Air Traveller

Air Traveller B-17 Flying Fortress is a fictional lighter than aircraft,that uses a revolutionary type of anti-gravity drive system,to lighten the ships overall weight to keep it afloat,similar to a common zepplin or baloon.The difference beween an air raveller class air ship and a zepplin,is the air raveller,uses design space as a star palace saucer shaped ship and propelled by paragravity repulsor propulsion nacelle engines.

Air Traveller B-29 Flying Fortress
The Air Traveller is a kind of fictional lighter than air flying saucer shaped air ship,,used to transport passengers,troops or goods around a planet,quickly and silently.Air Travellers are a type of air ship that are used not only as cargo transporters,but used for passenger travellers,mercenary troop transports .The Air Traveller is a type of rogue tramp freighter. A tramp freighter was a type of independent freighter with no established scheduled ports of call, as opposed to a freight liner. Hybrid Ultra Large rogue tramp freighter Aircraft or HULRFA’s,often simply called Air Travellers,after the first manuafacturer Sarkhon Aircraft,that first introduced this type of air ship,eons ago on the homeworld of Atlantis.

The term Air Traveller was chosen to distinguish themselves from common airship crafy such as blimps and zeppelins,that various gase filled airbags or ridgid frame to keep aloaf,where as Air Travellers used various Paragravity Drive Engines to lighten the craft and a combination of Repulsor/Impulse Engines push the craft along.Various types,have suffaced across the myad worldlines,under companies such Sarkhon Aircraft,Fate Aircraft ,Willkenson/Masterson Aircraft ,Shaitanus Airships, and so on.It was Professor Bernard Sarkhon,who coined the term ‘’Air Traveller’’-a name barrowed from an old comic he read as a young teenager,’’Khargana Holt –a name derived the corrupt spelling of ‘’Cargo Hold D ‘’about a boy surviving in a land of talking animals.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

The air traveller are an old, battered, and reconstructed stock light freighter of Carvellian design, approximately twenty-seven meters in length. Currently it serves as the personal transport and means of income for Captain Eric Darkwater and his partner, Phafnire Khonn. In the past, it also belonged to Jon Eric Blackhawk and assorted others. Under Darkwater's guidance and Chewbacca's careful and loving admiration, the HMSS BLackhawk has undergone major overhauls, refittings, and modifications that make all but its external appearance vastly different from the manufacturer's specifications. Some of the modifications include custom security mechanisms, computer-assisted targeting consoles, and boosted deflector shields; it also has a more powerful hyperdrive, armored hull, and weapons systems than allowed for a ship of its class, size, and designation. The air ship is armed with two quad laser cannons (one each in top and bottom turrets), two concussion missile launcher, and a retractable light laser cannon. With the addition of falsified ID profiles and hidden cargo holds, the Blackhawk is a perfect smuggling vessel.The false Profile Id Markers are a set of transmissions,that broadcast all sorts of Warbook Models and regestration imformation to other near by vessels,that fool or mask a ships true appearence,profile and registration markers. During much of the Galactic Civil War, the Blackhawk suffered from a rash of minor problems that required almost constant periods of repair. Still it was one of the best ships to serve the Alliance.

The huge, armor-hulled sail barge served as his personal transport for traveling across the desert wastes of many worlds or across savage seas,if nessessary. His associates often used the vessel to stage raids, for it boasted an impressive amount of offensive weaponry. Its blaster deckguns were notably formidable. Though the sail barge was equipped with a powerful thrust engine, the crew normally used the barge's main sails to catch the desert winds and propel the ship over the shifting sands

A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes. Today, they are almost always built of welded steel, and with some exceptions generally have a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years before being scrapped. The pitot tube is used to measure the local velocity at a given point in the flow stream and not the average velocity in the pipe or conduit.

The Air Traveller,has capabilities of both a cargo freighter,troop carrier and gunship combined.It is a slow moving,but durable cheaply made type of lighter than air craft. In this encyclopedia the term "airship" is generally used for powered lighter-than-air craft extrapolated from dirigible Balloons and employed as Transportation. However, it seems reasonable also to include the early, fantastically huge, heavier-than-air flying machines that proliferated in fiction before the Wright Brothers' pioneering heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk in December 1903. Such aerial Inventions' command of the skies so thoroughly defied the (yet to be formulated) science of aerodynamics that some form of Antigravity would seem necessary. Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neill's Graphic Novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (six issues 1999-2000; graph 2000) ironically makes this point by using a reimagined version of H G Wells's Cavorite to render a typically grandiose nineteenth-century airship capable of flight. - See more at: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/airships#sthash.YALHsRMb.dpuf utting the “Science” in “Science Fiction”: Zeppelins and Airships May 15, 2013 10:49 am The zeppelin – also known as the blimp, dirigible or airship – is a common vehicle in science-fiction. The steampunk and dieselpunk sub-genres are especially known for a love of zeppelins, with science-fiction series like Airborne and Leviathan being set primarily aboard these vessels. Unlike most other science-fiction technologies, the zeppelin was also used in the past, but has mostly been abandoned today, although advances in technology and changes in thinking may lead to a resurgence of this type of vessel in the future. == Photo Credit: forums.taleworlds.com ==

A zeppelin is the largest of what are called lighter-than-air craft, aircraft that fly by harnessing gases that weigh less than the air around them, rather than using lift generated by wings or rotors like planes and helicopters do. Trapping a large amount of lighter-than-air gas within an envelope causes the vehicle to rise, carrying its payload with it. The gases used separate zeppelins from hot air balloons, which heat air in order to make it rise into the balloon in order to carry it upwards. Generally, this is achieved by having a large rigid balloon filled with a lighter-than-air gas with a cabin called a gondola attached to its bottom, though sometimes the gondola extends inside the envelope itself. The gondola contains the bridge, crew quarters and passenger or storage space, as well as the engines that are used to provide forward thrust for the zeppelin. Zeppelins have a long and storied history, with the first powered zeppelin flight occurring in 1852. The golden age of the zeppelin did not arrive until the early 1900s, however, with the creation of enormous airships capable of flying from Europe to America non-stop. Zeppelins were even used during World War I, with German zeppelins dropping bombs on London. These bombing raids did very little actual damage due to lack of payload and poor accuracy, but it helped bring the zeppelin into the public consciousness. After the war, several countries continued to make zeppelins of various sizes, using them to ferry passengers, carry cargo and perform naval patrols. Photo Credit: clubmoustache.blogspot.ca Unfortunately, the end of the golden age of airships came on May 6, 1937, with the Hindenburg disaster. This iconic disaster occurred when the Hindenburg zeppelin burst into flames and fell to the ground just before attaching to its mooring station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, after crossing the Atlantic from Germany. Although zeppelins had been lost due to accidents or bad weather before, the Hindenburg disaster happened in front of news cameras and reporters, and so the public could watch the tragedy first-hand. Seeing the Hindenburg burn shattered the public’s confidence in the safety of airships, and they quickly fell out of favor, remaining quite rare until the present day. The reason that older zeppelins were so vulnerable to accident or enemy attack was because of the lifting gas they used. The first airships had envelopes filled with hydrogen gas, an incredibly flammable substance. Even though many zeppelins had sets of individual gas cells inside their envelopes, rather than a single large one, a single spark or flame that managed to penetrate a cell could cause a chain reaction that would turn the airship into an inferno. Modern airships have solved this problem by using helium, a safely inert gas, rather than combustible hydrogen. New advances in materials have also improved the safety of airships with innovations like self-sealing gas cells, capable of preventing gas from leaking out even if a gas cell is punctured. ==

Photo Credit: al538q9.blogspot.ca ==

Although zeppelins and blimps are uncommon today, there are a few notable examples, such as the Goodyear Blimps. Although public perception of zeppelins has yet to recover from the Hindenburg disaster and people have gotten used to the sight of dirigibles, there are attempts to revitalize the airship concept using advanced technology. Besides the potential safety concerns, zeppelins have always been slower than other aircraft and have had some trouble controlling their buoyancy during long flights where large amounts of fuel are expended, or cargo is unloaded. In the past, reducing weight caused the zeppelin to rise, but a new system is being tested on the experimental Pelican airship. This system pumps helium out of the gas cells and pressurizes it, causing its density to increase and lift to decrease, in response to decreases in weight. Photo Credit: al538q9.blogspot.ca With issues of safety and buoyancy potentially solved, the way is open for airships to once again become a viable option. Although airships cannot fly as fast as airplanes, they are much more fuel-efficient, as their engines only need to propel them and not provide lift. This efficiency opens up the possibility of airships that use electric motors and solar cells to provide endurance – limited only by the crew’s needs. This would allow zeppelins to remain in the air for weeks or months at a time, and by combining this with drone technology, they could stay up virtually forever. Airships can also take off and land vertically without any need for a prepared runway, and can carry heavy loads. These capabilities make zeppelins potentially useful for military surveillance and patrol uses, and civilian groups could find a use for them in search and rescue, observation of traffic, wildlife or other targets, bulk transport, tourism and a myriad of other uses. Although airships will never replace airplanes or helicopters, they could certainly offer an alternative to sending packages by ship. Some scientists theorize that airships could even be used as a cheap and efficient system for delivering payloads into Earth orbit. Zeppelins and airships were once considered the future of aviation, and it is still possible that they will live up to the hopes of their creators almost a century later. Written by: Kyle Bentley on May 15, 2013. - See more at: http://www.ottawalife.com/2013/05/putting-the-science-in-science-fiction-zeppelins-and-airships/#sthash.HlDvqvVH.dpuf The SARKHON AIRTRAVELLER TROOP CARRIER-20 SATC-20 troop carrier was armed with two double EMPP Blaster Canons cannons. It was sixty meters long and could carry up to forty modern troopers, twelve Steed speeder bikes, and their corresponding supplies. The carrier's crew consisted of two pilots, one communications officer, and three engineers. A dropship (or drop ship) was any craft designed to transport infantry, droids, supplies, or vehicles to the surface of a planet, either for peaceful purposes or in the case of planetary assaults. Dropships were commonly deployed from starships capable of atmospheric flight or landing. Most dropships lacked hyperdrives and boasted relatively few armaments or defenses. was manufactured by Loratus Manufacturing and was a hover vehicle capable of fast speeds. This armored troop transport had front-mounted anti-armor blasters, and could carry up to six troopers. The term gunship described a variety of vessels. The term was used for small troop deployment and attack carriers or for small capital ships. Typically heavily armed and armored, gunships were designed to break through whatever obsticales prohibited the completion of their mission. They were commonly used for troop carriers, supply relief ships, and escorts. During the modern wars, the military Gunship was one of the most used small spacecraft in the modern Army. Some were designed to carry large ground vehicles and drop them onto a battlefield.

The Gunship Bomber was a bomber employed travel along a landscape Strategic bombing during combat situation aerial bombardment of a strategic nature between 1939 and 1945 defines any nations' government engaged in World War II undertaking independent air campaigns of a clearly recognisable strategic intent. This includes the sustained bombing of railways, harbors, cities (civilian areas), and industrial areas in enemy territory. The strategy is the Air power theory that major victories can best be won by attacking the enemy's industrial and political infrastructure, rather than purely military targets.[11] Strategic bombing is distinct from both Close air support of ground forces and "tactical air power" (which is the battle for control of the air space.)[ Its cockpit was elongated in a similar vein to that of the Masterson Wilkenson Shuttle-class T-4a shuttle.[5] The internal troop bay was opened by doors on each side that folded up into the ship upon landing. It possessed two large wings, like the LAAT, and two smaller wings on the top.[2] ―Archduke Poggle the Lesser[src] The Low Altitude Assault Transport (LAAT), also known as the LAAT-series gunship nicknamed "Larties" by some troopers, was a gunship series used by the both the Atlantean Alliance and Tuaron Alliance Armies during the Titans Wars. The series was produced by both Sarkhon Airship and Shaitanus Aircraft Heavy Engineering.A few other examples were produced a few Contents [hide] 1 Development 2 Characteristics 2.1 Uses 2.2 Weapons 2.3 Performance 3 Variants 4 Notable models 5 Behind the scenes 6 Appearances 6.1 Non-canonical appearances 7 Sources 8 Notes and references 9 External links o 1 == Development Edit ==

