Houma, Louisiana, as well as Hitchcock and Brownsville, Texas. FAW 2 also
patrolled the northern Caribbean from San Julian,[clarification needed] the Isle of
Pines (now called Isla de la Juventud) and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as Vernam
Field, Jamaica.

Navy blimps of Fleet Airship Wing Five, (ZP-51) operated from bases in Trinidad,
British Guiana and Paramaribo, Suriname. Fleet Airship Wing Four operated along the
coast of Brazil. Two squadrons, VP-41 and VP-42 flew from bases at Amap�, Igarap�-
A�u, S�o Lu�s Fortaleza, Fernando de Noronha, Recife, Macei�, Ipitanga (near
Salvador, Bahia), Caravelas, Vit�ria and the hangar built for the Graf Zeppelin at
Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro.

Fleet Airship Wing Three operated squadrons, ZP-32 from Moffett Field, ZP-31 at NAS
Santa Ana, and ZP-33 at NAS Tillamook, Oregon. Auxiliary fields were at Del Mar,
Lompoc, Watsonville and Eureka, California, North Bend and Astoria, Oregon, as well
as Shelton and Quillayute in Washington.

From 2 January 1942 until the end of war airship operations in the Atlantic, the
blimps of the Atlantic fleet made 37,554 flights and flew 378,237 hours. Of the
over 70,000 ships in convoys protected by blimps, only one was sunk by a submarine
while under blimp escort.[97]

The Soviet Union flew a single airship during the war. The W-12, built in 1939,
entered service in 1942 for paratrooper training and equipment transport. It made
1432 flights with 300 metric tons of cargo until 1945. On 1 February 1945, the
Soviets constructed a second airship, a Pobeda-class (Victory-class) unit (used for
mine-sweeping and wreckage clearing in the Black Sea) that crashed on 21 January
1947. Another W-class - W-12bis Patriot - was commissioned in 1947 and was mostly
used until the mid 1950s for crew training, parades and propaganda.

Postwar period

One of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company's blimp fleet

Although airships are no longer used for major cargo and passenger transport, they
are still used for other purposes such as advertising, sightseeing, surveillance,
research and advocacy.

In the 1980s, Per Lindstrand and his team introduced the GA-42 airship, the first
airship to use fly-by-wire flight control, which considerably reduced the pilot's
workload.

The world's largest thermal airship (300,000 cubic feet; 8,500 cubic metres) was
constructed by the Per Lindstrand company for French botanists in 1993. The AS-300
carried an underslung raft, which was positioned by the airship on top of tree
canopies in the rain forest, allowing the botanists to carry out their treetop
research without significant damage to the rainforest. When research was finished
at a given location, the airship returned to pick up and relocate the raft.[101]

In the spring of 2004, Lindstrand Technologies supplied the world's first fully
functional unmanned airship to the Ministry of Defense in Spain. This airship
carried a 42 kilograms (93 lb) classified payload and its surveillance mission was
also classified. Four years later, this airship, which is designated GA-22, still
flies on an almost daily basis.[citation needed]

In June 1987, the U.S. Navy awarded a US$168.9 million contract to Westinghouse
Electric and Airship Industries of the UK to find out whether an airship could be
used as an airborne platform to detect the threat of sea-skimming missiles, such as
the Exocet.[102] At 2.5 million cubic feet, the Westinghouse/Airship Industries
Sentinel 5000 (Redesignated YEZ-2A by the U. S. Navy) prototype design was to have
been the largest blimp ever constructed.[103] Additional funding for the Naval
Airship Program was killed in 1995, however, and development was discontinued.

The CA-80 airship, which was produced in 2000 by Shanghai Vantage Airship
Manufacture Co., Ltd., had a successful trial flight in September 2001. This was
designed for the purpose of advertisement and propagation, air-photo, scientific
test, tour and surveillance duties. It was certified as a grade-A Hi-Tech
introduction program (No. 20000186) in Shanghai. The CAAC authority granted a type
design approval and certificate of airworthiness for the airship.[104]

In the 1990s the Zeppelin company returned to the airship business. Their new
model, designated the Zeppelin NT, made its maiden flight on 18 September 1997. As
of 2009 there were four NT aircraft flying, a fifth was completed in March 2009 and
an expanded NT-14 (14,000 cubic meters of helium, capable of carrying 19
passengers) was under construction. One was sold to a Japanese company, and was
planned to be flown to Japan in the summer of 2004. Due to delays getting
permission from the Russian government, the company decided to transport the
airship to Japan by sea. One of the four NT craft is in South Africa carrying
diamond detection equipment from De Beers, an application at which the very stable
low vibration NT platform excels. The project included design adaptations for high
temperature operation and desert climate, as well as a separate mooring mast and a
very heavy mooring truck. NT-4 belonged to Airship Ventures of Moffett Field,
Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area, and provided sight-seeing tours.

