The airship, also known as a dirigible, blimp or a zeppelin is a rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid aircraft using helium to gain buoyancy to float. Non-rigid blimps, the most common type of helium-filled airship today have no internal support, while semi-rigid airships have an internal skeleton. Today, the airship is used primarily for commercial advertising and promotional uses. Its days as a passenger ship ended with the fatal 1937 Hindenburg dirigible disaster in New Jersey.
The airship dates to 1783 when Lt. Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier suggested in a study that a 260-foot long envelope containing internal balloons could fly and be used as a boat if it landed in water, according to centennialofflight.gov. A year later, Jean-Pierre Blanchard put the theory to use by crossing the English Channel in a balloon with flapping wings used to propel it.
Rigid airships are composed of a large long cylinder-shaped tube constructed of a metal alloy skeleton in the form of longitudinal girders and rings and containing helium in separate cells to make it airborne. In its early days, highly flammable hydrogen was used to float an airship. Internal combustion engines moved the airship forward, according to airships.net.
Ferdinand von Zeppelin invented the first practical use of the airship after witnessing the French use balloons to carry mail during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. According to ideafinder.com, he first had hoped to string together a long line of airships, like a passenger train or wagon train, to carry passengers. Von Zeppelin's first successful flight occurred in 1900.
In World War I, the German military had hoped that the airships ability to carry large quantities of weapons and bombs would make them the perfect weapon. But the German government quickly realized the airship could easily be destroyed due to its highly flammable hydrogen fuel. Airships were used in bombing raids over England with only minimal results, according to richthofen.com.
The U.S. Navy had planned to use airships as aircraft carriers in the skies and operated a fleet of dirigibles, including the USS Shenandoah, the USS Los Angeles and the USS Akron. But according to nastillamook.org, accidents were frequent, including the Shenandoah crashing in a storm in 1925, killing 14 and the Akron crashing into the sea off New Jersey, leaving 73 drowned.
In 1936, the Hindenburg was launched and along with the Graf Zeppelin was considered the ultimate luxury transatlantic aircraft. On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg caught fire as it approached an airfield at Lakehurst, N.J. Thirty-five people died. The disaster and pending war against Germany by the allies ended the passenger airships era, according to centennialofflight.gov.
Airships are still used today in military applications, including an unmanned airship used by Spain's Ministry of Defense for surveillance missions and the U.S. Navy's use of a blimp to detect missiles. More common uses are the ubiquitous Goodyear blimps at sporting events and uses for advertising, sightseeing and promotional activities, according to airships.net.