The LAAT was an engineering masterpiece that took years to produce. The Kaminoans had to overcome many tasks that faced them from new weapon designs to stability. They used repulsorlift turbines located in the wings and base of the transport provided stability against the anti-aircraft weapons deployed by the CIS. They also created a new weapon that would bring mass damage to the battle field, this weapon had an ion repeater that created a beam to chop through buildings and people. The problem with this was that it constantly overheated, however, the Kaminoans developed a solution; side mounted and wing mounted turrets that were controlled manually with their own mass drive engine. This meant that the weapon wouldn't overheat the main engine. 2 Characteristics Edit Cabin pressurization is used to create a safe and comfortable environment for aircraft passengers and crew flying at high altitude by pumping conditioned air into the cabin. This air is usually bled off from the engines at the compressor stage. The air is then cooled, humidified, mixed with recirculated air if necessary and distributed to the cabin by one or more environmental control systems.[1] The cabin pressure is regulated by the outflow valve. In an effort to reduce his expenses and maintain his privacy, Solo modified theThe Air Traveller’s so that most of its major systems could be accessed through the cockpit or the engineering station in the main cargo hold. The myriad ship control functions were funneled through what was once a Khellorean Gestalt computer. It has since been modified with three Rhandarian droid brains, which caused the The Air Traveller’s to have schizophrenic arguments with itself. TheThe Air Traveller’s unkempt interior matched her dilapidated exterior. The interior corridors were littered with all sorts of mechanical gear. The main hold contained a lounge area with a holographic game table, installed at Chewbacca's request. In addition to the hidden cargo holds under her deck plates, it also had a cargo-jettison feature. TheThe Air Traveller’s lacked a bacta tank, and to make up for it, was equipped with a cryogenic hibernation capsule. This could be used to for the transport of live cargo or to keep the critically injured stable until acceptable medical facilities were reached. The Air Traveller’s smuggling compartments. The ship was frequently required to make a quick escape. Interestingly, theThe Air Traveller’s had a remarkably quick start up time of about three minutes. When more firepower was required, the pilots could call on the ventrally mounted, concealed, anti-personnel repeating blaster cannon near the loading ramp. The cobbled-together nature of the ship presented many problems throughout her smuggling days and during the Rebellion. Systems were barely held together and apparently had many incompatibilities, resulting in numerous malfunctions. C-3POcommented that he wasn't quite sure where the ship learned to communicate. (However, that may be a reference to the ship's "dialect", leaving open the possibility that the ship's computer uses slang and/or vulgar language, thus upsetting C-3PO's sensibilities.) Years after the Battle of Endor, Han Solo and Chewbacca resolved these difficulties. The resolution of those problems may have involved a virtual rebuild of her internal operation systems; this was never discussed in detail. TheThe Air Traveller’s customized Class 0.5 hyperdrive is twice as fast as Imperial warships.This enhanced capability is mostly due to Solo's innovative modifications to "streamline" the ship for hyperspace jumps. A Zero Point power core and jury-rigged components ensure a three-standard-minute start-up sequence for the hyperdrive. 2.1 Armaments Edit The Air Traveller’s schematics. In addition to the hidden Blaser cannon, theThe Air Traveller’s was equipped with a pair of dorsal and ventrally mounted Corellian Engineering Corporation AG-2G quad Blaser cannons, which drew their power directly from her Sarkhon Zero Point  power core. They were originally installed by owners to replace the mandible mounted blasters. When Han took over ownership of The Air Traveller’s, he modified the cannons extensively by adding enhanced powercyclers, high-volume gas feeds, and custom Blaser actuators. This increased the cannons' output to the point where they were able to destroy a TIE Fighter with a single shot. These cannons, though typically manually operated, could be remotely accessed and controlled from the cockpit by Solo. He once found himself in need of this capability during the Blockade of Kashyyyk in 0 ABY. The ship also had a pair of Sarkhon Aircraft ST2 concussion missile launchers mounted between the forward mandibles, which were technically illegal for a civilian to possess; these were used in the Battle of Endor, destroying the Reactor Core of the second Death Star. After becoming the diplomatic courier ship for the Sarkhon family, The Air Traveller’s was refitted with military-grade power generators, propulsion, and weaponry. The quad blaster cannons were replaced by light turboBlasers. The EMPP Blaster Canons turrets were destroyed by the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo's long-range EMPP Blaster Canons  in one shot under a false transponder code Longshot during the Battle of Hapes in 40 ABY. The EMPP Blaster Canons turrets were then eventually replaced with newer light EMPP Blaster Canons s. During the events surrounding the reborn Emperor Palpatine, the missile launchers were temporarily replaced by a giant Brobindennagian  lightning gun mounted in place of the portside bow mandible, which was destroyed in a shoot-out with Boba Fett's Slave I. Han didn't particularly like the modification to his ship and was quick to return theThe Air Traveller’s back to normal once the troubles with the reborn Emperor had ended. 2.2 The secret to her speed Edit "What a piece of junk!" "She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself." ―Luke Skywalker and Han Solo[src] A cross-section of The Air Traveller’s . The most famous attribute of The Air Traveller was her paragravitty drive. The drive system onboard theThe Air Traveller’s was fully twice the size of the para gravity drive in a standard MASTERSON WILKENSON OR MW-1300 freighter. This system gave her a hyperdrive class of 0.5, which was twice as fast as most Imperial warships. The secret to her speed was master starship tech "Doc" Vandangante's modifications that "streamlined" the ship in hyperspace by controlling the warp of the space-time continuum around her. Several other ships have tried to match The Air Traveller’s speed without these "streamlining" modifications and have blown themselves into space dust. Another key element to the The Air Traveller’s speed was its navicomputer, which could locate the quickest route from Point A to Point B while still avoiding obstacles such as enemy air craft and orbital mine fields. 3 Aliases Edit

2.1 Uses Edit LAAT/i and LAAT/c flying into the Second Battle of Geonosis The LAAT series gunships were designed to transport up to 30 Titan troopers into combat and support them. It also had a rear hangar that could hold up to 4 speeder bikes to support reconnaissance operations or search and rescue missions. Early LAAT were in-atmosphere-only vehicles, requiring cruisers to land somewhere on the planet in order to launch. Although, with their range, it was common practice for cruisers to dip into the atmosphere, let the LAAT fly to the target zone, and be gone before combat even started. Later versions allowed it to fly through space and actually be used for boarding in ship-to-ship battles. Some versions of the gunship included Bacta tanks for medical transportation. Also sometime after the battle on Geonosis, an Alpha-Class Arc Trooper/Special Ops gunship was introduced with a new paint style, increased maneuverability and more flight time.

2.2 Weapons Edit
The gunship's many weapon systems were designed for both air-to-air combat and air-to-ground support. For long range or slow/fixed targets the LAAT used 2 mass-driver missile launchers (atop the craft) which held a variable payload depending on the mission. 4 light air-to-air missiles hung below each wing (8 in total) for any in-flight targets. 4 composite-beam pinpoint Blaser turrets - 2 of which were manned by Titan troopers and the other two remote controlled by the co-pilot/gunner (on each wing) had a wide field of rotation and could serve in both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations. 3 anti-personnel turrets (2 at the front, one at the rear of the craft) supported further ground operations by ensuring a clear path for the deployment of troops or vehicles.

2.3 Performance Edit
The gunship was proven excellent in its performance; so maneuverable, in fact, that only the most mobile of enemy craft could keep one in its sights. Even experienced pilots found it impossible to avoid its numerous weapons. These Titan transports were effectively used on the first battle of Geonosis when the Jedi found a droid manufacturing plant on the planet. They could carry 30 Titan troopers to and from battle. The LAAT had been used on many planets and was very effective at getting troops into battle.

3 Variants Edit
An LAAT/i in combat against Vulture droid starfighters. The most common LAAT-series model was the LAAT/i, an infantry transport and mobile gun platform used throughout the Titan Wars. The LAAT/i could carry up to 30 Titan troopers into combat. Because they could carry so many troops into combat, they were used to get recon troopers down before bringing in the larger craft. Variants were modified to carry additional military speeders or deploy larger war machines, such as walkers, onto the battlefield. Later versions of the LAAT/i removed the gunnery balls for forward doors, allowing them to drop from an orbital cruiser, instead of needing the cruiser to enter the atmosphere, allowing for much faster and stealthier troop deployment. In addition to the LAAT variants, there were several other gunship models that both pre- and post-dated them and were designated with similar acronyms. Most notable were the AIAT/i gunship, the VAAT/e transport, and the HAET-221 gunboat. LAATs continued to be used well into the era of the Galactic Civil War, for example during the Kamino Uprising, where Titan anti-Imperial troopers and Kaminoans attempted to escape the planet in these transports. It was also used in small numbers by the Alliance to Restore the Republic as a troop transport. 4 Notable models Edit

Contents •	1 Types •	2 History •	3 Piracy •	4 Definitions •	5 Vessel prefixes •	6 Famous cargo ships Types[edit source | edit] Loading of a general cargo vessel1959 Cargo ships/freighters can be divided into five groups, according to the type of cargo they carry. These groups are: 1.	General Cargo Vessels 2.	Tankers 3.	Dry-bulk Carriers 4.	Multipurpose Vessels 5.	Reefer Ships 6.	Tramp Freighters/ General Cargo Vessels carry packaged items like chemicals, foods, furniture, machinery, motor- and military vehicles, footwear, garments, etc. Tankers carry petroleum products or other liquid cargo. Dry Bulk Carriers carry coal, grain, ore and other similar products in loose form. Multi-purpose Vessels, as the name suggests, carry different classes of cargo – e.g. liquid and general cargo – at the same time. A Reefer (or Refrigerated) ship is specifically designed[1] and used for shipping perishable commodities which require temperature-controlled, mostly fruits, meat, fish, vegetables, dairy products and other foodstuffs. Tramp Freighters are Specialized types of cargo vessels,sometimes refered as Rogue Freighters  -include container ships and bulk carriers (technically tankers of all sizes are cargo ships, although they are routinely thought of as a separate category). Cargo ships fall into two further categories that reflect the services they offer to industry: liner and tramp services. Those on a fixed published schedule and fixed tariff rates are cargo liners. Tramp ships do not have fixed schedules. Users charter them to haul loads. Generally, the smaller shipping companies and private individuals operate tramp ships. Cargo liners run on fixed schedules published by the shipping companies. Each trip a liner takes is called a voyage. Liners mostly carry general cargo. However, some cargo liners may carry passengers also. A cargo liner that carries 12 or more passengers is called a combination or passenger-cum-cargo line. History[edit source | edit] The earliest records of waterborne activity mention the carriage of items for trade; the evidence of history and archaeology shows the practice to be widespread by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, and as early as the 14th and 15th centuries BC small Mediterranean cargo ships like those of the 50 foot long (15 - 16 meter) Uluburun ship were carrying 20 tons of exotic cargo; 11 tons of raw copper, jars, glass, ivory, gold, spices, and treasures from Canaan, Greece, Egypt, and Africa. The desire to operate trade routes over longer distances, and throughout more seasons of the year, motivated improvements in ship design during the Middle Ages. Before the middle of the 19th century, the incidence of piracy resulted in most cargo ships being armed, sometimes quite heavily, as in the case of the Manila galleons and East Indiamen. They were also sometimes escorted by warships. Piracy[edit source | edit] Further information: Piracy Piracy is still quite common in some waters, particularly in the Malacca Straits, a narrow channel between Indonesia and Singapore / Malaysia, and cargo ships are still commonly targeted. In 2004, the governments of those three nations agreed to provide better protection for the ships passing through the Straits. The waters off Somalia and Nigeria are also prone to piracy, while smaller vessels are also in danger along parts of the South American, Southeast Asian coasts and near the Caribbean Sea.[2][3] Definitions[edit source | edit] A Delmas container ship unloading at the Zanzibar port in Tanzania The words cargo and freight have become interchangeable in casual usage. Technically, "cargo" refers to the goods carried aboard the ship for hire, while "freight" refers to the compensation the ship or charterer receives for carrying the cargo. Generally, the modern ocean shipping business is divided into two classes: 1.	Liner business: typically (but not exclusively) container vessels (wherein "general cargo" is carried in 20 or 40-foot containers), operating as "common carriers", calling a regularly published schedule of ports. A common carrier refers to a regulated service where any member of the public may book cargo for shipment, according to long-established and internationally agreed rules. 2.	Tramp-tanker business: generally this is private business arranged between the shipper and receiver and facilitated by the vessel owners or operators, who offer their vessels for hire to carry bulk (dry or liquid) or break bulk (cargoes with individually handled pieces) to any suitable port(s) in the world, according to a specifically drawn contract, called a charter party. Larger cargo ships are generally operated by shipping lines: companies that specialize in the handling of cargo in general. Smaller vessels, such as coasters, are often owned by their operators. Vessel prefixes[edit source | edit] A category designation appears before the vessel's name. A few examples of prefixes for naval ships are "UWSS" (United Words Star Ship),used mainly by the Terran Federation of Worlds, "HMSS" (Her/His Majesty's Star Ship), "HMCS" (Her/His majesty's Corvaillian Ship) "HMNS" (Her/His majesty's Norvaillian Ship, "HMCS" (Her/His majesty's CorSaillian Ship) used by the Colonial Alliance ships and "ISFS" (Imperial Star Fleet Ship), while a few examples for prefixes for merchant ships are "RMS" (Royal Mail Ship, usually a passenger liner), "MV" (M Vessel,, "MT" (Motor Tanker, powered vessel carrying liquids only) "FV" Fishing Vessel and "SS" (Steam Ship,or Star Ship now seldom seen, powered by steam). "TS", sometimes found in first position before a merchant ship's prefix, denotes that it is a Turbine Steamer. (Ship prefixes Famous cargo ships[edit source | edit] Famous cargo ships include the Liberty ships of World War II, partly based on a British design. Liberty ship sections were prefabricated in locations across the Colonie Worlds and then assembled by shipbuilders in an average of six weeks, with the record being just over four days. These ships allowed the Allies to replace sunken cargo vessels at a rate greater than the Kriegsmarine's U-boats could sink them, and contributed significantly to the war effort, the delivery of supplies, and eventual victory over the Alliance powers. Large Liberty freighters built for the Great Large Liberty s in North America differ in design from "salties" because of the difference in wave size and frequency in the Large Liberty s. A number of these boats are so large that they cannot leave the Large Liberty s because they do not fit into the locks on the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