Blimps are used for advertising and as TV camera platforms at major sporting
events. The most iconic of these are the Goodyear Blimps. Goodyear operates three
blimps in the United States, and The Lightship Group, now The AirSign Airship
Group,[105] operates up to 19 advertising blimps around the world. Airship
Management Services owns and operates three Skyship 600 blimps. Two operate as
advertising and security ships in North America and the Caribbean. Airship Ventures
operated a Zeppelin NT for advertising, passenger service and special mission
projects. They were the only airship operator in the U.S. authorized to fly
commercial passengers, until closing their doors in 2012.

Skycruise Switzerland AG owns and operates two Skyship 600 blimps. One operates
regularly over Switzerland used on sightseeing tours.

The Spirit of Dubai approaches its motorized mooring mast

The Switzerland-based Skyship 600 has also played other roles over the years. For
example, it was flown over Athens during the 2004 Summer Olympics as a security
measure. In November 2006, it carried advertising calling it The Spirit of Dubai as
it began a publicity tour from London to Dubai, UAE on behalf of The Palm Islands,
the world's largest man-made islands created as a residential complex.

Los Angeles-based Worldwide Aeros Corp. produces FAA Type Certified Aeros 40D Sky
Dragon airships.[106]

In May 2006, the U.S. Navy began to fly airships again after a hiatus of nearly 44
years. The program uses a single American Blimp Company A-170 nonrigid airship,
with designation MZ-3A. Operations focus on crew training and research, and the
platform integrator is Northrop Grumman. The program is directed by the Naval Air
Systems Command and is being carried out at NAES Lakehurst, the original centre of
U.S. Navy lighter-than-air operations in previous decades.

In November 2006 the U.S. Army bought an A380+ airship from American Blimp
Corporation through a Systems level contract with Northrop Grumman and Booz Allen
Hamilton. The airship started flight tests in late 2007, with a primary goal of
carrying 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) of payload to an altitude of 15,000 ft (4,600 m) under
remote control and autonomous waypoint navigation. The program will also
demonstrate carrying 1,000 lb (450 kg) of payload to 20,000 ft (6,100 m) The
platform could be used for Multi-Intelligence collections. In 2008, the CA-150
airship was launched by Vantage Airship. This is an improved modification of model
CA-120 and completed manufacturing in 2008. With larger volume and increased
passenger capacity, it is the largest manned nonrigid airship in China at present.
[107]

An airship was prominently featured in the James Bond film A View to a Kill,
released in 1985. The Skyship 500 had the livery of Zorin Industries.[108]

In late June 2014 the Electronic Frontier Foundation flew the GEFA-FLUG AS 105
GD/4[109] blimp AE Bates (owned by, and in conjunction with, Greenpeace) over the
NSA's Bluffdale Utah Data Center in protest.[110]

Postwar projects
Hybrid designs such as the Heli-Stat airship/helicopter, the Aereon
aerostatic/aerodynamic craft, and the CycloCrane (a hybrid aerostatic/rotorcraft),
struggled to take flight. The Cyclocrane was also interesting in that the airship's
envelope rotated along its longitudinal axis.
In 2005, a short-lived project of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) was Walrus HULA, which explored the potential for using airships as
long-distance, heavy lift craft.[111][112] The primary goal of the research program
was to determine the feasibility of building an airship capable of carrying 500
short tons (450 t) of payload a distance of 12,000 mi (19,000 km) and land on an
unimproved location without the use of external ballast or ground equipment (such
as masts). In 2005, two contractors, Lockheed Martin and US Aeros Airships were
each awarded approximately $3 million to do feasibility studies of designs for
WALRUS. Congress removed funding for Walrus HULA in 2006.[113]

