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An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, in a few cases, direct downward thrust from its engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships, gliders, paramotors, and hot air balloons.
An airship is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air to achieve the lift needed to stay airborne.
An aerostat is a lighter-than-air aircraft that gains its lift through the use of a buoyant gas. Aerostats include unpowered balloons and powered airships. A balloon may be free-flying or tethered. The average density of the craft is lower than the density of atmospheric air, because its main component is one or more gasbags, a lightweight skin containing a lifting gas to provide buoyancy, to which other components such as a gondola containing equipment or people are attached. Especially with airships, the gasbags are often protected by an outer envelope.
The AEREON III was an experimental hybrid airship of rigid construction built by the AEREON Corporation in the early 1960s. Of unconventional design, the airship featured three gas envelopes attached side-by-side, with the connecting structures shaped as airfoils to create extra lift as the craft moved forward. Intended as a small prototype craft that would precede the development of much larger hybrid airships, the AEREON III was constructed between 1959 and 1965 but was destroyed during taxiing tests in 1966 and scrapped without having flown. It was "the first rigid airship to be built since Graf Zeppelin II".
The Aereon 26 was an experimental aircraft developed to investigate lifting body design with a view to using its shape to create hybrid designs, part airship, part conventional aircraft. It was powered by a piston engine, driving a pusher propeller, and generated lift through the aerodynamics of its lozenge-shaped fuselage.
JP Aerospace is an American company that aims to achieve affordable access to space. Their main activities include high-atmospheric lighter-than-air flights carrying cameras or miniature experiments called PongSats and minicubes. They are also engaged in an Airship to Orbit project.
The Boeing Pelican ULTRA was a proposed ground effect fixed-wing aircraft under study by Boeing Phantom Works in the early 2000s.
A hybrid airship is a powered aircraft that obtains some of its lift as a lighter-than-air (LTA) airship and some from aerodynamic lift as a heavier-than-air aerodyne.
A rigid airship is a type of airship in which the envelope is supported by an internal framework rather than by being kept in shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope, as in blimps and semi-rigid airships. Rigid airships are often commonly called Zeppelins, though this technically refers only to airships built by the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company.
The Lockheed Martin P-791 is an experimental aerostatic and aerodynamic hybrid airship developed by Lockheed Martin. The first flight of the P-791 took place on 31 January 2006 at the company's flight test facility at United States Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, CA.
A landship is a large land vehicle that travels exclusively on land. Its name is meant to distinguish it from vehicles that travel through other mediums such as conventional ships, airships, and spaceships.
Large aircraft allow the transportation of large and/or heavy payloads over long distances. Making an aircraft design larger can also improve the overall fuel efficiency and man-hours for transporting a given load, while a greater space is available for transporting lightweight cargoes or giving passengers room to move around. However, as aircraft increase in size they pose significant design issues not present in smaller types. These include structural efficiency, flight control response and sufficient power in a reliable and cost-effective installation.
Solomon Andrews was a doctor, aviator and dirigible airship inventor. Andrews invented an airship called Aereon which received some notice in the 1860s. He claimed to sail it as one would a sailboat. Mention is made of the movement of pilot and passenger fore and aft in the basket to control attitude. He was a medical doctor and three times Mayor of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He served as the health officer of Perth Amboy, New Jersey and supervised the construction of the city's first sewer system. He served as the Collector of the Port of New Jersey in Perth Amboy from 1844 to 1845.
Aeros Corp is an American manufacturer of airships based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1993 by the current CEO and Chief Engineer, Igor Pasternak, who was born in Soviet Kazakhstan, raised in Soviet Ukraine, and moved to the U.S. after the Soviet collapse to build airships there. It currently employs more than 100 workers.
The SkyHook JHL-40 was a proposed hybrid airship/helicopter. On July 9, 2008, Boeing announced that it had teamed up with SkyHook International, a Canadian company, to develop this aircraft. No further press releases appear after 2009 and Skyhook International has abandoned its domain name registration since 2010 as shown by the Internet Archive.
Airship Industries was a British manufacturers of modern non-rigid airships (blimps) active under that name from 1980 to 1990 and controlled for part of that time by Alan Bond. The first company, Aerospace Developments, was founded in 1970, and a successor, Hybrid Air Vehicles, remains active as of 2022. Airship Industries itself was active between 1980 and 1990.
The Hybrid Air Vehicles Airlander 10 is a hybrid airship designed and built by British manufacturer Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV). Comprising a helium airship with auxiliary wing and tail surfaces, it flies using both aerostatic and aerodynamic lift and is powered by four diesel engine-driven ducted propellers.
The AeroLift CycloCrane was a unique US hybrid airship which adopted helicopter derived airfoil control for low speed flight manoeuvring by spinning on its axis. It was intended to be a heavy load lifter, initially aimed at the Canadian logging industry. A proof of concept vehicle flew at times during the 1980s, but no large production aircraft were built.
Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) Limited is a British limited company and a British manufacturer of hybrid airships, though none have been built since the crash of its last demonstrator in Nov 2017. These aircraft use both aerodynamics and lighter-than-air (LTA) technology to generate lift, potentially allowing the vehicle to stay aloft for several weeks.
The ZRCV was a large dirigible aircraft carrier proposed by the Lighter-than-Air Bureau of the United States Department of the Navy and the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. It would have been a 9.55-million-cubic-foot (270,000 m3) airship designed to carry nine Douglas-Northrop BT–1 dive bombers.
References
- Miller, William McElwee Jr. (January 1975). "The Dynairship". In Joseph F. Vittek Jr. (ed.). Proceedings of the Interagency Workshop on Lighter than Air Vehicles. Cambridge: MIT Flight Transportation Laboratory. pp. 441–455.
- Miller, William. "Dynairship patent" . Retrieved 2011-01-06.
- McCandlish, Mark. "Those Triangle Things" . Retrieved 2011-01-06.