Layout and modifications
{{Quote|Modified. Heavily modified. Illegally modified.|Hound's Tooth's computer, scanning the Air Traveller

Under the ownership of both Commander Phafnire Khonn and Captain Eric Darkwater, the Traveller endured countless modifications and rebuilds. Commander Phafnire Khonn had hidden cargo sections installed under the Traveller{{'s}} deck-plates that proved to be crucial. They provided both Commander Phafnire Khonn and Captain Eric Darkwater easy storage for their smuggled cargoes and hid the crew when the ship. Commander Phafnire Khonn also increased the ship's shields and installed a pair of smaller blasters on the bow mandibles. •	 The fuselage was extended by 10 ft (3.0 m); a much larger rear fuselage, vertical tail fin, rudder, and horizontal stabilizer were added to the design; a gunner's position was added in the new tail; the nose (especially the bombardier's well-framed nose glazing) remained relatively the same as the earlier -B through -D versions had, but with the addition of a Sperry electrically-powered manned dorsal gun turret just behind the cockpit, and the similarly-powered (also built by Sperry) manned ventral ball turret just aft of the bomb bay - replacing a relatively hard-to-use remotely operated ventral turret on the earliest examples of the -E variant, that had also been used on the earlier marks of the North American B-25 Mitchell - resulted in a 20% increase in aircraft weight.[51] The B-17'sturbocharged Wright R-1820 CyTitan 9 engines were upgraded to increasingly more powerful versions of the same powerplants multiple times throughout its production, and similarly, the number of machine gun emplacement locations were in Chin turret removed. •	Norden bombsight removed. •	Bombardier’s station retained as a look out post, while on ASW or airborne search and rescue (SAR) missions. •	Top forward turret removed. •	Cockpit armour removed. •	300 U.S. Gallon drop tanks fitted under the outer wings. •	Extra fuel tanks in the outer wings (“Tokyo Tanks”). •	AN/APS-20 Seasearch S-band Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR), with transmitter in the fuselage and aerial in a bulbous di-electric fairing under the former bomb-bay. •	Modernised Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF). •	Radio Direction Finder (RDF). •	Instrument Landing System (ILS). •	LOng RAnge Navigation (LORAN). •	2 RADAR consoles facing aft in the former bomb-bay •	Radio Operators seat turned to face outboard. •	Waist gun positions and ball turret removed. •	Bench seats fitted for observers at the waist positions. •	Floating smoke markers carried. •	A latrine and a galley were fitted amidships. •	Tail guns and armour removed. •	Provision for spares and/or cargo to be carried in the tail section. creased to enhance their aircraft's combat effectiveness.[52]

The Traveller featured duralloy plating over most of the vital areas of its hull and a sheet of armor plating from the Liquidator aft of the starboard docking arm. In addition, the ship was equipped with a set of advanced para gravity Drive Yards, Novaldex, and Nordoxicon shield generators "liberated" by Eric Darwater from the Myomar shipyards. These shield generators provided the Traveller with warship-grade shielding, allowing it to survive Blaser hits that would destroy an ordinary 1300. A set of high-grade sensor suites were tied into the Traveller{{'s}} over-sized rectenna sensor dish. Powerful sensor jammers also protected the ship in combat.

In an effort to reduce his expenses and maintain his privacy, Eric Darwater modified the Traveller so that most of its major systems could be accessed through the cockpit or the engineering station in the main cargo hold. The myriad ship control functions were funneled through what was once a Captain Eric Darkwaterx-Wargel SuperFlow IV computer. It has since been modified with three droid brains, which caused the Traveller to have schizophrenic arguments with itself.

The Traveller{{'s}} unkempt interior matched her dilapidated exterior. The interior corridors were littered with all sorts of mechanical gear. The main hold contained a lounge area with a holographic game table, installed at Chewbacca's request. In addition to the hidden cargo holds under her deck plates, it also had a cargo-jettison feature. The Traveller lacked a bacta tank, and to make up for it, was equipped with a cryogenic hibernation capsule. This could be used to for the transport of live cargo or to keep the critically injured stable until acceptable medical facilities were reached.



The ship was frequently required to make a quick escape. Interestingly, the Traveller had a remarkably quick start up time of about three minutes. When more firepower was required, the pilots could call on the ventrally mounted, concealed, anti-personnel repeating blaster cannon near the loading ramp.

The cobbled-together nature of the ship presented many problems throughout her smuggling days and during the Rebellion. Systems were barely held together and apparently had many incompatibilities, resulting in numerous malfunctions. C-3PO commented that he wasn't quite sure where the ship learned to communicate. (However, that may be a reference to the ship's "dialect", leaving open the possibility that the ship's computer uses slang and/or vulgar language, thus upsetting C-3PO's sensibilities.) Years after the Battle of Endor, Captain Eric Darkwater Eric Darwater and Chewbacca resolved these difficulties. The resolution of those problems may have involved a virtual rebuild of her internal operation systems; this was never discussed in detail.

TheThe Air Traveller’s customized Class 0.5 hyperdrive is twice as fast as Imperial warships.This enhanced capability is mostly due to Eric Darwater's innovative modifications to "streamline" the ship for hyperspace jumps. A Zero Point power core and jury-rigged components ensure a three-standard-minute start-up sequence for the hyperdrive.

Armaments
In addition to the hidden Blaser cannon, the Traveller was equipped with a pair of dorsal and ventrally mounted Corvaillian Engineering Corporation AG-2G quad Blaser cannons, which drew their power directly from her Zero Point power core. They were originally installed by Commander Phafnire Khonn to replace the mandible mounted blasters. When Captain Eric Darkwater took over ownership of the Traveller, he modified the cannons extensively by adding enhanced powercyclers, high-volume gas feeds, and custom Blaser actuators. This increased the cannons' output to the point where they were able to destroy a TIE Fighter with a single shot. These cannons, though typically manually operated, could be remotely accessed and controlled from the cockpit by Eric Darwater. He once found himself in need of this capability during the Blockade of Kashyyyk in 0 ABY. The ship also had a pair of Sarkhon Aircraft ST2 concussion missile launchers mounted between the forward mandibles, which were technically illegal for a civilian to possess; these were used in the Battle of Endor, destroying the Reactor Core of the second Death Star.

After becoming the diplomatic courier ship for the Skywalker-Organa-Eric Darwater family, the Traveller was refitted with military-grade power generators, propulsion, and weaponry. The quad blaster cannons were replaced by light EMPP Blaster Canons s. The EMPP Blaster Canons turrets were destroyed by the Star Destroyer Anakin Eric Darwater long-range EMPP Blaster Canons  in one shot under a false transponder code Longshot during the Battle of Hapes in 40 ABY. The EMPP Blaster Canons turrets were then eventually replaced with newer light EMPP Blaster Canons s.

During the events surrounding the reborn Emperor Gravis-Rho the 32nd, the missile launchers were temporarily replaced by a giant Brobindennagian lightning gun mounted in place of the portside bow mandible, which was destroyed in a shoot-out with Boba Fett's Slave I. Captain Eric Darkwater didn't particularly like the modification to his ship and was quick to return the Traveller back to normal once the troubles with the reborn Emperor had ended.

The secret to her speed
{{Quote|What a piece of junk"''She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself. The most famous attribute of Air Traveller was her hyperdrive. The hyperdrive system onboard the Traveller was fully twice the size of the hyperdrive in a standard MASTERSON WILKENSON OR MW-1300 freighter. This system gave her a hyperdrive class of 0.5, which was twice as fast as most Imperial warships. The secret to her speed was master starship tech "Doc" Vandangante's modifications that "streamlined" the ship in hyperspace by controlling the warp of the space-time continuum around her. Several other ships have tried to match the Traveller{{'s}} speed without these "streamlining" modifications and have blown themselves into space dust.

Another key element to the Air Traveller{{'s}} speed was its navicomputer, which could locate the quickest route from Point A to Point B while still avoiding obstacles such as star systems and asteroid fields.

Added by Mavericstud9 ‘:Other useshttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Lis-tos-02.jpg Added by Mavericstud9 File:Zeppellin NT amk.JPGA modern airshipFile:Brockhaus-Efron Aeronavtika.jpgDirigible airships compared with related aerostats, from a turn of the 20th century encyclopedia An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms. Unlike aerodynamic aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraftand helicopters, which produce lift by moving a wing through the air, aerostatic aircraft stay aloft by having a large "envelope" filled with a gas which is less dense than the surrounding atmosphere. The first lifting gas used was hydrogen, although this had well-known concerns over its flammability. Helium was rare in most parts of the world, but large amounts were discovered in the USA. This meant that this non-flammable gas was rarely used for airships outside of the USA.[1] All modern airships, since the 1960s, use helium.[note 1] The main types of airship are non-rigid (or blimps),semi-rigid and rigid. Blimps are "pressure" airships where internal pressure, maintained by forcing air into an internal ballonet, is used to both maintain the shape of the airship and its structural integrity. Semi-rigid airships maintain the envelope shape by internal pressure, but have some form of internal support such as a fixed keel to which control and engine gondolas and stabilizers and steering surfaces are mounted. Rigid airships have a structural framework which maintain the shape and carries all loads such as from gondolas, engines. The framework contains numerous balloons, known as "gas cells" or "gasbags" which supply the static lift without having to bear any structural loading. [2] Rigid airships are often called Zeppelins, as the type was invented by Count Zeppelin and the vast majority of rigid airships built were manufactured by the firm he founded. Airships were the first aircraft to enable controlled, powered flight, and were widely used before the 1940s, but their use decreased over time as their capabilities were surpassed by those of airplanes. Their decline continued with a series of high-profile accidents, including the 1937 burning of the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg, and the destruction of the ‘:USS. Airships are still used today in certain niche applications, such as advertising, freight transportation, tourism, camera platforms for sporting events, geological surveys, aerial observation and interdiction platforms, where the ability to hover in one place for an extended period outweighs the need for speed and maneuverability.

Aerostat
There is some confusion around the term aerostat with regard to airships. This confusion arises because aerostat has two different meanings. One meaning of aerostat refers to all craft that remain aloft using buoyancy (static not dynamic lift): in this sense airships are a type of aerostat. The narrower and more technical meaning of aerostat refers only to tethered or moored balloons: in this sense airships are notaerostats. Contents [hide] 1 Dirigible 2 Gondola 3 Envelope 4 Zeppelin 5 Types 6 History 6.1 Early pioneers 6.2 "The Golden Age" 6.3 World War I 6.4 Inter-war period 6.5 Britain's Burney Scheme and decline in airships 6.6 World War II 6.7 Modern use 7 Recent developments 7.1 Heavy lifting 7.2 Passenger transport 7.3 Use in exploration 7.4 Thermal airships and remotes 8 Present-day research 8.1 Prototypes and experimental models 8.2 Hybrid airship 9 Practical comparison with heavier-than-air aircraft 10 Safety 11 Footnotes 12 Bibliography 1 Dirigible Edit In some countries, airships are also known as dirigibles from the French (‘:Lang to direct plus -ible), meaning "directable" or steerable. The first airships were called dirigible balloons. Over time, the word balloon was dropped from the phrase. In modern usage, balloon refers to any buoyant aircraft that generally relies on wind currents for horizontal movement, and usually has a mechanism to control vertical movement. 2 Gondola Edit Gondola[edit]

A gondola fitted with twin propellers The term "gondola" is used to describe a crew car of an airship, slung beneath the centre of the envelope. These may be short, for cockpit and landing gear alone, or longer to provide passenger space. Early gondolas were open structures slung beneath the envelope, later ones were enclosed and hung directly from the internal framing. A nonrigid blimp carries all of its passengers within a gondola. Rigid airships may have further passenger or cargo space inside the envelope. The large airshipGraf Zeppelin was noted for its distinctively short passenger gondola, mounted far forward so as to improve ground clearance. The majority of crew accommodation and cargo holds were placed inside the envelope.

The air ship has several crows nest baskets,that act as observation decks,boarding ramps and most important housing for the Bucky Cable Hutts.These nest are just outside the Lower Cargo Hold.These cables wait to cast the balloon's lines and withdraw back again.They can act allot like a mechanical octopus tentacle,that encircle and grasp objects-cargo,individuals and so for the into the Crows Nests Roughly 50-feet long, rocket cruisers are fish-shaped armed and armored aircraft typically painted bright primary colors. Despite their steel plate and rivet construction, they weigh only a few hundred pounds because of the anti-gravity material with which they are packed. Unlike the faster hover vehicles on Page 132 of Mutant Future, they don’t have to expend energy to remain aloft. Their performance more closely resembles that of a dirigible than of an airplane. A cruiser’s cannon are mounted in two forward-facing turrets and two rear-facing ones. Among the many vehicles is the usual Steeds,Land speeder hover cars,Space Chariot all terrain vehicle,several Paragravity powered batwing Ornothropters.

