The History Of The Airship :: essays research papers

The History of The AirshipAirships. In the early years of War, these beasts were known for their majesticpresence in the throw out and were icons of a countrys power and prestige. Theyreigned mostly as reconnaissance and transport utility aircraft but there wassomething about this " deader-than-air" ship that made it far more(prenominal) than a mereutility workhorse. In this essay, I will discuss the ever-popular and ever-living king of the sky the Airship.Airships, or dirigibles, were developed from the free balloon. Three classes ofairships argon recognized the non- hard-and-fast, comm except called blimp, in which the formof the bag is maintained by pressure of the gas the semi-rigid airship, inwhich, to maintain the form, gas pressure acts in company with alongitudinal keel and the rigid airship, or zeppelin, in which the form isdetermined by a rigid structure. Technically all three classes whitethorn be calleddirigible (Latin dirigere, "to direct, to steer") b alloons. Equipped with a bagcontaining a gas such as helium or hydrogen which is elongated or streamlined toenable easy passage through the air, these Airships could reach speeds up to10mph with a 5hp steam engine propeller.The first successful airship was that of the French conduct and inventor HenriGiffard, who constructed in 1852 a cigar-shaped, non-rigid gas bag 44 m (143 ft)long, driven by a screw propeller rotated by a 2.2-kw (3-hp) steam engine. Heflew over Paris at a speed of about 10 km/hr (about 6 mph). Giffards airshipcould be steered only in calm or nearly calm weather. The first airship todemonstrate its ability to return to its starting place in a light wind was theLa France, developed in 1884 by the French inventors Charles Renard and ArthurKrebs. It was driven by an electrically rotated propeller. The Brazilianaeronaut Alberto Santos-Dumont developed a serial of 14 airships in France. Inhis No. 6, in 1901, he circled the Eiffel Tower.Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, t he German inventor, completed his first airshipin 1900 this ship had a rigid frame and served as the prototype of manysubsequent models. The first zeppelin airship consisted of a row of 17 gas cellsindividually covered in rubberized cloth the whole was confined in acylindrical framework covered with smooth-surfaced cotton cloth. It was about128 m (about 420 ft) long and 12 m (38 ft) in diameter the hydrogen-gascapacity totaled 1,129,842 liters (399,000 cu ft). The ship was steered byforward and aft rudders and was driven by two 11-kw (15-hp) Daimler internal-combustion engines, each rotating two propellers.