Airship Design Research Articles

Rigid Airship Design and Construction

THERE are two outstanding principles which underlie all airship design, two criteria by which everything undertaken may bo judged. The first is that the body produced shall offer a minimum of resistance to propulsion through the air; the second is that, having shaped a body in that way, it shall give a maximum of disposable lift for a given volume. An airship also, at the present time at least, must be produced for a minimum of cost. For this reason every effort must be made to design the structure as cheaply, as economically, and as quickly as possible.

Structure Weights of Rigid Airhips

A STUDY of the economic design and operation of the rigid airship must take account of many variables; power, speed, range, useful load, volume and structure weight—to cite the most obvious—have presumably absolute values which, in combination for a particular duty, produce the most economical whole. With the very limited knowledge of design and operation which we have at present, it is not possible to attempt a comprehensive enquiry, but certain of the simpler aspects of the problem of the economics of the rigid airship can be considered with advantage. The present note is an attempt to discuss, very elementarily, and on what are thought to be reasonable assumptions, the variation of structure weight with gross volume.

The Technical Development of the Aeroplane

The first meeting of the 1928-29 Session of the Royal Aeronautical Society was held in the rooms of the Royal Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.2, on Thursday, October 4th, 1928.The President : Mr. North is one of the foremost designers in the country. Since early in 1911 he had devoted his activities exclusively to aeronautics and for many years had been responsible for the design of all aircraft produced by Boulton and Paul, of Norwich.Mr. North had been very intimately connected with the design of the Government airship now in an advanced stage of construction at Cardington. His great experience of light steel structures had been utilised to the full in this connection.

Design, Construction, and Handling of Non-Rigid Airships

Design, Construction, and Handling of Non-Rigid Airships

Some Aerological Principles Applying to Airship Design and Operation

Abstract In this paper the author discusses some of the problems of wind structure and of vertical air currents. Data are presented on local wind fluctuations of great frequency, on less-frequent, wide-spread wind shifts, and on local vertical air movements. The discussion is not primarily of strong winds and gales as a navigational problem affecting cruising radius, but of those properties of wind structure which may be obstacles to air navigation because of the excessive forces which they may exert on airship structures.

Some Recent Developments in the Design of Rigid Airships

This paper is primarily intended to stimulate discussion on a subject of increasing interest to aeronautical students and of rapidly growing interest to commercial aeronautics. It must not by any means, therefore, be looked upon as a complete analysis of the subject, but rather as an introduction to the most important questions arising in recent development.In considering this question we must first define the particular requirements of the large rigid airship. The airship must be looked upon with regard to the aeroplane rather as the ocean liner is looked upon with regard to the express train and not in any sense as a rival of the aeroplane. They each have their own distinctive duty.Any commercial system depends upon safety and reliability. The airship designer has, therefore, the problem of making a structure safe under any conditions of flight and having a minimum ratio of structural weight to useful weight per horse-power.

Airships

Not to go too far back in years, and to relate a few facts within the lifetime of most of you present to-night, I may commence by saying that it was in 1909 that Admiral Lord Fisher instructed Admiral Bacon to proceed with the design and construction of a rigid airship, attention having been called to the success attending Count Zeppelin's efforts and to the fact that we could not realise the dangers to which we might be exposed until we possessed airships of our own.Admiral Bacon got into touch with Messrs. Vickers' experts, and Naval Airship No. 1, nicknamed the “ Mayfly,” was built at Barrow. Messrs. Vickers deserve all credit for their pioneer work on airship design and construction in this country, and it was only very bad luck that prevented their building the bigger ships.

The Experimental Stress Analysis of Frameworks with Special Reference to the Problems of Airship Design

The Experimental Stress Analysis of Frameworks with Special Reference to the Problems of Airship Design

The Rigid Airship: a Treatise on the Design and Performance

THE airship in aeronautical text-book literature has received but scant attention in the past. Aeroplane and seaplane design and the theoretical problems associated with them compose the subject matter of such works, while airships are dismissed in a few meagre paragraphs under the general heading of “lighter-than-air craft.” There is no special reason for this other than that the airship has almost consistently been regarded as the step-child of officialdom and certainly not to be encouraged by any consistent policy of construction and development. Yet, regarded as a scientific problem, the design of the rigid airship, as the present work proves, presents a problem in a type of structure which has not previously occurred in engineering and consequently gives rise to a crop of fresh problems both on the aerodynamic and the structural sides.

Commercial Airship Design

Commercial Airship Design

The Disaster to the Airship R38

IN the article on “The Disaster to the Airship R38” in NATURE of September 1, the author laments that, in consequence of it, airship development is to be abandoned by our, Government, and airship design is referred to as being a matter of experience and guessing. In face of the general tenor of the article, it may be of interest to direct attention to six letters published in Engineering in November and December, 1901, which I wrote in a discussion of the torpedo-boat destroyer Cobra. Those letters are as applicable to the R38 as to the Cobra.

The Principles of Rigid Airship Construction

So far as is known, the only papers containing reference to the principles of rigid airship design or construction are those delivered by Herr Dornier to the German “ Schiffbantechnischen Gessellschaft ” in 1915 and by Mr. C. I. R. Campbell before the Institute of Naval Architects in 1919. The former paper dealt particularly with the Zeppelin, but while it contains valuable information yet it does not deal with the fundamental principles underlying rigid airship construction.Further, the figures and estimates that are deduced are based on performances of the earlier Zeppelins and have been substantially improved upon during the war. The present paper is intended to state as far as possible the various principles underlying the design of a rigid airship, in the hope that such information may be of value in the progress of this important branch of aeronautics.

Evolution of the Rigid Airship Design

Evolution of the Rigid Airship Design

Problems of Airship Design and Construction

THE problem of the airship falls naturally into three parts, concerned with flotation, propulsion and steering respectively. The best results in any of these three branches are to a great extent antagonistic to similar success in one or both of the other two. For instance, flotation, which is purely a displacement problem at bottom, demands that the displacement body should have the greatest volume for the least superficies, i.e., that it should be spherical. Propulsion, on the other hand, demands that the body be of the shape having least head-resistance, i.e., of long fish-shape. Steering, with which is linked dynamic stability, demands that large fins and control surfaces be affixed to the body, which otherwise would set itself broadside on to the relative current caused by its forward movement. These auxiliary surfaces add to the weight, that is, oppose flotation and add to the head-resistance, thus opposing propulsion. Again, the displacement body must of necessity consist mainly of a gas lighter than air. All the light gases are highly inflammable (or if not have some other disadvantage), and consequently are dangerous in proximity to an internal-combustion motor, such as is universally used for propulsion, as being the only motor with a good ratio of power to weight. Therefore the motor must not be placed too close to the gas-container, and in consequence it is difficult to enclose all the parts of the airship in a single “streamline” body of least resistance, and the head-resistance and weight are thus both increased considerably, opposing propulsion and flotation.