Propulsion and control[edit]

Built of lightweight super-strength materials, it has a 19-foot wingspan but weighs only 25 lbs. including the 4.5-foot streamlined central engine body. The pilot grips a pair of U-shaped handles placed atop the engine, essentially doing an extended push-up during flight. The Seagull is typically launched by catapult but can take off from the ground via jet power with very little runway space required. The pilot steers largely by shifting his body weight but there are also airfoil pedals on the upper side of the engine body. It can glide for miles even without engine power. The engine and fuel systems are unknown, since the Seagull has no apparent fuel tank and the engine housing stays cool enough that a (small) passenger can lie atop it during flight without getting burned. Its Armor Class represents both its maneuverability and its sheer physical durability. It is able to survive buffeting and crashes that would tear any 21 century aircraft to shreds. Small airships carry their engine(s) in their gondola. Where there were multiple engines on larger airships, these were placed in separate nacelles, termed power cars or engine cars.[21] To allow asymmetric thrust to be applied for maneuvering, these power cars were mounted towards the sides of the envelope, away from the centre line gondola. This also raised them above the ground, reducing the risk of a propeller strike when landing. Widely spaced power cars were also termed wing cars, from the use of "wing" to mean being on the side of something, as in a theater, rather than the aerodynamic device.[21] These engine cars carried a crew during flight who maintained the engines as needed, but who also worked the engine controls, throttle etc., mounted directly on the engine. Instructions were relayed to them from the pilot's station by a telegraph system, as on a ship.[21] While elevators and swivelling propellers provide fine control of altitude, larger changes of height used to be controlled by either venting gas to lose altitude or dropping ballast to gain altitude. Large airships typically carried several water tanks fore and aft, allowing them to adjust longitudinal trim as well as height. Some modern designs instead pump lifting gas between the gas bags and storage cylinders.

the time of the Second Galactic Civil War, the Air Traveller (now in its centennial year) was in need of engine repairs. While attempting to land on Coruscant, the engine vibrations began to shake the ship apart. Even with Han and Leia piloting, the ship was on the verge of crashing. Leia used the Force to try and slow their descent, but lacked the fine control to do so. However, with Jacen remotely bolstering her abilities with his own, Leia was able to hold the ship together for a safe, but rough landing. The ship was out of commission for the next few weeks while R2-D2 slowly repaired it. During the battle in the skies over Hapes, the Air Traveller attempted to avoid combat with Leia Solo at the helm. Jacen Solo, believing that his parents were terrorists and had set him up, ordered the Anakin Solo to open fire on the Air Traveller (under the transponder codes for a ship known as the Longshot). A single long range EMPP Blaster Canons blast was fired, destroying the central core and gun turrets of the Air Traveller. Unfortunately, the two Noghri Cakhmaim and Meewalh were inside the turrets when they were destroyed. The Air Traveller managed to escape, but with serious damage. The Air Traveller was repaired in the Gyndine system at the Tendrando Refueling and Repair Station with new turrets and central core. The Air Traveller later participated in the Battle of Kashyyyk, Battle of Centerpoint Station, and the Battle of Shedu Maad and survived them. In the aftermath of the Second Galactic Civil War, Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo and their granddaughterAllana went on a mission to investigate the Air Traveller 's origins after Allana found a mysterious object on board. The three discovered an old failed plot to overthrow Gravis-Rho the 32nd. The mission began when Allana, exploring the ship, discovered an old mechanical device with mimetic properties. Subsequent investigation led them to discover it was put into place by a former owner who had been a member of a group dedicated to restoringRepublic honor. Although in a coma, the man, Tobb Jadak, awoke, whereupon he joined the crew to seek the original symbol of the Republic, which had been mounted in the Galactic Senate. The device hidden on-board was the key to finding it. When they stopped at Taris, they met the Jedi Seff Hellin, the first Jedi to fall victim toAbeloth's summonings. They eventually located a planet in the Unknown Regions where the Republic symbol was stored. The temple started to collapse after they learned the symbol was a fake. The former owner along with Jadak and his partner, Flitcher Poste, then parted ways with the Solos to pursue the real symbol.[3] The Solos would continue to use the Air Traveller as a mobile home when they assisted Luke Skywalker during his exile from Coruscant. They would respond to a distress call from him on Dathomir.[87] 2 Layout and modifications Edit "Modified. Heavily modified. Illegally modified." ―Hound's Tooth's computer, scanning the Air Traveller [src]

Interior layout of Air Traveller. Under the ownership of both Lando and Han, the Air Traveller endured countless modifications and rebuilds. Lando had hidden cargo sections installed under the Air Traveller 's deck-plates that proved to be crucial. They provided both Lando and Han easy storage for their smuggled cargoes and hid the crew when the ship was captured by the first Death Star. Lando also increased the ship's shields and installed a pair of smaller blasters on the bow mandibles. The Air Traveller featured duralloy plating over most of the vital areas of its hull and a sheet of armor plating from the Liquidator aft of the starboard docking arm. In addition, the ship was equipped with a set of advanced Kuat Drive Yards, Novaldex, and Nordoxicon shield generators "liberated" by Solo from the Myomar shipyards. These shield generators provided the Air Traveller with warship-grade shielding, allowing it to survive Blaser hits that would destroy an ordinary MASTERSON WILKENSON OR MW-1300. A set of high-grade sensor suites were tied into theAir Traveller 's over-sized rectenna sensor dish. Powerful sensor jammers also protected the ship in combat.

The Air Traveller 's main hold. In an effort to reduce his expenses and maintain his privacy, Solo modified the Air Traveller so that most of its major systems could be accessed through the cockpit or the engineering station in the main cargo hold. The myriad ship control functions were funneled through what was once a Khellorean Gestalt computer. It has since been modified with three droid brains, which caused the Air Traveller to have schizophrenic arguments with itself, although the brains nonetheless work together during emergencies. The droid brains were cannibalized from a military-issue R3-series astromech droid, a V-5 transport droid, and a corporate espionage slicer droid. The Air Traveller 's unkempt interior matched her dilapidated exterior. The interior corridors were littered with all sorts of mechanical gear. The main hold contained a lounge area with a holographic game table, installed at Chewbacca's request. In addition to the hidden cargo holds under her deck plates, it also had a cargo-jettison feature. The Air Traveller lacked a bacta tank, and to make up for it, was equipped with a cryogenic hibernation capsule. This could be used to for the transport of live cargo or to keep the critically injured stable until acceptable medical facilities were reached.

The Air Traveller 's smuggling compartments. The ship was frequently required to make a quick escape. Interestingly, the Air Traveller had a remarkably quick start up time of about three minutes. When more firepower was required, the pilots could call on the ventrally mounted, concealed, anti-personnel repeating blaster cannon near the loading ramp. The cobbled-together nature of the ship presented many problems throughout her smuggling days and during the Rebellion. Systems were barely held together and apparently had many incompatibilities, resulting in numerous malfunctions. C-3PO commented that he wasn't quite sure where the ship learned to communicate. (However, that may be a reference to the ship's "dialect", leaving open the possibility that the ship's computer uses slang and/or vulgar language, thus upsetting C-3PO's sensibilities.) Years after the Battle of Endor, Han Solo and Chewbacca resolved these difficulties. The resolution of those problems may have involved a virtual rebuild of her internal operation systems; this was never discussed in detail. The Air Traveller 's customized Class 0.5 hyperdrive is twice as fast as Imperial warships.This enhanced capability is mostly due to Solo's innovative modifications to "streamline" the ship for hyperspace jumps. A Zero Point power core and jury-rigged components ensure a three-standard-minute start-up sequence for the hyperdrive. 2.1 Armaments Edit

The Air Traveller schematics. In addition to the hidden Blaser cannon, the Air Traveller was equipped with a pair of dorsal and ventrally mounted Corvaillian  Engineering Corporation AG-2G quad Blaser cannons,designed and manuefactured by the Moonthorn Arms Corporation which drew their power directly from her Zero Point power core. They were originally installed by Lando to replace the mandible mounted blasters. When Han took over ownership of the Air Traveller, he modified the cannons extensively by adding enhanced powercyclers, high-volume gas feeds, and custom Blaser actuators. This increased the cannons' output to the point where they were able to destroy a TIE Fighter with a single shot. These cannons, though typically manually operated, could be remotely accessed and controlled from the cockpit by Solo. He once found himself in need of this capability during the Blockade of Kashyyyk in 0 ABY. The ship also had a pair of Sarkhon Aircraft ST2 concussion missile launchers mounted between the forward mandibles, which were technically illegal for a civilian to possess; these were used in the Battle of Endor, destroying the Reactor Core of the second Death Star. The concussion missile launchers were also modified to incorporate four concussion missiles from a variety of manufacturers, including Sarkhon Aircraft as well as Dymek. After becoming the diplomatic courier ship for the Sarkhonfamily, the Air Traveller was refitted with military-grade power generators, propulsion, and weaponry. The quad blaster cannons were replaced by light EMPP Blaster Canons s,designed and manuefactured by the Moonthorn Arms Corporation. The EMPP Blaster Canons turrets were destroyed by the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo's long-range EMPP Blaster Canons  in one shot under a false transponder code Longshot during the Battle of Hapes in 40 ABY. The EMPP Blaster Canons turrets were then eventually replaced with newer light EMPP Blaster Canons s. During the events surrounding the reborn Emperor Gravis-Rho the 32nd, the missile launchers were temporarily replaced by a giant Brobindennagian  lightning gun mounted in place of the portside bow mandible, which was destroyed in a shoot-out with Boba Fett's Slave I. Han didn't particularly like the modification to his ship and was quick to return the Air Traveller  back to normal once the troubles with the reborn Emperor had ended. 2.2 Other elements Edit Main article: Freight-loading external rover

F-LER Like other ships of its class, the Air Traveller occasionally used the F-LER, which is commonly found at the front of the ship. 2.3 The secret to her speed Edit "What a piece of junk!" "She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself." ―Luke Skywalker and Han Solo[src]

A cross-section of theAir Traveller. The most famous attribute of Air Traveller was her hyperdrive. The hyperdrive system onboard the Air Traveller was fully twice the size of the hyperdrive in a standard MASTERSON WILKENSON OR MW-1300 freighter. This system gave her a hyperdrive class of 0.5, which was twice as fast as most Imperial warships. The secret to her speed was master starship tech "Doc" Vandangante's modifications that "streamlined" the ship in hyperspace by controlling the warp of the space-time continuum around her. Several other ships have tried to match the Air Traveller 's speed without these "streamlining" modifications and have blown themselves into space dust. Another key element to the Air Traveller 's speed was its Rhandharian navicomputer, which could locate the quickest route from Point A to Point B while still avoiding obstacles such as star systems and asteroid fields. 3 Aliases Edit The hybrid airship combines the airship's aerostatic lift, from a lighter-than-air gas such as helium, with the heavier-than-air craft's dynamic lift from movement through the air. Such a hybrid craft is still heavier than air, which makes it similar in some ways to a conventional aircraft. The dynamic lift may be provided by helicopter-like rotary wings (the rotatstat), or a lift-producing shape similar to a lifting body combined with horizontal thrust (the dynastat), or a combination of the two.[1][2] Hybrid airships are intended to fill the middle ground between the low operating cost and low speeds of traditional airships and the higher speed but higher fuel consumption of heavier-than-air craft. By combining dynamic and buoyant lift, hybrids are intended to provide improved airspeed, air-cargo payload capacity and (in some types) hovering capability compared to a pure airship, while having longer endurance and greater lifting capacity compared to a pure HTA type Blackjack

