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Dirigible

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
dirigible or dirigible balloon: see airship airship, an aircraft that consists of a cigar-shaped gas bag, or envelope, filled with a lighter-than-air gas to provide lift, a propulsion system, a steering mechanism, and a gondola accommodating passengers, crew, and cargo.
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airship

 or dirigible

Lighter-than-air aircraft with steering and propulsion systems. Airships could be nonrigid (blimps), semirigid, or rigid. They all included a large cigar-shaped bag or balloon filled with a gas such as hydrogen or helium, a car or gondola suspended below the balloon that held the crew and passengers, engines to drive the propellers, and rudders for steering. Attempts to control the flight of balloons began soon after their invention in the 1780s. The first propeller-driven airship, built by Henri Giffard, flew in 1852 in France; design improvements led to construction of the rigid zeppelin (1900). The nonrigid helium-filled blimp was principally developed by Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873–1932). In 1928 Germany began regular transatlantic airship passenger service. Several explosions, particularly the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, and airplane developments made the airship commercially obsolete. See also balloon.


dirigible [də′rij·ə·bəl]
(aerospace engineering)
A lighter-than-air craft equipped with means of propelling and steering for controlled flight.

Dirigible 

a controlled lighter-than-air craft (aerostat). The main parts of a dirigible are the long gas-filled body (ordinarily filled with hydrogen or helium), which is blunt in the nose section and pointed at the tail for better streamlining; the empennage, which consists of horizontal and vertical crossed fixed surfaces (stabilizers and fins) and movable horizontal vanes for vertical and horizontal control; and one or more gondolas for housing the crew, passengers, motors, and equipment.

A distinction is made among nonrigid, semirigid, and rigid dirigibles. In the nonrigid and semirigid systems (Figures 1 and 2, respectively), the cloth body of the dirigible also serves as an envelope for the gas. Semirigid dirigibles have a metal truss in their lower part to prevent deformation of the envelope. In nonrigid and semirigid dirigibles the outer shape is retained by excess gas pressure, which is constantly maintained by ballonets into which air is forced. In rigid dirigibles (Figure 3), the shape is usually maintained by a metal frame; the gas is contained within the metal frame in sacks made of

Figure 1. Diagram of a nonrigid dirigible: (1) body envelope, (2) upper and lower stabilizers, (3) elevator, (4) side stabilizer, (5) rudder, (6) towlines for anchoring and moving dirigible on land, (7) pneumatic shock absorbers, (8) propeller-motor assembly, (9) gondola, (10) gondola guy ropes, (11) air-filled ballonet to maintain constant outer shape of body envelope during ascent, descent, and flight (the boundary of the volume occupied by the ballonet is indicated by the dotted line)

Figure 2. Diagram of a semirigid dirigible: (1) nose reinforcing, (2) bands, (3) outer envelope, (4) internal suspension cables, (5) diaphragm (partition) dividing the volume filled with gas or air into sections, (6) observation window, (7) side stabilizer, (8) upper and lower stabilizers, (9) elevator, (10) rudder, (11) motor gondolas, (12) fin mount, (13) gasoline tanks, (14) ballonets, (15) passenger gondola, (16) shock absorber

Figure 3. Diagram of a rigid dirigible: (1) gas shafts to draw off gas released Through valves, (2) into the atmosphere, (2) gas valves, (3) rings, (4) stringers, (5) outer envelope, (6) main control gondola, (7) passenge- decks, (8) crew quarters, (9) side motor gondola, (10) upper and lower stabilizers, (11) side stabilizer, (12) rudder, (13) elevators

gas-impermeable material. Nonrigid dirigibles vary in volume from 1,000 to 7,000 cu m; semirigid dirigibles, from 8,000 to 35,000 cu m. Rigid dirigibles may be as large as 200,000 cu m. The speed of a dirigible usually does not exceed 100-135 km/hr.

Dirigibles have been used for communications and for supplying remote, inaccessible regions, for reconnaissance and convoying ships at sea, and to search for submarines and minefields.



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--My dear fellow, the science of the aerostation of dirigible balloons is not yet developed enough for me to consider it and suppose that a murderer would drop from the clouds
"Yes," says Captain Hodgson, answering my thought, "Castelli thought he'd discovered the secret of controlling aeroplanes when he'd only found out how to steer dirigible balloons.
 
 
 
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