Modern airships

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Military airships
In 2010, the U.S. Army awarded a $517 million (�350.6 million) contract to Northrop
Grumman and partner Hybrid Air Vehicles to develop a Long Endurance Multi-
Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) system, in the form of three HAV 304s.[114][115][116]
The project was cancelled in February 2012 due to it being behind schedule and over
budget; also the forthcoming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan where it was intended
to be deployed.[117] Following this the Hybrid Air Vehicles HAV 304 Airlander 10
was repurchased by Hybrid Air Vehicles then modified and reassembled in Bedford,
UK, and renamed the Airlander 10.[118] It is currently being tested in readiness
for its UK flight test programme.[119]

A-NSE [fr], a French company, manufactures and operates airships and aerostats. For
2 years, A-NSE has been testing its airships for the French Army. Airships and
aerostats are operated to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
(ISR) support. Their airships include many innovative features such as water
ballast take-off and landing systems, variable geometry envelopes and
thrust�vectoring systems.

A-N400 (A-NSE company)

[120]

The U.S. government has funded two major projects in the high altitude arena. The
Composite Hull High Altitude Powered Platform (CHHAPP) is sponsored by U.S. Army
Space and Missile Defense Command. This aircraft is also sometimes called
HiSentinel High-Altitude Airship. This prototype ship made a five-hour test flight
in September 2005. The second project, the high-altitude airship (HAA), is
sponsored by DARPA. In 2005, DARPA awarded a contract for nearly $150 million to
Lockheed Martin for prototype development. First flight of the HAA was planned for
2008 but suffered programmatic and funding delays. The HAA project evolved into the
High Altitude Long Endurance-Demonstrator (HALE-D). The U.S. Army and Lockheed
Martin launched the first-of-its kind HALE-D on July 27, 2011.[121] After attaining
an altitude of 32,000 ft (9,800 m), due to an anomaly, the company decided to abort
the mission. The airship made a controlled descent in an unpopulated area of
southwest Pennsylvania.[122][123][124]

On 31 January 2006 Lockheed Martin made the first flight of their secretly built
hybrid airship designated the P-791. The design is very similar to the SkyCat,
unsuccessfully promoted for many years by the British company Advanced Technologies
Group (ATG). Although Lockheed Martin is developing a design for the DARPA WALRUS
HULA project, it claimed that the P-791 is unrelated to WALRUS. Nonetheless, the
design represents an approach that may well be applicable to WALRUS. Some believe
that Lockheed Martin had used the secret P-791 program as a way to get a head start
on the other WALRUS competitor, US Aeros Airships.[citation needed]

Passenger transport

A Zeppelin NT airship
In the 1990s, the successor of the original Zeppelin company in Friedrichshafen,
the Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH, reengaged in airship construction. The first
experimental craft (later christened Friedrichshafen) of the type "Zeppelin NT"
flew in September 1997. Though larger than common blimps, the Neue Technologie (New
Technology) zeppelins are much smaller than their giant ancestors and not actually
Zeppelin-types in the classical sense. They are sophisticated semirigids. Apart
from the greater payload, their main advantages compared to blimps are higher speed
and excellent maneuverability. Meanwhile, several Zeppelin NT have been produced
and operated profitably in joyrides, research flights and similar applications.

In June 2004, a Zeppelin NT was sold for the first time to a Japanese company,
Nippon Airship Corporation, for tourism and advertising mainly around Tokyo. It was
also given a role at the 2005 Expo in Aichi. The aircraft began a flight from
Friedrichshafen to Japan, stopping at Geneva, Paris, Rotterdam, Munich, Berlin,
Stockholm and other European cities to carry passengers on short legs of the
flight. Russian authorities denied overflight permission, however, so the airship
had to be dismantled and shipped to Japan rather than following the historic Graf
Zeppelin flight from Germany to Japan.

In 2008, Airship Ventures Inc. began operations from Moffett Federal Airfield near
Mountain View, California and until November 2012 offered tours of the San
Francisco Bay Area for up to 12 passengers.

Exploration
In November 2005, De Beers, a diamond mining company, launched an airship
exploration program over the remote Kalahari desert. A Zeppelin NT, equipped with a
Bell Geospace gravity gradiometer, was used to find potential diamond mines by
scanning the local geography for low-density rock formations, known as kimberlite
pipes. On 21 September 2007, the airship was severely damaged by a whirlwind while
in Botswana. One crew member, who was on watch aboard the moored craft, was
slightly injured but released after overnight observation in hospital.