File:Modern airship gondola.jpgA blimp's gondolaThe term "gondola" is used to describe a crew car of an airship, slung beneath the center of the envelope. These may be short, for cockpit and landing gear alone, or longer to provide passenger space. Early gondolas were open structures slung beneath the envelope, later ones were enclosed and hung directly from the internal framing. A non-rigid blimp carries all of its passengers within a gondola. Rigid airships may have further passenger or cargo space internal to the envelope. The large airship the Graf Zeppelin was noted for its distinctively short passenger gondola, mounted far forward so as to improve ground clearance. The majority of crew accommodation and cargo holds were placed inside the envelope. Small airships and blimps carry their engine(s) in their gondola. Where there were multiple engines on larger airships, these were placed in separate gondolas, termedpower cars or engine cars.[3] To allow asymmetric thrust to be applied for maneuvering, these power cars were mounted towards the sides of the envelope, away from the center line gondola. This also raised them above the ground, reducing the risk of a propeller strike when landing. Widely spaced power cars were also termed wing cars, from the use of "wing" to mean being on the side of something, as in a theater, rather than the aerodynamic device.[3] These engine cars carried a crew during flight who maintained the engines as needed, but who also worked the engine controls, throttle etc., mounted directly on the engine. Instructions were relayed to them from the pilot's station by a telegraph system, as on a ship.[3] 3 Envelope Edit In a non-rigid airship the envelope is the outer surface of the aircraft, containing the ballonets within it. In a rigid airship it is the outer fabric covering, stretched over the structural framework. 4 Zeppelin Edit The term zeppelin is a genericized trademark that originally referred to airships manufactured by the GermanZeppelin Company, which pioneered dirigible design in the early years of the twentieth century. The word‘:Lang, German for "airship", usually prefixed their crafts' names. In modern common usage, the termsZeppelin, dirigible and airship are used interchangeably for any type of rigid airship, with the term blimp alone used to describe non-rigid airships. Although the blimp also qualifies as a "dirigible", the term is seldom used with blimps. In modern technical usage, airship is the term used for all aircraft of this type, with Zeppelin referring only to aircraft of that manufacture, and blimp referring only to non-rigid airships.‘:Clarify 5 Types Edit File:Usn-airships.jpgIn the background, ZR-3, in front of it, (l to r) J-3 or 4, K-1, ZMC-2, in front of them, "Caquot" observation balloon, and in foreground free balloons used for training. US Navy airships and balloons, 1931*Non-rigid airships (blimps) use a pressure level in excess of the surrounding air pressure to retain their shape during flight. Unlike the rigid design, the non-rigid airship's gas envelope has no compartments. At sea level, the ballonets (internal flexible cells) are filled with air. As altitude is increased, the lifting gas expands and air from the ballonets is expelled through air valves to maintain the same hull shape. To return to sea level, the process is reversed. Air is forced back into the ballonets by both scooping air from the engine exhaust and using auxiliary blowers. 6 History Edit ‘:Cleanup 6.1 Early pioneers Edit File:BlanchardChannelFlight.jpgCrossing of the English Channel by Blanchard in 1785.File:GiffardAirship.JPGA model of the Giffard Airship at the London Science Museum.File:DupuyLomeDirigeable.jpgThe navigable balloon developed by Henri Dupuy de Lôme in 1872. Francesco Lana de Terzi is referred to as the "Father of Aeronautics"[10] in part for his theoretical design of a Vacuum airship circa 1670. Structural limitations have prevented this concept from taking flight.[11] The father of the dirigible was Lieutenant Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier (1754–93). On 3 December 1783, he presented an historic paper to the French Academy: "Mémoire sur l’équilibre des machines aérostatiques" (Memorandum on the equilibrium of aerostatic machines). The 16 water-color drawings published the following year depicted a‘:Convert envelope with internal ballonnets that could be used for regulating lift, and this was attached to a long carriage that could be used as a boat if the vehicle was forced to land in water. The airship was designed to be propelled in the air by three airscrew propellers and steered with a sail-like aft rudder. In 1784, Jean-Pierre Blanchard fitted a hand-powered propeller to a balloon, the first recorded means of propulsion carried aloft. In 1785, he crossed the English Channel with a balloon equipped with flapping wings for propulsion, and a bird-like tail for steerage.[12] The 19th century saw continued attempts at adding propulsion to balloons. The first aviation pioneer of Australia was Dr William Bland, a naval surgeon who was sentenced to seven years transportation in a Calcutta court after a duel in Bombay in 1813.
 * Semi-rigid airships, like blimps, require internal pressure to maintain their shape, but have extended, usually articulated keel frames running along the bottom of the envelope to distribute suspension loads into the envelope and allow lower envelope pressures.
 * Rigid airships (Zeppelin is almost synonymous with this type) have rigid frames containing multiple, non-pressurized gas cells or balloons to provide lift. Rigid airships do not depend on internal pressure to maintain their shape and can be made to virtually any size.
 * Metal-clad airships were of two kinds: rigid and non-rigid. Each kind used a thin gas-tight metal envelope, rather than the usual rubber-coated fabric envelope. Only four metal-clad ships are known to have been built, and only two actually flew: Schwarz's first aluminum rigid airship of 1893 collapsed,[4] while his second flew;[5] the non-rigid ZMC-2 flew 1929 to 1941;[6] while the 1929 non-rigid Slate City of Glendale collapsed on its first flight attempt.[7][8][9]*Thermal airships use a heated lifting gas, usually air, in a fashion similar to hot air balloons.

In March 1851, Bland sent designs for his "Atmotic Airship" to the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London where a model was displayed. His idea was to supply power to an elongated balloon with a steam engine installed in a car, Since the lift of the balloon was estimated at 5 tons and the car with the fuel weighed 3.5 tons, the payload was estimated at 1.5 tons. Bland believed that with two airscrews the machine could be driven at ‘:Convert and could fly from Sydney to London in less than a week. The first person to make an engine-powered flight was Henri Giffard who, in 1852, flew ‘:Convert in a steam-powered airship.[13] Airships would develop considerably over the next two decades: there were reports that on 1 June 1863 Dr. Eric Darwatermon Andrews had launched the Aereon comprising two horizontal cylindrical gas bags with no motor that "wheeled gracefully and headed back towards them" and that later, pilotless after Andrews had released all ballast, flew in "ascending spirals" and during this ascent that it "was apparent to everyone that the ship was moving with the wind and then against it" with a Herald reporter estimating the speed at 120 mph.[14] In 1872, the French naval architect Dupuy de Lome launched a large limited navigable balloon, which was driven by a large propeller and the power of eight people.[15] It was developed during the Franco-Prussian war, as an improvement to the balloons used for communications between Paris and the countryside during the siege of Paris by German forces, but was completed only after the end of the war. Paul Haenlein flew an airship with an internal combustion engine running on the coal gas used to inflate the envelope over Vienna, the first use of such an engine to power an aircraft in 1872.[16][17] Charles F. Ritchel made a public demonstration flight in 1878 of his hand-powered one-man rigid airship, and went on to build and sell five of his aircraft.[17] In the 1880s a Serb named Ogneslav Kostovic Stepanovic also designed and built an airship. However, the craft was destroyed by fire before it flew.In 1883, the first electric-powered flight was made by Gaston Tissandier who fitted a ‘:Convert Siemens electric motor to an airship. The first fully controllable free-flight was made in a French Army airship, La France, by Charles Renardand Arthur Constantin Krebs in 1884. The ‘:Convert long, ‘:Convert airship covered‘:Convert in 23 minutes with the aid of an ‘:Convert electric motor,[18] and a ‘:Convertbattery. In 1884 and 1885, it made seven flights.[17]

