Invention of the airship in the 19th century. How to build an airship? What is an airship? Are they needed in the modern world? Airship "Komsomolskaya Pravda"

Thanks to the French verb meaning “to manage,” at least two words appeared in the Russian language. One of them - the word conductor - is a person who directs a group of musicians. The second word refers to a controlled - as opposed to an uncontrolled hot air balloon - balloon. Meet the airship.

By definition, an airship is called aircraft lighter than air, aerostat with engine. The engine allows the airship to move regardless of the direction of air currents. It is clear that airships arose only after the advent of engines: before that, humanity dreaming of the sky made do with hot air balloons.

The inventor of the airship is considered to be the French mathematician Jean Baptiste Marie Charles Meunier. He came up with everything: the shape of an ellipsoid, three propellers for controllability, which had to be manually rotated by as many as 80 people, two shells: to change the volume of gas and, therefore, the flight altitude.

Meunier's ideas were implemented by a completely different person, the French engineer Henri Giffard. He designed the world's first airship with a steam engine with a power of three horsepower. In September 1852, Giffard flew it over the Paris Hippodrome and flew about 30 kilometers at an average speed of 10 kilometers per hour. It is from this flight that the era of motor aviation and the era of airships are counted.

Another twenty years later, an internal combustion engine was installed on a similar aircraft - this was done German engineer Paul Haenlein.

Giffard's airship is usually called a soft airship. In such systems, the fabric body also serves as a gas shell. The Great Tsiolkovsky noted the disadvantages of such airships: the inability to maintain altitude, the high probability of fires, and poor horizontal controllability.

If you install a metal truss in the lower part of the shell, you will get a semi-rigid airship - such was the famous “Italy” by Umberto Nobile.

Tsiolkovsky’s criticism of soft airships was not unfounded: back in the 80s of the 19th century, he calculated and proposed a design for a large cargo airship of a rigid structure with a metal skin.

Early airships contained the entire volume of gas in a single shell, which was a simple oiled cloth. Then shells began to be created from rubberized materials. This increased the service life of the airship. A little later, the gas began to be divided into different cylinders.

Airships differ from each other by:

Type of shell, which can be hard, soft or semi-hard;

By power plant (gasoline or diesel engine, electric motor or steam engine)

By purpose (for passenger transport, military or cargo)

According to the method of controlling Archimedean forces (thermal airships, displacement or combined), etc.

What was invented was realized in Russia. On own funds Count Zeppelin built a rigid airship and personally tested it. By the First World War, the Count's airships, which were called "Zeppelins" in his honor, became a means of transportation.

Even at a time when the first airplanes looked more like flying whatnots, airships were already flying and amazed people with their size, elegant shapes and flight capabilities. And in the first half of the twentieth century, a real competition began between airships and airplanes in their practical use for civil and military purposes.

During the war, zeppelins bombed London, after it ended they flew across the Atlantic by shuttle, and one even flew around the world. The Zeppelins were let down by hydrogen, which was used instead of helium: after the explosion and fire of the Hindenburg airship, nicknamed the “heavenly Titanic,” the Zeppelins became history.

The first airship was built in 1923. Then, at the main directorate of the Main Air Fleet, they created the Airship Construction and invited Nobile to join the designers. Nobile managed, and created the semi-rigid Soviet airship “USSR V-5”. Then they created the USSR V-6, and it even set a world record for flight duration.

Germany was especially successful in airship construction, whose comfortable vehicles began transporting passengers and cargo over long distances. And who knows what means would have won this competition if not for the war, which rejected airships because of their slowness and easy damage even with simple weapons. Of course, in combat, aircraft were faster, more maneuverable, better protected, etc., and motor fuel was then relatively cheap.

Despite this, interest in airships did not fade throughout the twentieth century, especially when all sorts of energy crises began, but they mass production did not take place. Firstly, it is difficult to overcome the competition of aircraft manufacturing, which has turned into a gigantic industry, and secondly, in technical terms, airship manufacturing is far behind, both in terms of design and in terms of infrastructure for design, construction and maintenance.