Thermal airships

Thermal airship (manufacturer GEFA-FLUG/Germany)

Several companies, such as Cameron Balloons in Bristol, United Kingdom, build hot-
air airships. These combine the structures of both hot-air balloons and small
airships. The envelope is the normal cigar shape, complete with tail fins, but is
inflated with hot air instead of helium to provide the lifting force. A small
gondola, carrying the pilot and passengers, a small engine, and the burners to
provide the hot air are suspended below the envelope, beneath an opening through
which the burners protrude.

Hot-air airships typically cost less to buy and maintain than modern helium-based
blimps, and can be quickly deflated after flights. This makes them easy to carry in
trailers or trucks and inexpensive to store. They are usually very slow moving,
with a typical top speed of 25�30 km/h (15�20 mph, 6.7�8.9 m/s). They are mainly
used for advertising, but at least one has been used in rainforests for wildlife
observation, as they can be easily transported to remote areas.

Unmanned remotes
Remote-controlled (RC) airships, a type of unmanned aerial system (UAS), are
sometimes used for commercial purposes such as advertising and aerial video and
photography as well as recreational purposes. They are particularly common as an
advertising mechanism at indoor stadiums. While RC airships are sometimes flown
outdoors, doing so for commercial purposes is illegal in the US.[125] Commercial
use of an unmanned airship must be certified under part 121.[clarification needed]

Current design projects

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The largest airship, the LZ 129 Hindenburg at 245 meters length and 41 meters
diameter, dwarfs the size of the largest historic and modern passenger and cargo
aeroplanes.
Today, with large, fast, and more cost-efficient fixed-wing aircraft and
helicopters, it is unknown whether huge airships can operate profitably in regular
passenger transport though, as energy costs rise, attention is once again returning
to these lighter-than-air vessels as a possible alternative. At the very least, the
idea of comparatively slow, "majestic" cruising at relatively low altitudes and in
comfortable atmosphere certainly has retained some appeal. There have been some
niches for airships in and after World War II, such as long-duration observations,
antisubmarine patrol, platforms for TV camera crews, and advertising; these,
however, generally require only small and flexible craft, and have thus generally
been better fitted for cheaper (non-passenger) blimps.

Heavy lifting
It has periodically been suggested that airships could be employed for cargo
transport, especially delivering extremely heavy loads to areas with poor
infrastructure over great distances. This has also been called roadless trucking.
[126] Also, airships could be used for heavy lifting over short distances (e.g. on
construction sites); this is described as heavy-lift, short-haul.[127] In both
cases, the airships are heavy haulers. One recent enterprise of this sort was the
Cargolifter project, in which a hybrid (thus not entirely Zeppelin-type) airship
even larger than Hindenburg was projected. Around 2000, CargoLifter AG built the
world's largest self-supporting hall, measuring 360 m (1,180 ft) long, 210 m (690
ft) wide and 107 m (351 ft) high about 60 km (37 mi) south of Berlin. In May 2002,
the project was stopped for financial reasons; the company had to file bankruptcy.
The enormous CargoLifter hangar was later converted to house the Tropical Islands
Resort.[128] Although no rigid airships are currently used for heavy lifting,
hybrid airships are being developed for such purposes. AEREON 26, tested in 1971,
was described in John McPhee's The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed.

An impediment to the large-scale development of airships as heavy haulers has been

figuring out how they can be used in a cost-efficient way. In order to have a
significant economic advantage over ocean transport, cargo airships must be able to
deliver their payload faster than ocean carriers but more cheaply than airplanes.
William Crowder, a fellow at the Logistics Management Institute, has calculated
that cargo airships are only economical when they can transport 500 to 1,000 tons,
approximately the same as a super-jumbo aircraft.[128] The large initial investment
required to build such a large airship has been a hindrance to production,
especially given the risk inherent in a new technology. The chief commercial
officer of the company hoping to sell the LMH-1, a cargo airship currently being
developed by Lockheed Martin, believes that airships can be economical in hard-to-
reach locations such as mining operations in northern Canada that currently require
ice roads.[128]
Metal-clad airships
Main article: Metal-clad airship
A metal-clad airship has a very thin metal envelope, rather than the usual fabric.
The shell may be either internally braced or monocoque as in the ZMC-2, which flew
many times in the 1920s, the only example ever to do so. The shell may be gas-tight
as in a non-rigid blimp, or the design may employ internal gas bags as in a rigid
airship. Compared to a fabric envelope the metal cladding is expected to be more
durable.