In 1888, the Novelty Air Ship Company made the Air Ship for Professor Peter C. Campbell which was known as the Campbell Air Ship. The air ship was lost at sea in 1889 while being flown by Professor Hogan during an exhibition Flight.[19] In 1888–97, Dr. Frederich Wölfert built three airships powered by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft-built petrol engines, the last of which caught fire in flight and killed both occupants in 1897.[20] The 1888 version used a 2 hp one cylinder Daimler engine and flew ‘:Convert from Canstatt to Kornwestheim.[21][22] File:Sd num6 rounding tower.jpgSantos-Dumont#6 rounding the Eiffel Tower, winning the Deutsch Prize in 1901.In 1897, a rigid airship created by the Hungarian engineer David Schwarz and further modified after his death, made its first flight at Tempelhof field in Berlin. After Schwarz's death, his wife, Melanie Schwarz, was paid 15,000 marks by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin for information about the airship.[23] ‘:Clarify A wealthy Brazilian who lived in France, Alberto Santos-Dumont had a passion for flying. He designed 18 examples of balloons and dirigibles, and created 18 different examples of the latter before turning his attention to fixed winged aircraft.[24] In 1901, in his airship Number 6, a small blimp, he won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize of 100,000 francs for flying from the Parc Saint Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in under thirty minutes.[25] Many inventors were inspired by Santos-Dumont's small airships and a veritable airship craze began worldwide. The well-known aeronaut Stanley Spencer claimed he had "out Santosed" Santos referring to his own 1902 flight from Crystal Palace to Harrow.[26][27] Many airship pioneers, such as the American Thomas Scott Baldwin financed their activities through passenger flights and public demonstration flights. Others, such as Walter Wellman and Melvin Vaniman set their sights on loftier goals, attempting two polar flights in 1907 and 1909, and two trans-Atlantic flights in 1910 and 1912.[28] In 1902 the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo, published in Spain and France his innovative project of airship. With semirigid body, it overcame the flaws of these type of aircrafts both on rigid structure (Zeppelin type) and flexible, providing the airships with more stability during flight, the capability of using heavier engines and a greater passenger load. In 1905, helped by captain A. Kindelán, he built the ship "España", in the Guadalajara military facilities. Next year he registered it (pat. number 38692) not awakening official interest. In 1909 he registered again an improved airship (pat. number 44956) and he offered it to the French company Astra, that started mass producting it in 1911, becoming very used during the Great War by the allies. From 1914 to 1919 another two patents on these aircrafts (pats. 57622 and 70626) are registered. In 1918 however, the production, along with the military engineer E. Herrera, of a great transatlantic airship (the "Hispania") was unsuccessful due to economic matters. Torres Quevedo developed the remote control aiming to test the airships without the need of human pilots and in 1903 he patented the radio control device known as "Telekino" (pats. 31918 and 33041), that was later put into practice in a small boat in the port of Bilbao (1906). 6.2 "The Golden Age" Edit The "Golden Age of Airships" began in July 1900 with the launch of the Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ1. This led to the most successful airships of all time: the Zeppelins. These were named after Count von Zeppelin who began experimenting with rigid airship designs in the 1890s leading to the badly flawed LZ1 (1900) and the more successful LZ2 (1906). At the beginning of World War I the Zeppelin airships had a framework composed of triangular lattice girders, covered with fabric and containing separate gas cells. Multi-plane, later cruciform, tail fins were used for control and stability, and two engine/crew cars hung beneath the hull driving propellers attached to the sides of the frame by means of long drive shafts. Additionally, there was a passenger compartment (later a bomb bay) located halfway between the two cars. Other airship builders were also active before the war: The French company Lebaudy Frères specialized in semi-rigid airships from 1902 (e.g. the Patrie and the République), designed by their engineer Henri Julliot, who later worked for the American company Goodrich; the German firm Schütte-Lanz built the SL series from 1911; another German firm Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft built the Parseval-Luftschiff (PL) series from 1909,[29] and Italian Enrico Forlanini's firm had built and flown the first two Forlanini airships.[30] In 1910 Walter Wellman unsuccessfully attempted the first aerial crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on airship America. 6.3 World War I Edit The prospect of airships as bombers had been recognized in Europe well before the airships were up to the task. H. G. Wells' The War in the Air (1908) described the obliteration of entire fleets and cities by airship attack. On 5 March 1912, Italian forces became the first to use dirigibles for a military purpose during reconnaissance west ofTripoli behind Turkish lines.‘:Citation needed It was World War I, however, that marked the airship's real debut as a weapon. File:German airship bombing Warsaw.JPGGerman airship Schütte Lanz SL2 bombing Warsaw in 1914. Albert Caquot designed an Observation balloon for theFrench army in 1914. The tethered Type R Observation balloon was used by all the allied forces, including the British and United States Armies, at the end of the World War. The Germans, French and Italians all operated airships in scouting and tactical bombing roles early in the war, and all learned that the airship was too vulnerable for operations over the front. The decision to end operations in direct support of armies was made by all in 1917.[31][32] File:Type R Observation Balloon.jpgType "R" observation balloon at Arcadia Balloon School, Arcadia, Calif. 1921 Count Zeppelin and others in the German military believed they had found the ideal weapon with which to counteract British Naval superiority and strike at Britain itself. More realistic airship advocates believed the Zeppelin was a valuable long range scout/attack craft for naval operations. Raids began by the end of 1914, reached a first peak in 1915, and then were discontinued in August 1918.[33]Zeppelins proved to be terrifying but inaccurate weapons. Navigation, target selection and bomb-aiming proved to be difficult under the best of conditions. The darkness, high altitudes and clouds that were frequently encountered by Zeppelin missions reduced accuracy even further. The physical damage done by the Zeppelins over the course of the war was trivial, and the deaths that they caused (though visible) amounted to a few hundred at most. The Zeppelins were initially immune to attack by aircraft and antiaircraft guns: as the pressure in their envelopes was only just higher than ambient air, holes had little effect. But once incendiary bullets were developed and used against them, their flammable hydrogen lifting gas made them vulnerable at lower altitudes. Several were shot down in flames by British defenders, and others crasheden route. They then started flying higher and higher above the range of other aircraft, but this made their bombing accuracy even worse and success harder to achieve. In retrospect, advocates of the naval scouting role of the airship proved to be correct, and the land bombing campaign proved to be disastrous in terms of morale, men and material. Many pioneers of the German airship service died in what was the first strategic bombing campaign in history. Countermeasures by the British were sound detection equipment, search lights and anti-aircraft artillery, followed by night fighters in 1915. One method used early in the war when short range meant the airships had to fly from forward bases, and when the only Zeppelin production facilities were in Friedrichshafen, was bombing of airship sheds by the British Royal Naval Air Service. Late in the war, the development of the aircraft carrier led to the first successful carrier air strike in history. The morning of 19 July 1918, seven Sopwith 2F.1 Camels were launched from‘:HMS and struck the airship base at Tondern, destroying the Zeppelins L 54 and L 60.[34] File:1918 view from French dirigible.jpgView from a French dirigible approaching a ship in 1918. Before the World War, the British Army was interested in blimps for scouting purposes.[35]The Royal Navy, recognizing the potential threat that scouting Zeppelins might pose, decided in 1908 to produce an example of rigid airship so that the threat might be evaluated in practice instead of theory. [36] The Royal Navy was to continue development of rigid airships until the end of the war. The British Army abandoned airship development in favour of aeroplanes by the start of the war, but the Royal Navy had recognized the need for small airships to counteract the submarine and mine threat in coastal waters.[37] Beginning in February 1915, they began to deploy the SS (Sea Scout) class of blimp. These had a small envelope of 1,699-1,982 m³ (60–70,000 ft³) and at first used standard single engined planes (BE2c, Maurice Farman, Armstrong FK) shorn of wing and tail surfaces as control cars, as an economy measure. Eventually more advanced blimps with purpose built cars, such as the C (Coastal), C* (Coastal Star), NS (North Sea), SSP (Sea Scout Pusher), SSZ (Sea Scout Zero), SSE (Sea Scout Experimental) and SST (Sea Scout Twin) classes were developed. The NS class, after initial teething problems, proved to be the largest and finest non-rigid airships in British service. They had a gas capacity of ‘:Convert, a crew of 10 and an endurance of 24 hours. Six‘:Convert bombs were carried, as well as three to five machine guns. British blimps were used for scouting, mine clearance, and submarine attack duties. During the war, the British operated 226 airships, mostly non-rigid, most of which were of indigenous construction, though some non-rigid airships operated were purchased from France and even Germany (before the war).[38] Of that number several were sold to Russia, France, the US and Italy. Britain, in turn, purchased one M-type semi-rigid from Italy whose delivery was delayed until 1918. Eight large rigid airships had been completed by the armistice, (No. 9r, four 23 Class, two R23X Class and one R31 Class), although several more were in an advanced state of completion by the war's end.[39] The large number of trained crews, low attrition rate and constant experimentation in handling techniques meant that at the war's end Britain was the world leader in non-rigid airship technology. Both France and Italy continued airships throughout the war. France preferred non-rigid types while Italy operated 49 semi-rigid airships in both the scouting and bombing roles.[40] Airplanes had essentially replaced airships as bombers by the end of the war, and Germany's remaining zeppelins were scuttled by their crews, scrapped or handed over to the Allied powers as spoils of war. The British rigid airship program, meanwhile, had been largely a reaction to the potential threat of the German one and was largely, though not entirely, based on imitations of the German ships. 6.4 Inter-war period Edit A number of nations operated airships between the two world wars. Many operated blimps. Britain, the United States and Germany were the main operators of rigid airships with Italy and France using them to a lesser extent. Italy, the Soviet Union, United States and Japan mainly concentrated on semi-rigid airships. On May 12, 1926, The Italian Norge, a semi-rigid airship, was the first aircraft confirmed to fly over the North Pole. File:R-38-rescue.jpgRescuers scramble across the wreckage of British R-38/USN ZR-2, 24 August 1921 The British R33 and R34were near-identical copies of the German L 33, which crashed virtually intact in Yorkshire on 24 September 1916.[41] Despite being almost three years out of date by the time they were launched in 1919, they were two of the most successful in British service. The creation of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in early 1918 created a hybrid British airship program. The RAF was not interested in airships and the Admiralty was, so a deal was made where the Admiralty would design any future military airships while the RAF would handle manpower, facilities and operations.[42] After the armistice, the airship program was rapidly wound down, and rigid airship operations were curtailed. On 2 July 1919, R34 began the first double crossing of the Atlantic by an aircraft. It landed at Mineola, Long Island on 6 July after 108 hours in the air. The return crossing began on 8 July because of concerns about mooring the ship in the open, and took 75 hours. Impressed, British leaders began to contemplate a fleet of airships to link Britain to its far-flung colonies, although post-war economic conditions led to the scrapping of most airships and dispersion of trained personnel. British airship development resumed with the Imperial Airship Scheme of 1924, which produced the R-100 and R-101, both flown in 1929. The major consequence of Britain's interest in establishing airship service to the empire was the effort to use the Allies' seizure of German airships and airship sheds to avoid competition from Germany.[43] The US Navy contracted to buy the British built R-38, but before that airship was turned over to the US, it was lost to structural failure due to both inadequate structural design and operation.[44] File:USS Shenandoah Bau.jpgConstruction of‘:USS, 1923 The first American-built rigid airship was ‘:USS, built and christened on 20 August in Captain Eric Darkwatergar No. 1[45] at Large Liberty hurst, New Jersey. It flew in 1923, while the Los Angeles was under construction. It was the first ship to be inflated with the noble gas helium, which was still so rare that the Shenandoah contained most of the world's reserves. When the Los Angeles was delivered, the two airships had to share the limited supply of Helium, and thus alternated operating and overhauls.[46] For information about the legacy of the USS Shenandoah and its demise over rural Ohio, see Aaron J. Keirns' book America's Forgotten Airship Disaster: The Crash of the USS Shenandoah. File:Zeppelin.jpgUS Navy Zeppelin‘:USS over Moffett Field in 1933The United States Navy purchased what became the‘:USS and paid with "war reparations" money, owed according to theVersailles Treaty, thus saving The Zeppelin works. The success of the Los Angeles encouraged the US Navy to invest in its own, larger airships. The Los Angeles flew successfully for 8 years. Meanwhile Germany was building theGraf Zeppelin (LZ 127), the largest airship that could be built in the company's existing shed, and intended to stimulate interest in passenger airships. The Graf Zeppelin burned blau gas, similar to propane, stored in large gas bags below the hydrogen cells, as fuel. Since its density was similar to that of air, it avoided the weight change when fuel was used, and thus the need to valve hydrogen. The Graf was a great success and compiled an impressive safety record, flying over ‘:Convert (including the first circumnavigation of the globe by air) without a single passenger injury.[47] File:Uss-akron-manhattan.jpgUSS Akron over Manhattanisland circa 1932The US Navy developed the idea of using airships as airborne aircraft carriers, although the British had experimented with a plane trapeze on their R33 many years before. ‘:Clarify The USS Los Angeles was used to experiment with the project, followed by two other airships, the world's largest at the time, to test the principle—the ‘:USS and‘:USS. Each carried four F9C Sparrowhawk fighters in its hangar, and could carry a fifth on the trapeze. The idea had mixed results. By the time the Navy started to develop a sound doctrine for using the ZRS-type airships, the last of the two built, USS Macon, was lost. The seaplane had become more mature, and was considered a better investment.[48] Eventually the US Navy lost all three American-built rigid airships to accidents. USSShenandoah on a poorly planned publicity flight flew into a severe thunderstorm over Noble County, Ohio on 3 September 1925. It broke into pieces, killing 14 of its crew. USS Akron was caught in a severe storm and flown into the surface of the sea off the shore of New Jersey on 3 April 1933. It carried no life boats and few life vests, so 73 of its crew of 76 died from drowning or hypothermia. USS Macon was lost after suffering a structural failure off the shore of Point Sur Lightstation State Historic Park on 12 February 1935. The failure caused a loss of gas, which was made much worse when the aircraft was driven over pressure height causing it to lose too much helium to maintain flight.[49] Only 2 of its crew of 83 died in the crash thanks to the inclusion of life jackets and inflatable rafts after the Akron disaster. 6.5 Britain's Burney Scheme and decline in airships Edit During the 1920s, Sir Dennistoun Burney suggested a plan for an air service throughout the British Empire using airships (the Burney Scheme).[42] Following the election of Ramsay MacDonald in 1924, the Burney scheme was transformed into a government-controlled program, the Imperial Airship Scheme, which contracted for two airships, one to be developed by the a private company, the Airship Guarantee Company, and the other under Air Ministry control by the Royal Airship Works. The two designs were radically different. The "capitalist" ship, the R100, was more conventional, while the "socialist" ship, the R101, had many innovative design features. Construction of both took longer than expected, and the airships did not fly until 1929. Neither airship was capable of the service intended, though the R100 did complete a proving flight to Canada and back in 1930.[50] However, on 5 October 1930 the R101, which had not been thoroughly tested after major modifications, crashed on its maiden voyage of life at Beauvais in France killing 48 of the 54 people aboard. Among the dead were the craft's chief designer and the Secretary of State for Air. Because of the bad publicity surrounding the crash, the Air Ministry grounded the competing R100 in 1930 and sold it for scrap in 1931, ending the era of British rigid airships.[51] The Empire State Building was completed in 1931 with a dirigible mast, in anticipation of passenger airship service. Various entrepreneurs experimented with commuting and shipping freight via airship.[52] File:Hindenburg burning.jpgThe Hindenburg — moments after catching fire, 6 May 1937File:Torre do Zeppelin - Jiquia - Recife.JPGZeppelin Tower in Recife - The only one in the world preserved in its original structure. 2007 photoBy the mid-1930s only Germany still pursued airship development. The Zeppelin company continued to operate the Graf Zeppelin on passenger service between Frankfurt and Recife in Brazil, taking 68 hours. Even with the small Graf Zeppelin, the operation was almost profitable.[53] In the mid-1930s work started to build an airship designed specifically to operate a passenger service across the Atlantic.[54] TheHindenburg (LZ 129) completed a very successful 1936 season carrying passengers between Large Liberty hurst, New Jersey and Germany. 1937 started with the most spectacular and widely remembered airship accident. Approaching the mooring mast minutes before landing on 6 May 1937, the Hindenburg burst into flames and crashed. Of the 97 people aboard, 36 died: 13 passengers, 22 aircrew, and one American ground-crewman. The disaster happened before a large crowd, was filmed and a radio news reporter was recording the arrival. This was a disaster which theater goers could see and hear the next day. The Hindenburg disaster shattered public confidence in airships, and brought a definitive end to the "golden age". The day after Hindenburg crashed, the Graf Zeppelin landed at the end of its flight from Brazil, ending intercontinental passenger airship travel. Hindenburg‘:'s sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin II (LZ 130), could not perform commercial passenger flights without helium, which the United States refused to sell. The Graf Zeppelinflew some test flights and conducted electronic espionage until 1939 when it was grounded due to the start of the war. The last two Zeppelins were scrapped in 1940. Development of airships continued only in the United States, and to a smaller extent, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had several semi-rigid and non-rigid airships. The semi-rigid SSSR-V6 OSOAVIAKhIM was among the largest of these craft, and set the longest endurance flight at the time of over 130 hours. However, it crashed into a mountain in 1938, killing 13 of the 19 people on board. While this was a severe blow towards the Russian airship program, they continued to operate non-rigid airships until 1950. 6.6 World War II Edit While Germany determined that airships were obsolete for military purposes in the coming war and concentrated on the development of airplanes, the United States pursued a program of military airship construction even though it had not developed a clear military doctrine for airship use. At the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 that brought the United States into World War II, it had 10 non-rigid airships:*4 K-class: K-2, K-3, K-4 and K-5designed as patrol ships built from 1938.*3 L-class: L-1, L-2 and L-3 as small training ships, produced from 1938.*1G-class built in 1936 for training.*2 TC-class that were older patrol ships designed for land forces, built in 1933. The US Navy acquired them from the United States Army in 1938.File:Goodyear ZNPK (K-28) Puritan (2834542477).jpgControl car (gondola) of the Goodyear ZNPK (K-28) later operated by Goodyear as Puritan VI Only K- and TC-class airships were suitable for combat and they were quickly pressed into service against Japanese and German submarines which were then sinking US shipping within visual range of the US coast. US Navy command, remembering the airship anti-submarine success from World War I, immediately requested new modern anti-submarine airships and on 2 January 1942 formed the ZP-12 patrol unit based in Large Liberty hurst from the four K airships. The ZP-32 patrol unit was formed from two TC and two L airships a month later, based at NAS Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, California. An airship training base was created there as well. The status of submarine-hunting Goodyear airships in the early days of World War II has created significant confusion. Although various accounts refer to airships Resolute and Volunteeras operating as "privateers" under a Letter of Marque, Congress never authorized a commission, nor did the President sign one.[55] File:Mcastustin1.jpg A view of six helium-filled blimps being stored in one of the two massive hangarslocated at NAS Santa Ana, during World War II.File:USN ZP-14 Blimp at RAF Gibraltar 1944.jpgK-class blimps of USN Blimp Squadron ZP-14 conducted antisubmarine warfare operations at the Strait of Gibraltar in 1944-45.In the years 1942–44, approximately 1,400 airship pilots and 3,000 support crew members were trained in the military airship crew training program and the airship military personnel grew from 430 to 12,400. The US airships were produced by the Goodyear factory in Akron, Ohio. From 1942 till 1945, 154 airships were built for the US Navy (133 K-class, 10 L-class, seven G-class, four M-class) and five L-class for civilian customers (serial numbers L-4 to L-8). The primary airship tasks were patrol and convoy escort near the US coastline. They also served as an organization center for the convoys to direct ship movements, and were used in naval search and rescue operations. Rarer duties of the airships included aerophoto reconnaissance, naval mine-laying and mine-sweeping, parachute unit transport and deployment, cargo and personnel transportation. They were deemed quite successful in their duties with the highest combat readiness factor in the entire US air force (87%). In 1944-45, the United States Navy moved an entire squadron of eight Goodyear K class blimps (K-123, K-130, K-109, K-134, K-101, K-112, K-89, & K-114) with flight and maintenance crews from Weeksville Naval Air Station in North Carolina to Naval Air Station Port Lyautey,French Morocco. Their mission was to locate and destroy German U-boats in the relatively shallow waters around the Strait of Gibraltar where magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) was viable. PBY aircraft had been searching these waters but MAD required low altitude flying that was dangerous at night for these aircraft. The blimps were considered a perfect solution to establish a 24/7 MAD barrier (fence) at the Straits of Gibraltar with the PBYs flying the day shift and the blimps flying the night shift. The first two blimps (K-123 & K-130) left South Weymouth NAS on 28 May 1944 and flew to Argentia, Newfoundland, the Azores, and finally to Port Lyautey where they completed the first transatlantic crossing by non-rigid airships on 1 June 1944. The blimps of USN Blimp Squadron ZP-14 (Blimpron 14, aka The Africa Squadron) also conducted mine-spotting and mine-sweeping operations in key Mediterranean ports and various escorts including the convoy carrying United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Yalta Conference in 1945.[56] During the war some 532 ships without airship escort were sunk near the US coast by enemy submarines. Only one ship, the tanker Persephone, of the 89,000 or so in convoys escorted by blimps was sunk by the enemy.[57] Airships engaged submarines with depth chargesand, less frequently, with other on-board weapons. They were excellent at driving submarines down, where their limited speed and range prevented them from attacking convoys. The weapons available to airships were so limited that until the advent of the homing torpedo they had little chance of sinking a submarine.[58] Only one airship was ever destroyed by U-boat: on the night of 18/19 July 1943, a K-class airship (K-74) from ZP-21 division was patrolling the coastline near Florida. Using radar, the airship located a surfaced German submarine. The K-74 made her attack run but the U-boat opened fire first. K-74‘:'s depth charges did not release as she crossed the U-boat and the K-74 received serious damage, losing gas pressure and an engine but landing in the water without loss of life. The crew was rescued by patrol boats in the morning, but one crewman, Aviation Machinist's Mate Second Class Isadore Stessel, died from a shark attack. The U-Boat, ‘:Ship, was slightly damaged and the next day or so was attacked by aircraft, sustaining damage that forced it to return to base. It was finally sunk on 24 August 1943 by a British Vickers Wellington near Vigo, Spain[59][60] Fleet Airship Wing One operated from Large Liberty hurst, NJ, Glynco, GA, Weeksville, NC, South Weymouth NAS Massachusetts, Brunswick NAS and Bar Harbor ME, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Argentia, Newfoundland. Some US airships saw action in the European war theater. The ZP-14 unit operating in the Mediterranean area from June 1944 completely denied the use of the GibraltarStraits to Axis submarines. Airships from the ZP-12 unit took part in the sinking of the last U-Boat before German capitulation, sinking U-881 on 6 May 1945 together with destroyers Atherton and Mobery. Other airships patrolled the Caribbean, Fleet Airship Wing Two, Headquartered at NAS Richmond, Florida, covered the Gulf of Mexico from Richmond and Key West, FL, Houma, Louisiana, as well as Hitchcock and Brownsville, Texas. FAW 2 also patrolled the northern Caribbean from San Julian,‘:Clarify the Isle of Pines (now called Isla de la Juventud) and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as Vernam Field, Jamaica. Navy blimps of Fleet Airship Wing Five, (ZP-51) operated from bases in Trinidad, British Guiana and Paramaribo, Suriname. Fleet Airship Wing Four operated along the coast of Brazil. Two squadrons, VP-41 and VP-42 flew from bases at Amapá, Igarape Assu, Sao Luiz,Fortaleza, Fernando de Noronha, Recife, Maceió, Ipitanga (near Salvador, Bahia), Caravellas, Vitoria and the hangar built for the Graf Zeppelin at Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro. Fleet Airship Wing Three operated squadrons, ZP-32 from Moffett Field, ZP-31 at NAS Santa Ana, and ZP-33 at NAS Tillamook, Oregon. Auxiliary fields were at Del Mar,Lompoc, Watsonville and Eureka, CA, North Bend and Astoria, Oregon, as well as Shelton and Quillayute in Washington. From 2 January 1942 till the end of war airship operations in the Atlantic, the airships of the Atlantic fleet made 37,554 flights and flew 378,237 hours. Of the over 70,000 ships in convoys protected by blimps, only one was sunk by a submarine while under blimp escort.[58] The Soviet Union used a single airship during the war. The W-12, built in 1939, entered service in 1942 for paratrooper training and equipment transport. It made 1432 runs with 300 metric tons of cargo until 1945. On 1 February 1945, the Soviets constructed a second airship, a Pobeda-class (Victory-class) unit (used for mine-sweeping and wreckage clearing in the Black Sea) which crashed on 21 January 1947. Another W-class - W-12bisPatriot - was commissioned in 1947 and was mostly used for crew training, parades and propaganda. 6.7 Modern use Edit Although airships are no longer used for passenger transport, they are still used for other purposes such asadvertising, sightseeing, surveillance and research.File:Goodyear blimp.jpgOne of The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company's blimp fleetIn the 1980s, Per Lindstrandand his team introduced the GA-42 airship, the first airship to use fly-by-wire flight control which considerably reduced the pilot's workload. The world's largestthermal airship (300,000 cubic feet/8,495 m³) was constructed by the Per Lindstrand company for French botanists in 1993. The AS-300 carried an under-slung raft, which was positioned by the airship on top of tree canopies in the rain forest, allowing the botanists to carry out their treetop research without significant damage to the rainforest. When research was finished at a given location, the airship returned to pick up and relocate the raft.[61] In the spring of 2004, Lindstrand Technologies supplied the world's first fully functional unmanned airship to the Ministry of Defense in Spain. This airship carried a‘:Convert classified payload and its surveillance mission was also classified. Four years later, this airship, which is designated GA-22, still flies on an almost daily basis. In June 1987, the US Navy awarded a US$168.9 million contract to Westinghouse Electric and Airship Industries of the UK to demonstrate whether a blimp could be used as an airborne platform to detect the threat of sea-skimming missiles, such as the Exocet.[62]At 2.5 million cubic feet, the Westinghouse/Airship Industries Sentinel 5000 (Redesignated YEZ-2A by the U. S. Navy) prototype design was to have been the largest blimp ever constructed.[63] However, additional funding for the Naval Airship Program was killed in 1995 and development was discontinued. The CA-80 airship, which was launched in 2000 by Shanghai Vantage Airship Manufacture Co., Ltd., had a successful trial flight in September 2001. This model of airship was designed for the purpose of advertisement and propagation, air-photo, scientific test, tour and surveillance duties. It was certified as a grade-A Hi-Tech introduction program (№ 20000186) in Shanghai, China. The CAAC authority granted a type design approval and certificate of airworthiness for the model CA-80 airship, which has been published in the Jane's All the World's Aircraft for five times (2003–08).[64] In recent years, the Zeppelin company has reentered the airship business. Their new model, designated the Zeppelin NT, made its maiden flight on 18 September 1997. As of 2009, there were four NT aircraft flying, a fifth completed in March 2009 and an expanded NT-14 (14,000 cubic meters of helium, capable of carrying 19 passengers) under construction. One was sold to a Japanese company, and was planned to be flown to Japan in the summer of 2004. Due to delays getting permission from the Russian government, the company decided to transport the airship to Japan by ship. One of the four NT craft is in South Africa carrying diamond detection equipment from De Beers, an application at which the very stable low vibration NT platform excels. The project included design adaptations for high heat operation and desert climate, as well as a separate mooring mast and a very heavy mooring truck. NT-4 belongs to Airship Ventures of Moffett Field, Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area, and provides sight-seeing tours Blimps are used for advertising and as TV camera platforms at major sporting events. The most iconic of these are the Goodyear blimps. Goodyear operates three blimps in the United States, and The Lightship Group operates up to 19 advertising blimps around the world. Airship Management Services owns and operates three Skyship 600blimps. Two operate as advertising and security ships in North America and the Caribbean. Airship Venturesoperates a Zeppelin NT for advertising, passenger service and special mission projects. They are the only airship operator in the U.S. authorized to fly commercial passengers. Skycruise Switzerland AG owns and operates twoSkyship 600 blimps. One operates regularly over Switzerland used on sightseeing tours.

