Flight Performance Analysis of Hybrid Airship: Revised Analytical Formulation

Abstract

A hybrid airship denotes one kind of aircraft that combines the use of aerodynamic and buoyant lift. It is supposed to achieve the best combination of the high-speed characteristics of the airplane and the heavy-lifting capacity of the airship. In this work, an improved flight performance analysis method for a hybrid airship is proposed, aiming to provide a set of new formulas that are more suitable for a hybrid airship. The new formulas for analyzing the steady and accelerated performances of a hybrid airship are derived in a systematic way. The main advantage of the new formulas is that the relationship between the flight performances of a hybrid airship and airplane is indicated in a clearer and simpler expression. Base on the derivation, the theoretical comparisons are performed to show the advantage and disadvantage of the hybrid airship. An example of estimating flight performance of a model hybrid airship is presented to preliminarily demonstrate and evaluate the developed method, which shows a reasonable result.