Hybrid airships
Main article: Hybrid airship
A hybrid airship is a general term for an aircraft that combines characteristics of
heavier-than-air (aeroplane or helicopter) and lighter-than-air technology.
Examples include helicopter/airship hybrids intended for heavy lift applications
and dynamic lift airships intended for long-range cruising. Most airships, when
fully loaded with cargo and fuel, are usually ballasted to be heavier than air, and
thus must use their propulsion system and shape to create aerodynamic lift,
necessary to stay aloft. All airships can be operated to be slightly heavier than
air at periods during flight (descent). Accordingly, the term "hybrid airship"
refers to craft that obtain a significant portion of their lift from aerodynamic
lift or other kinetic means.

For example, the Aeroscraft is a buoyancy assisted air vehicle that generates lift
through a combination of aerodynamics, thrust vectoring and gas buoyancy generation
and management, and for much of the time will fly heavier than air. Aeroscraft is
Worldwide Aeros Corporation's continuation of DARPA's now cancelled Walrus HULA
(Hybrid Ultra Large Aircraft) project.[129]

The Patroller P3 hybrid airship developed by Advanced Hybrid Aircraft Ltd, BC,
Canada, is a relatively small (85,000 feet3 = 2,400 m3) buoyant craft, manned by
the crew of 5 and with the endurance of up to 72 hours. The flight-tests with the
40% RC scale model proved that such a craft can be launched and landed without a
large team of strong ground-handlers.[130] Design features a special �winglet� for
aerodynamic lift control.[131]

Airships in space exploration

Artist's rendering of a NASA manned floating outpost on Venus

Airships have been proposed as a potential cheap alternative to surface rocket
launches for achieving Earth orbit. JP Aerospace have proposed the Airship to Orbit
project, which intends to float a multi-stage airship up to mesospheric altitudes
of 55 km (180,000 ft) and then use ion propulsion to accelerate to orbital speed.
[132] At these heights, air resistance would not be a significant problem for
achieving such speeds. The company has not yet built any of the three stages.

NASA have proposed the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept, which comprises a
series of five missions including manned missions to the atmosphere of Venus in
airships.[133][134][135][136] Pressures on the surface of the planet are too high
for human habitation, but at a specific altitude the pressure is equal to that
found on Earth and this makes Venus a potential target for human colonization.

Comparison with heavier-than-air aircraft

The advantage of airships over aeroplanes is that static lift sufficient for flight
is generated by the lifting gas and requires no engine power. This was an immense
advantage before the middle of World War I and remained an advantage for long-
distance or long-duration operations until World War II. Modern concepts for high-
altitude airships include photovoltaic cells to reduce the need to land to refuel,
thus they can remain in the air until consumables expire. This similarly reduces or
eliminates the need to consider variable fuel weight in buoyancy calculations.
The disadvantages are that an airship has a very large reference area and
comparatively large drag coefficient, thus a larger drag force compared to that of
aeroplanes and even helicopters. Given the large frontal area and wetted surface of
an airship, a practical limit is reached around 130�160 kilometres per hour (80�100
mph). Thus airships are used where speed is not critical.

The lift capability of an airship is equal to the buoyant force minus the weight of
the airship. This assumes standard air-temperature and pressure conditions.
Corrections are usually made for water vapor and impurity of lifting gas, as well
as percentage of inflation of the gas cells at liftoff.[137] Based on specific lift
(lifting force per unit volume of gas), the greatest static lift is provided by
hydrogen (11.15 N/m3 or 71 lbf/1000 cu ft) with helium (10.37 N/m3 or 66 lbf/1000
cu ft) a close second.[138] At 6.13 N/m3 (39 lbf/1000 cu ft), steam is a distant
third. Other cheap gases, such as methane, carbon monoxide, ammonia and natural
gas[citation needed] have even less lifting capacity and are flammable, toxic,
corrosive, or all three (neon is even more costly than helium, with less lifting
capacity). Operational considerations such as whether the lift gas can be
economically vented and produced in flight for control of buoyancy (as with
hydrogen) or even produced as a byproduct of propulsion (as with steam) affect the
practical choice of lift gas in airship designs.