At the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries, interest in airships increased again due to a sharp rise in prices for motor fuel and their obvious advantages before aviation. What is so attractive about the airship?

When using helium, it is much safer than an airplane. After all, helium does not completely fill the entire body of the airship, but is in bags. If one bag bursts, the rest work. The airship is much more environmentally friendly. You don't have to use it to move it. hydrocarbon fuel. You can use nuclear engines, electric motors, including solar-powered ones, etc.

The Russian “aeronautical fleet” currently has 7 transport ships. But federal and regional programs for the development and construction of airships for various purposes are already in place. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation does not lag behind with orders. In this case, they are used as before, not previously implemented ideas K.E. Tsiolkovsky, as well as new developments that allow you to control the lifting force of an airship, perform vertical takeoff and landing, hover in the air with almost no energy consumption, land vertically on water and a hard surface, etc.

In domestic development there are hybrids of an airship and an airplane, which can be used in any mode - airplane, helicopter, as a sea hovercraft, etc. Unmanned versions of airships, controlled from the Earth, are also being developed for cargo transportation, video surveillance, telecommunications purposes, etc.

Let's talk about some of the airships of the future being developed in different countries. A hydroairship is designed to fly above the surface of the sea to transport cargo and passengers faster than ships and cheaper than airplanes. Of course, its speed characteristics will be lower than those of our ekranoplan, but the level of passenger service is no worse than on a comfortable ocean liner. The military is also interested in this type of airship in order to use it to search for the enemy and coordinate the actions of their assets.

It is also planned to use, instead of Earth satellites, stratospheric airships rising to a height of 20-25 km for receiving and transmitting digital radio signals, organizing mobile communications, etc. The use of such devices will cost much less than launching satellites. In addition, their equipment is easy to replace, they can be safely disposed of, while satellites cannot be disposed of, and they pose a danger to spacecraft and the environment long after their failure. There are many projects for private use of airships, such as air bikes, etc.

In general, it is possible that soon we will see on our TV screens annoying advertisements like: “Fly with the airships of the Russian Airship Fleet - reliable, profitable, convenient!”

An airship (from the French diriger - “to control”) is a self-propelled one. We will tell you about its history and how to build this aircraft yourself later in the article.

Design elements

There are three main types of airships: soft, semi-rigid and rigid. They all consist of four main parts:

• a cigar-shaped shell or balloon filled with gas whose density is less than that of air;
• a cabin or gondola suspended under the shell, serving to transport crew and passengers;
• engines driving propellers;
• horizontal and vertical rudders that help guide the airship.

What is a soft airship? It is a hot air balloon with a cabin attached to it using ropes. If the gas is released, the shell will lose its shape.

The semi-rigid airship (photo included in the article) also relies on internal pressure to maintain its shape, but it also has a structural metal fin that runs longitudinally along the base of the balloon and supports the cabin.

Rigid airships consist of a lightweight frame made of aluminum alloy covered with fabric. They are not airtight. Inside this structure are several balloons, each of which can be individually filled with gas. Aircraft of this type retain their shape, regardless of the degree of filling of the cylinders.

What gases are used?

Typically, hydrogen and helium are used to lift airships. Hydrogen is the lightest known gas and thus has a high carrying capacity. However, it is highly flammable, which has been the cause of many fatal accidents. Helium is not as light, but it is much safer, since it does not burn.

History of creation

The first successful airship was built in 1852 in France by Henri Giffard. He created a 160-kilogram steam engine capable of developing a power of 3 hp. s., which was enough to drive a large propeller at a speed of 110 revolutions per minute. In order to raise the weight of the power plant, he filled a 44-meter cylinder with hydrogen and, starting from the Parisian hippodrome, flew at a speed of 10 km/h, covering a distance of about 30 km.