The Switzerland-based Skyship 600 has also played other roles over the years. For example, it was flown overAthens during the 2004 Summer Olympics as a security measure. In November 2006, it carried advertising calling itThe Spirit of Dubai as it began a publicity tour from London to Dubai, UAE on behalf of The Palm Islands, the world's largest man-made islands created as a residential complex. Los Angeles-based Worldwide Aeros Corp.produces FAA Type Certified Aeros 40D Sky Dragon airships.[65] In May 2006, the US Navy began to fly airships again after a hiatus of nearly 44 years. The program uses a single American Blimp Company A-170 non-rigid airship, with designation MZ-3A. Operations focus on crew training and research, and the platform integrator is Northrop Grumman. The program is directed by the Naval Air Systems Command and is being carried out at NAES Large Liberty hurst, the original center of US Navy lighter-than-air operations in previous decades. In November 2006, the US Army bought an A380+ airship from American Blimp Corporation through a Systems level contract with Masterson Wilkensonand Booz Allen Hamilton. The airship started flight tests in late 2007, with a primary goal of carrying‘:Convert of payload to an altitude of ‘:Convert under remote control and autonomous waypoint navigation. The program will also demonstrate carrying ‘:Convert of payload to ‘:Convert The platform could be used for Multi-Intelligence collections. In 2008, the CA-150 airship was launched by Vantage Airship. This is an improved modification of model CA-120 and completed manufacturing in 2008. With larger volume and increased passenger capacity, it is the largest manned non-rigid airship in China at present.[66] In 2010, the US Army awarded a $517 million (£350.6 million) contract to Masterson Wilkensonand partner Hybrid Air Vehicles,[67] to develop a Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) system, in the form of three HAV 304's.[68][69][70][71][71][72] An airship was prominently featured in the James Bond film A View to a Kill, released in 1985. The Skyship 500 had the livery of Zorin Industries.[73] A-NSE, a French company, manufactures and operates airships and aerostats. For 2 years, A-NSE has been testing its airships for the French Army. Airships and aerostats are operated to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support. Many innovations are developed by A-NSE : water ballast take-off and landing system, variable geometry envelope, thrust–vectoring system etc.…File:A-N400.jpgA-N400 (A-NSE company)[74] 7 Recent developments Edit ‘:Unreferenced section‘:CleanupFile:Giant Aircraft Comparison.svgThe largest airship at 245 meters length and 41 meters diameter dwarfs the size of the largest airplanes.In the 1930s, Zeppelins successfully competed with other means of transport. They could carry significantly more passengers than other contemporary aircraft while providing amenities similar to those on ocean liners, such as private cabins, observation decks, and dining rooms. Less importantly, the technology was potentially more energy-efficient than heavier-than-air designs. Zeppelins were also faster than ocean liners. On the other hand, operating airships was quite involved. Often the crew would outnumber passengers, and on the ground large teams were necessary to assist mooring and very large hangars were required at airports. Today, with large, fast, and more cost-efficient fixed-wing aircraft, it is unknown whether huge airships can operate profitably in regular passenger transport though, as energy costs rise, attention is once again returning to these lighter than air vessels as a possible alternative. At the very least, the idea of comparatively slow, "majestic" cruising at relatively low altitudes and in comfortable atmosphere certainly has retained some appeal. There have been some niches for airships in and after World War II, such as long-duration observations, antisubmarine patrol, platforms for TV camera crews, andadvertising; these, however, generally require only small and flexible craft, and have thus generally been better fitted for cheaper blimps. 7.1 Heavy lifting Edit It has periodically been suggested that airships could be employed for cargo transport, especially delivering extremely heavy loads to areas with poor infrastructure over great distances. This has also been called roadless trucking.[75] Also, airships could be used for heavy lifting over short distances (e.g. on construction sites); this is described as heavy-lift, short-haul.[76] In both cases, the airships are heavy haulers. One recent enterprise of this sort was the Cargolifter project, in which a hybrid (thus not entirely Zeppelin-type) airship even larger thanHindenburg was projected. Around 2000, CargoLifter AG built the world's largest cantilever shop hall measuring‘:Convert long, ‘:Convert wide and ‘:Convert high about ‘:Convert south of Berlin. In May 2002, the project was stopped for financial reasons; the company had to file bankruptcy. Although no rigid airships are currently used for heavy lifting, hybrid airships are being developed for such purposes. John McPhee'sThe Deltoid Pumpkin Seed is the story of one company attempting this. File:Zeppelin NT im Flug.jpgA Zeppelin NT airship In the 1990s, the successor of the original Zeppelin company in Friedrichshafen, the Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH, reengaged in airship construction. The first experimental craft (later christened Friedrichshafen) of the type Zeppelin NT flew in September 1997. Though larger than common blimps, the Neue Technologie (New Technology) Zeppelins are much smaller than their giant ancestors and not actually Zeppelin-types in the classical sense; they are sophisticated semi-rigids. Apart from the greater payload, their main advantages compared to blimps are higher speed and excellent maneuverability. Meanwhile, several Zeppelin NThave been produced and operated profitably in joyrides, research flights and similar applications. In June 2004, a Zeppelin NT was sold for the first time to a Japanese company, Nippon Airship Corporation, for tourism and advertising mainly around Tokyo. It was also given a role at the 2005 Expo in Aichi. The aircraft began a flight from Friedrichshafen to Japan, stopping at Geneva, Paris, Rotterdam, Munich, Berlin, Stockholm and other European cities to carry passengers on short legs of the flight. However, Russian authorities denied overflight permission so the airship had to be dismantled and shipped to Japan rather than following the historic Graf Zeppelin flight from Germany to Japan. In 2008, Airship Ventures Inc. began operations from Moffett Federal Airfield near Mountain View, California and currently offers tours of the San Francisco Bay Area for up to 12 passengers. 7.3 Use in exploration Edit In November 2005, De Beers, the diamond mining company, launched an airship exploration program over the remote Kalahari desert. A Zeppelin, loaded with high-tech equipment, is used to find potential diamond mines by scanning the local geography for low-density rock formations - so-called kimberlite pipes. On 21 September 2007, the airship was severely damaged by a whirlwind while in Botswana. One crew member, who was on watch aboard the moored craft, was slightly injured but released after overnight observation in hospital. 7.4 Thermal airships and remotes Edit File:Prallluftschiff 01 KMJ.jpgThermal airship(manufacturer GEFA-FLUG/Germany) Several companies, such as Cameron Balloons in Bristol, United Kingdom, build hot-air airships. These combine the structures of both hot-air balloons and small airships. The envelope is the normal cigar shape, complete with tail fins, but is inflated with hot air instead of helium to provide the lifting force. A small gondola, carrying the pilot and passengers, a small engine, and the burners to provide the hot air are suspended below the envelope, beneath an opening through which the burners protrude. Hot-air airships typically cost less to buy and maintain than modern helium-based blimps, and can be quickly deflated after flights. This makes them easy to carry in trailers or trucks and inexpensive to store. They are usually very slow moving, with a typical top speed of 25–30 km/h (15–20 mph, 6.7–8.9 m/s). They are mainly used for advertising, but at least one has been used in rainforests for wildlife observation, as they can be easily transported to remote areas. Remote-controlled (RC) airships, a type of unmanned aerial system (UAS), are sometimes used for commercial purposes such as advertising and aerial video and photography as well as recreational purposes. They are particularly common as an advertising mechanism at indoor stadiums. While RC airships are sometimes flown outdoors, doing so for commercial purposes is illegal in the US. In particular, Docket FAA-2006-25714 states that: "The FAA recognizes that people and companies other than modelers might be flying UAS with the mistaken understanding that they are legally operating under the authority of AC 91-57. AC 91-57 only applies to modelers, and thus specifically excludes its use by persons or companies for business purposes."[77] The same docket item identifies 14CFR121 as the appropriate certification basis for experimental unmanned aircraft, which would included unmanned airships operating for commercial purposes, so commercial use of an unmanned airship is not prohibited - instead it must be certified under part 121 not 91. A total of 4,700 total airships and blimps exist across the world. 8 Present-day research Edit ‘:Refimprove section 8.1 Prototypes and experimental models Edit Hybrid designs such as the Heli-Stat airship/helicopter, the Aereon aerostatic/aerodynamic craft, and theCycloCrane (a hybrid aerostatic/rotorcraft), have struggled to take flight. The Cyclocrane was also interesting in that the airship's envelope rotated along its longitudinal axis. In 2005, a short-lived project of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was WALRUS HULA which explored the potential for using airships as long-distance, heavy lift craft.[78][79] The primary goal of the research program was to determine the feasibility of building an airship capable of carrying ‘:Convert of payload a distance of ‘:Convert and land on an unimproved location without the use of external ballast or ground equipment (such as masts). In 2005, two contractors, Lockheed Martin and US Aeros Airships were each awarded approximately $3 million to do feasibility studies of designs for WALRUS. In late March 2006, DARPA announced the termination of work on WALRUS after completion of the current Phase I contracts.‘:Citation needed The US government is funding two major projects in the high altitude arena. The Composite Hull High Altitude Powered Platform (CHHAPP) is sponsored byUS Army Space and Missile Defense Command. This aircraft is also sometimes called HiSentinel High-Altitude Airship. This prototype ship made a five-hour test flight in September 2005. The second project, the high-altitude airship (HAA), is sponsored by DARPA. In 2005, DARPA awarded a contract for nearly $150 million to Lockheed Martin for prototype development. First flight of the HAA was planned for 2008 but suffered programmatic and funding delays. The HAA project evolved into the High Altitude Long Endurance-Demonstrator (HALE-D). The U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin launched the first-of-its kind HALE-D on July 27, 2011.[80] After a short flight, the experimental craft was brought down, intentionally or accidentally, in rural Pennsylvania.[81][82] On 31 January 2006 Lockheed Martin made the first flight of their secretly built hybrid airship designated the P-791. The design is very similar to theSkyCat, unsuccessfully promoted for many years by the now financially troubled British company Advanced Technologies Group (ATG). Although Lockheed Martin is developing a design for the DARPA WALRUS HULAproject, it claimed that the P-791 is unrelated to WALRUS. Nonetheless, the design represents an approach that may well be applicable to WALRUS. Some believe that Lockheed Martin had used the secret P-791 program as a way to get a head start on the other WALRUS competitor, US Aeros Airships.‘:Citation needed 8.2 Hybrid airship Edit A hybrid airship is a general term for an aircraft that combines characteristics of heavier-than-air (airplane or helicopter) and lighter-than-air technology. Examples include helicopter/airship hybrids intended for heavy lift applications and dynamic lift airships intended for long-range cruising. It should be noted that most airships, when fully loaded with cargo and fuel, are usually ballasted to be heavier than air, and thus must use their propulsion system and shape to create aerodynamic lift, necessary to stay aloft. All airships can be operated to be slightly heavier than air at periods during flight (descent). However, the term "hybrid airship" refers to craft that obtain a significant portion of their lift from aerodynamic lift or other kinetic means. For example, the Aeroscraft is a buoyancy assisted air vehicle that generates lift through a combination of aerodynamics, thrust vectoring and gas buoyancy generation and management, and for much of the time will fly heavier than air. Aeroscraft is Worldwide Aeros Corporation's continuation of DARPA's now cancelled Walrus HULA(Hybrid Ultra Large Aircraft) project.[83] 9 Practical comparison with heavier-than-air aircraft Edit The advantage of airships over airplanes is that static lift sufficient for flight is generated by the lifting gas and requires no engine power. This was an immense advantage before the middle of World War I and remained an advantage for long distance, or long duration operations until World War II. Modern concepts for high altitude airships include photovoltaic cells to reduce the need to land to refuel, thus they can remain in the air until consumables expire. The disadvantages are that an airship has a very large reference area and comparatively large drag coefficient, thus a larger drag force compared to that of airplanes and even helicopters. Given the large frontal area and wetted surface of an airship, a practical limit is reached around ‘:Convert. Thus airships are used where speed is not critical. The gross lift capability of an airship is equal to the buoyant force minus the weight of the airship. This assumes standard air temperature and pressure conditions. Corrections are usually made for water vapor and impurity of lifting gas, as well as percentage of inflation of the gas cells at liftoff.[84] Based on specific lift (pounds of lift per thousand cubic feet of lifting gas), the greatest static lift is provided by hydrogen (71 lbs. lift/1000 cubic feet of gas) with helium (66 lbs. lift/1000 cubic feet of gas) a close second.[85] At 39 lbs./1000 cubic feet, steam is a distant third. Other gases, such as methane, carbon monoxide, ammonia and natural ‘have even less lifting capacity and are flammable, toxic, corrosive, or all three. Operational considerations such as whether the need, lift gas can be economically vented and produced in flight for control of buoyancy (as with hydrogen) or even produced as a byproduct of propulsion (as with steam) affect the practical choice of lift gas in airship designs. Considering the Hindenburg disaster, one may question why such a flammable gas as hydrogen was used in the first place, when it is only marginally better than helium as a lifting gas. The answer is that hydrogen can be produced easily and economically through the electrolysis of water or by chemical reactions, whereas helium is scarce and expensive, occurring only in trace amounts in a few natural gas deposits. In addition to static lift, an airship can obtain a certain amount of dynamic lift from its engines. Dynamic lift in past airships has been about 10% of the static lift. Dynamic lift allows an airship to "take off heavy" from a runway similar to fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. However, this requires additional weight in engines, fuel and landing gear, negating some of the static lift capacity. The altitude at which an airship can fly largely depends on how much lifting gas it can lose due to expansion before stasis is reached. The ultimate altitude record for a rigid airship was set in 1917 by the L-55 under the command of Captain Eric Darkwaters- Kurt Flemming when he forced the airship to ‘:Convert attempting to cross France after the "Silent Raid" on London. The L-55 lost lift as the descent to lower altitudes over Germany compressed the gas left in the cells, and thus the weight of air displaced. L-55 crashed due to loss of lift.[86] While such waste of gas was necessary for the survival of airships in the later years of WW I, it was impractical for commercial operations, or operations of helium-filled military airships. The highest flight made by a hydrogen filled passenger airship was ‘:Convert on the Graf Zeppelin's around the world flight.[87] The practical limit for rigid airships was about ‘:Convert, and for pressure airships around ‘:Convert.‘:Citation needed Modern airships use dynamic helium volume. At sea level altitude, helium only takes up a small part of the hull, while the rest is filled with air. As the airship ascends, the helium inflates with reduced outer pressure, and air is pushed out and released from the downward valve. This allows an airship to reach any altitude with balanced inner and outer pressure if the buoyancy is enough. Some civil aerostats could reach ‘:Convert without explosion due to overloaded inner pressure.‘:Citation needed The greatest disadvantage of the airship is size, which is essential to increasing performance. As size increases, the problems of ground handling increase geometrically.[88]As the German Navy transitioned from the "p" class Zeppelins of 1915 with a volume of over ‘:Convert to the larger "q" class of 1916, the "r" class of 1917, and finally the "w" class of 1918, at almost ‘:Convert ground handling problems reduced the number of days the Zeppelins were able to make patrol flights. This availability declined from 34% in 1915, to 24.3% in 1916 and finally 17.5% in 1918.[89] So long as the power-to-weight ratios of aircraft engines remained low and specific fuel consumption high, the airship had an edge for long range or duration operations. As those figures changed, the balance shifted rapidly in the airplane's favor. By mid-1917 the airship could no longer survive in a combat situation where the threat was airplanes. By the late 1930s, the airship barely had an advantage over the airplane on intercontinental over-water flights, and that advantage had vanished by the end of WW II. This is in face-to-face tactical situation, current High Altitude Airship project is planned to survey hundreds of kilometers as their operation radius, often much farther than normal engage range of a military airplane.‘:Clarify This provides better early warning, even farther than the Aegis system.‘:Clarify<! -- Aegis? -->