In addition to static lift, an airship can obtain a certain amount of dynamic lift
from its engines. Dynamic lift in past airships has been about 10% of the static
lift. Dynamic lift allows an airship to "take off heavy" from a runway similar to
fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. This requires additional weight in engines,
fuel, and landing gear, however, negating some of the static lift capacity.

The altitude at which an airship can fly largely depends on how much lifting gas it
can lose due to expansion before stasis is reached. The ultimate altitude record
for a rigid airship was set in 1917 by the L-55 under the command of Hans-Kurt
Flemming when he forced the airship to 7,300 m (24,000 ft) attempting to cross
France after the "Silent Raid" on London. The L-55 lost lift during the descent to
lower altitudes over Germany and crashed due to loss of lift.[139] While such waste
of gas was necessary for the survival of airships in the later years of World War
I, it was impractical for commercial operations, or operations of helium-filled
military airships. The highest flight made by a hydrogen-filled passenger airship
was 1,700 m (5,500 ft) on the Graf Zeppelin's around-the-world flight.[140] The
practical limit for rigid airships was about 900 m (3,000 ft), and for pressure
airships around 2,400 m (8,000 ft).[citation needed]

Modern airships use dynamic helium volume. At sea-level altitude, helium takes up
only a small part of the hull, while the rest is filled with air. As the airship
ascends, the helium inflates with reduced outer pressure, and air is pushed out and
released from the downward valve. This allows an airship to reach any altitude with
balanced inner and outer pressure if the buoyancy is enough. Some civil aerostats
could reach 100,000 ft (30,000 m) without explosion due to overloaded inner
pressure.[citation needed]

The greatest disadvantage of the airship is size, which is essential to increasing

performance. As size increases, the problems of ground handling increase
geometrically.[141] As the German Navy changed from the P class of 1915 with a
volume of over 31,000 m3 (1,100,000 cu ft) to the larger Q class of 1916, the R
class of 1917, and finally the W class of 1918, at almost 62,000 m3 (2,200,000 cu
ft) ground handling problems reduced the number of days the Zeppelins were able to
make patrol flights. This availability declined from 34% in 1915, to 24.3% in 1916
and finally 17.5% in 1918.[142]

So long as the power-to-weight ratios of aircraft engines remained low and specific
fuel consumption high, the airship had an edge for long-range or -duration
operations. As those figures changed, the balance shifted rapidly in the
aeroplane's favour. By mid-1917, the airship could no longer survive in a combat
situation where the threat was aeroplanes. By the late 1930s, the airship barely
had an advantage over the aeroplane on intercontinental over-water flights, and
that advantage had vanished by the end of World War II.

This is in face-to-face tactical situations. Currently, a high-altitude airship

project is planned to survey hundreds of kilometres as their operation radius,
often much farther than the normal engagement range of a military aeroplane.
[clarification needed] For example, a radar mounted on a vessel platform 30 m (100
ft) high has radio horizon at 20 km (12 mi) range, while a radar at 18,000 m
(59,000 ft) altitude has radio horizon at 480 km (300 mi) range. This is
significantly important for detecting low-flying cruise missiles or fighter-
bombers.

Safety
The most commonly used lifting gas, helium, is inert and therefore presents no fire
risk.[143] A series of vulnerability tests were done by the UK Defence Evaluation
and Research Agency DERA on a Skyship 600. Since the internal gas pressure was
maintained at only 1�2% above the surrounding air pressure, the vehicle proved
highly tolerant to physical damage or to attack by small-arms fire or missiles.
Several hundred high-velocity bullets were fired through the hull, and even two
hours later the vehicle would have been able to return to base. Ordnance passed
through the envelope without causing critical helium loss. In all instances of
light armament fire evaluated under both test and live conditions, the airship was
able to complete its mission and return to base.[144]

See also
Aviation portal
Airborne aircraft carrier
Aircruise
Airship hangar
Barrage balloon
Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement
High-altitude platform station
Hyperion, fictional airship type.
List of airship accidents
List of British airships
List of current airships in the United States
List of Zeppelins
Mystery airship
Stratellite
SVAM CA-80
Worldwide Aeros Corp
Zeppelin mail
Notes
A few airships after World War II used hydrogen. The first British airship to use
helium was the Chitty Bang Bang of 1967.
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