In 1872, the German engineer Paul Haenlein first installed and used an internal combustion engine on an airship, the fuel for which was gas from a cylinder.

In 1883, the Frenchmen Albert and Gaston Tissandier were the first to successfully fly a balloon powered by an electric motor.

The first rigid airship with a hull made of aluminum sheet was built in Germany in 1897.

Alberto Santos-Dumont, a native of Brazil who lived in Paris, set a number of records with a series of 14 flexible airships powered by internal combustion engines that he built from 1898 to 1905.

Count von Zeppelin

The most successful operator of motorized rigid balloons was the German Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, who built his first LZ-1 in 1900? The Luftschiff Zeppelin, or Zeppelin aircraft, was a technically sophisticated ship, 128 m long and 11.6 m in diameter, which was made of an aluminum frame consisting of 24 longitudinal beams connected by 16 transverse rings, and was driven by two engines, power 16 l. With.

The aircraft could reach speeds of up to 32 km/h. Graf continued to improve the design during the First World War, when many of his airships (called zeppelins) were used to bomb Paris and London. Aircraft of this type were also used by the Allies during World War II, mainly for anti-submarine patrols.

During the 1920s and 1930s, airship construction continued in Europe and the United States. In July 1919, the British R-34 made two transatlantic flights.

Conquest of the North Pole

In 1926, the Italian semi-rigid airship (photo provided in the article) "Norway" was successfully used by Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and General Umberto Nobile to explore the North Pole. The next expedition, on a different one, was led by Umberto Nobile.

He planned to make a total of 5 flights, but the airship, built in 1924, crashed in 1928. The operation to return the polar explorers took more than 49 days, during which 9 rescuers died, including Amundsen.

What was the name of the 1924 airship? The fourth N series, built according to the design and plant of Umberto Nobile in Rome, was named “Italy”.

Heyday

In 1928, German aeronaut Hugo Eckener built the Graf Zeppelin airship. Before being decommissioned nine years later, she completed 590 voyages, including 144 transoceanic crossings. In 1936, Germany opened regular transatlantic passenger services on the Hindenburg.

Despite these achievements, the world's airships virtually ceased to be produced in the late 1930s due to their high cost, low speed, and vulnerability to stormy weather. In addition, a series of disasters, most famously the explosion of the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg in 1937, combined with advances in aircraft manufacturing in the 30s and 40s. made this type of transport commercially obsolete.

Technology progress

The gas cylinders of many early airships were made from so-called “golden skin”: cow intestines were beaten and then stretched. It took two hundred and fifty thousand cows to create one aircraft.

During World War I, Germany and its allies stopped production sausages so that there would be enough material for the production of airships with which the bombing of England was carried out. Advances in fabric technology, including the invention of vulcanized rubber in 1839 by American merchant Charles Goodyear, sparked an explosion of innovation in airship construction. In the early thirties, the US Navy built two "flying aircraft carriers", the Akron and the Macon, whose hulls opened to release a fleet of F9C Sparrowhawk fighter aircraft. The ships crashed after being caught in a storm, without having time to prove their combat effectiveness.

The world record for flight duration was set in 1937 by the USSR-V6 Osoaviakhim balloon. The aircraft spent 130 hours 27 minutes in the air. The cities visited during the flight by the airship are Nizhny Novgorod, Belozersk, Rostov, Kursk, Voronezh, Penza, Dolgoprudny and Novgorod.

Sunset balloons

Then the airships disappeared. So, on May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg exploded over Lakehurst in New Jersey - 36 passengers and crew members were killed in a ball of fire. The tragedy was captured on film, and the world saw how the German airship exploded.

What hydrogen is and how dangerous it is became clear to everyone, and the idea that people could comfortably move under a container with this gas instantly became unacceptable. Modern aircraft of this type use only helium, which is not flammable. Airplanes such as Pan American Airways' high-speed "flying boats" became increasingly popular and economical.

