How do zeppelins fly

The helium makes the blimp positively buoyant in the surrounding air, so the blimp rises. The pilot throttles the engine and adjusts the elevators to angle the blimp into the wind. The cone shape of the blimp also helps to generate lift. As the blimp rises, outside air pressure decreases and the helium in the envelope expands. The pilots then pump air into the ballonets to maintain pressure against the helium. Adding air makes the blimp heavier, so to maintain a steady cruising altitude, the pilots must balance the air-pressure with the helium-pressure to create neutral buoyancy.

To level the blimp in flight, the air pressures between the fore and aft ballonets are adjusted. Blimps can cruise at altitudes of anywhere from 1, to 7, ft to m. The engines provide forward and reverse thrust while the rudder is used to steer. To minimize the risks associated with hydrogen, Hunt envisions getting rid of the crew. The airships would operate autonomously — and would be loaded and unloaded by robots.

As an additional bonus, Hunt said, the fuel cell would generate as a byproduct water that could be released as the craft passed over regions hit by drought. Lanteigne, who has written extensively about airships, said building such colossal craft would be an enormous challenge. But Prentice expressed confidence that, as airships grow more popular, regulators and investors will change their minds.

That could happen soon. Airships are enjoying a bit of a revival, as manufacturers develop helium blimps for surveillance , luxury travel and shipping. Hydrogen airships are further off, though some firms are working on components for the craft. Shipping is more viable as Arctic ice melts, but that often requires deep-water ports and can have damaging impacts on marine life. The opportunity is also caveated with an array of risks and problems. There is no guarantee that the airships will even fly in the frigid north— Le Journal de Quebec reported that the airships will need a significant amount of water, which may be hard to come by amid Arctic temperatures.

China has plenty of Arctic ambitions itself—and vast distances to cover in its underpopulated west. In recent years, helium prices have skyrocketed as supply has dwindled.

Far from just being used in party balloons and blimps, the gas is necessary for MRI scanners and rocket engines. Stockpiles of helium often escape, and are wasted, during other extractive projects. The dangers of hydrogen are well established, and the gas behind the Hindenburg disaster is unlikely to make an air travel comeback.

Hypothetically, there could be an airship lifted by a vacuum—that is, by material that can contain nothing at all inside but withstand the atmospheric pressure from the outside.

It is, at this point, science fiction, although NASA has posited that some kind of vacuum airship could eventually be used to explore the surface of Mars. Airship companies seem satisfied with helium for the time being. If these airships can take off despite carrying a century of failed projects, a lack of its necessary resource, and economic justifications that still seem more wishful thinking than reality—it might just be the return of the zeppelin. Shusha was the key to the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Now Baku wants to turn the fabled fortress town into a resort. Can they make a comeback? You would be wrong. Or are they? The Month in World Photos. Though blimps played a useful surveillance role in the Second World War, airships today are mostly used for overhead photography at sports events, and as massive flying billboards. Today, the Van Wagner group, an airship organisation, estimates that there are only 25 blimps currently operating around the world; there are even fewer zeppelins.

But all this is about to change, if Igor Pasternak has his way. The COSH — Control of Static Heaviness — system works by rapidly compressing helium into storage tanks, making the airship heavier than air.

While conventional airships take on air to descend, they must still dedicate most of the space in the helium envelope to actually storing the helium itself. That makes the landing process more difficult and dangerous, and means they can only land at larger landing areas much larger than the size of the airships themselves, and that come with specialised ground teams. By contrast, the COSH system allows much more of the envelope to be emptied of helium during landing, making the airship much heavier.

This could potentially allow airships to land on any flat area large enough for them to enter without the need for ground teams, increasing versatility and reducing costs. It will also be roughly three times as fuel-efficient as shipping in aircraft. Aeroscraft has hit a few snags in the development process. This was later cut, though the military continued funding the group in other projects, allowing them to move forward with a prototype.