Modern engineers involved in the design of aircraft of this type lament that until 1999, when a collection of articles on how to build an airship called Airship Technology was published, the only textbook available was Aircraft Design by Charles Burgess , published in 1927

Modern developments

Ultimately, airship designers abandoned the idea of ​​transporting passengers and focused their efforts on cargo transportation, which is not carried out efficiently enough today. railways, road and sea transport, and are inaccessible in many areas.

The first few such projects are gaining momentum. In the seventies, a former US Navy fighter pilot tested an aerodynamic delta-shaped ship called the Aereon 26 in New Jersey. But Miller ran out of funds after the first test flight. Prototyping a cargo aircraft requires enormous capital investment, and there were not enough potential buyers.

In Germany, Cargolifter A.G. went so far as to construct the world's largest free-standing building, over 300 m long, in which the company planned to build a helium semi-rigid cargo airship. What it means to be a pioneer in this field of aeronautics became clear in 2002, when the company, faced with technical difficulties and limited funding, filed for bankruptcy. The hangar, located near Berlin, was later converted into the largest indoor water park in Europe, Tropical Islands.

In pursuit of championship

A new generation of design engineers, some backed by significant government and private investment, is convinced that, given the availability of new technologies and new materials, society can benefit from building airships. Last March, the US House of Representatives organized a meeting dedicated to this type of air transport, the purpose of which was to accelerate the process of their development.

Aerospace heavyweights Boeing and Northrop Grumman have been developing airships in recent years. Russia, Brazil and China have built or are developing their own prototypes. Canada has created designs for several aircraft, including the Solar Ship, which looks like a blown-up stealth bomber with solar panels placed across the top of its helium-filled wings. Everyone is in a race to be first and monopolize the trucking market, which can be measured in billions of dollars. Three projects are currently attracting the most attention:

• English Airlander 10, Hybrid Air Vehicles - on at the moment the largest airship in the world;
• LMH-1, Lockheed Martin;
• Aeroscraft, a Worldwide Eros Corp company created by Ukrainian immigrant Igor Pasternak.

DIY radio-controlled balloon

To evaluate the problems that arise during the construction of aircraft of this type, you can build a children's airship. It's smaller than any model you can buy and has the best combination of stability and maneuverability.

To create a miniature airship you will need the following materials:

• Three miniature motors weighing 2.5g or less.
• A microreceiver weighing up to 2 g (for example, DelTang Rx33, which, along with other parts, can be purchased from specialized online stores such as Micron Radio Control, Aether Sciences RC or Plantraco), powered by a single lithium polymer cell. Make sure the motor and receiver connectors are compatible, otherwise soldering will be necessary.
• Compatible transmitter with three or more channels.
• LiPo battery with a capacity of 70-140 mAh and a suitable charger. To keep the total weight below 10 g, you will need a battery weighing up to 2.5 g. A large battery capacity will ensure a longer flight duration: with 125 mAh, you can easily achieve a flight duration of 30 minutes.
• Wires connecting the battery to the receiver.
• Three small propellers.
• Carbon rod (1 mm), 30 cm long.
• A piece of depron 10 x 10 cm.
• Cellophane, tape, super glue and scissors.

Need to purchase balloon made of latex, filled with helium. A standard one or any other one with a load capacity of at least 10 g will do. To achieve the desired weight, ballast is added, which is removed as helium leaks.

The components are attached to the rod using tape. The front motor is used to move forward, and the rear motor is mounted perpendicularly. The third engine is located at the center of gravity and directed downward. The propeller is attached to it with the opposite side so that it can push the airship upward. The motors should be glued with superglue.

By attaching a tail stabilizer, forward movement can be significantly improved, since the propeller imparts little lift and the tail rotor is too powerful. It can be made of depron and attached with tape.

The forward movement should be compensated by a slight rise.

In addition, an inexpensive camera, such as that used in key fobs, can be installed on the airship.

166 years ago, on September 24, the first flight of a steam-powered airship took place. The first controlled balloon - an airship - was invented by the Frenchman Henri Giffard.

The creation of the hot air balloon was without a doubt a significant step in the field of aeronautics. In 1783, it seemed to people that this was the limit of their dreams. Flights in a hot air balloon caused genuine delight; one of the 18th century aeronauts wrote: “Nothing can compare with the bliss that I felt rising into the sky.” However, only half a century passed and people wanted to learn how to withstand the wind - the balloon was completely uncontrollable.

One of the first to come up with the idea of ​​​​creating a controlled balloon was Henri Giffard, a worker in a railway workshop in Paris. The man did not have an engineering education, but he understood that the first step to realizing his idea - and the biggest difficulty - was the engine.

In the mid-18th century, the steam engine was quite advanced and trustworthy, but the standard steam engine was not suitable for installation on an aircraft: it was massive and too heavy. Henri worked on improving the “miniature” engine for a year. As a result, he managed to reduce the standard apparatus to 45 kg. Combined with a power of 3 horsepower, the lightweight design of the engine was a real record holder of those times.

The shape of the airship shell was very different from the usual shape of a balloon. The 44-meter-long balloon was covered with a metal net and resembled a cigar with pointed ends. The boiler, engine, coal supplies and passengers were placed on a platform that was attached to the network. The direction of movement of the airship was controlled by a propeller, the diameter of its three blades was three and a half meters.

The mass of the balloon reached 150 kg, of which a hundred kilograms fell on the boiler of the steam engine. To fill the “cigar” shell, Giffard used light gas, flammable and explosive. To ensure safety, Henri shielded all engine components, brought the chimney down and created artificial draft in it using steam. The volume of the cylinder in the first version of the airship was 2500 cubic meters.

Henri Giffard was not happy with the success of the first test flight. Due to the wind, the airship was not controllable enough; the machine did not make a full circle, as the inventor had planned. The balloon reached a speed of 11 km/h, Henri managed to deviate only slightly from the course set by the wind flow.

Failure did not stop Giffard; he decided to improve his invention. The new airship was much larger than the first, the volume of the cylinder was 3700 cubic meters. During the next test, Henri and his assistant almost died - the shell began to come out of the network to which the aeronaut platform was attached. Giffard managed to land the platform when the balloon finally slipped out and disappeared into the air.

Despite previous failures, Henri continued development, and his new project was extremely ambitious - the planned capacity of the cylinder was to be about 220,000 cubic meters, and the length of this aircraft in the project reached about 600 meters. At the same time, the calculated maximum speed should have approached 72 km/h. At that time, no engine could provide such outstanding performance, and Henri set about developing a fundamentally new power unit. He must have had several boilers, one of which used kerosene, and the other used gas directly from the shell of the airship! Alas, the inventor’s plans were not destined to come true because... his health began to deteriorate, which was also accompanied by vision problems. This may have been one of the main reasons for his suicide. On April 15, 1882, Henri said goodbye to life by deliberately poisoning himself with chloroform.

Henri's work did not go unnoticed - in the process of creating the airship, he actively improved the steam engine and invented a steam injector, which subsequently became widely used in industry.

), which creates aerostatic lift. Propellers rotated by engines give the airship a forward speed of 60-150 km/h. The aft part of the hull has stabilizers and . The body of an airship in flight creates additional aerodynamic lift, thus the airship combines the flight performance characteristics of a balloon and an airplane.

The airship is characterized by a large carrying capacity, flight range, and the ability vertical take-off and landing, free drift in the atmosphere under the influence of air currents, long hovering over a given place. Attached to the lower part of the hull (sometimes several gondolas) are the control cabin, rooms for passengers and crew, fuel and various equipment. Airships usually fly at an altitude of up to 3000 m, in some cases - up to 6000 m. The take-off of an airship occurs as a result of the discharge of ballast, and the descent is due to the partial release of lifting gas. At moorings they are attached to special mooring masts or brought in for storage and maintenance. Airship frames are usually assembled from flat triangular or polyhedral trusses; can be made of fabric (impregnated for gas-tightness) or made of polymer film, or made of thin metal sheets or plastic panels. External volume airship (hull) up to 250 thousand m, length up to 250 m, diameter up to 42 m.

The first project of a controlled balloon was proposed in 1784 by J. Meunier (France). But only in 1852 did the Frenchman A. Giffard, for the first time in the world, fly an airship of his own design with steam engine, rotating. In 1883, G. Tissandier and his brother built an airship with a 1.1 kW electric motor, which received current from galvanic batteries. From the end 19th century until the early 1990s. airships were built in Germany, France, the USA, Great Britain, and the USSR. The largest airships LZ-129 and LZ-130 were created in Germany in 1936 and 1938. They had a volume of 217 thousand cubic meters, four engines each with a total power of 3240 and 3090 kW, reached speeds of up to 150 km/h and could carry up to 50 passengers over a distance of 16 thousand km.

Encyclopedia "Technology". - M.: Rosman. 2006 .

Airship

Aviation: Encyclopedia. - M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia. Editor-in-Chief G.P. Svishchev. 1994 .

See what an “airship” is in other dictionaries:

AIRSHIP, a lighter-than-air aircraft equipped with an engine and a motion control system. A rigid airship, or zeppelin, has an internal frame of struts on which is attached a shell of fabric or aluminum alloy. Lifting... ... Scientific and technical encyclopedic dictionary

airship- I, m. dirigeable m. 1. air. A lighter-than-air aeronautical vehicle equipped with engines and propellers, a controlled balloon. Ush. 1934. The first aeronaut, who managed to control himself in the air, received the title of airship..., not at all due to... Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language

controlled balloon, airship, aircraft (Dirigible) a lighter-than-air aircraft (as opposed to an aircraft, a heavier-than-air aircraft). D. stays in the air due to the fact that its body is filled with gas lighter than air ... Marine Dictionary

- (French controlled). Guided flying projectile. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. airship (French dirigeable lit. controlled) controlled balloon, New dictionary foreign words. by EdwART,… … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Aerostat, zeppelin, hot air balloon Dictionary of Russian synonyms. airship see balloon Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical guide. M.: Russian language. Z. E. Alexandrova. 2011… Dictionary of synonyms

Airship- Airship. An aircraft lighter than air, driven by a power plant... Source: Order of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation dated September 12, 2008 N 147 (as amended on December 26, 2011) On approval of the Federal Aviation Rules Requirements for aircraft crew members... ... Official terminology

- (from the French dirigeable controlled) a controlled balloon with an engine. It has a streamlined body, one or more nacelles, and tail. The first flight in a controlled balloon with a steam engine was made by H. Giffard (1852, France). Up to 50... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

AIRSHIP, airship, husband. (French dirigeable, lit. controlled) (aviation). A lighter-than-air aeronautical vehicle equipped with engines and propellers, a controlled balloon. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

AIRSHIP, me, husband. A motorized controlled balloon with a cigar-shaped body. | adj. airship, oh, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

airship- A balloon moving in the atmosphere with the help of a power plant and controlled in altitude, direction, speed, range and duration of flight. [FAP dated March 31, 2002] Topics: aviation regulations... Technical Translator's Guide

AIRSHIP- a lighter-than-air aircraft with an engine and propeller propellers for horizontal movement. Rudders are used for control in the horizontal plane. Movement in the vertical direction is regulated by elevators, and large... ... Big Polytechnic Encyclopedia

Books

• Martha and the Fantastic Airship, Nikolskaya A.. Imagine that somewhere in the world an amazing creature lives next to us - huge, shaggy, clawed and toothy. Scary? But in vain! After all, this creature is very kind, with the most gentle, sympathetic...