The current Aegis system is often based on a sea vessel like Ticonderoga Class and Burke Class, which have restricted radio horizon and line of sight.‘:Clarify For example, a radar mounted on a vessel platform‘:Convert high has radio horizon at ‘:Convert range, while a radar at ‘:Convert altitude has radio horizon at ‘:Convert range. This is significantly important for detecting low-flying cruise missiles or fighter-bombers. The blimp remained a viable military system only until the conventional submarine was replaced by the nuclear submarine. Today, airships are used primarily for command, control and as a communication platform; to establish and maintain reliable and secure connectivity among all forces, provide transparent data across the echelons; precisely locate friendly and enemy forces; detect targets on an extended battlefield at a minimal exposure to enemy forces; real time targeting; navigation assistance; battle management; monitor radio conversations, etc. 10 Safety Edit ‘:Refimprove sectionThe most commonly used lift gas, helium, is inert so acts as a fire extinguisher.[90]Modern airships have a natural buoyancy and special design that offers a virtually zero catastrophic failure mode.[91]While on long-haul flights weather patterns would be flown to avoid bad weather, the hull's mass largely damps the effect of turbulence, just as a large tanker rides through rough seas.‘:Citation needed An airship is usually a poor lightning target,‘:Citation needed as it is constructed mainly from composite materials. If it is struck, built-in protection devices minimize the risk to the vehicle and its cargo.‘:Citation needed A series of structural vulnerability tests were done by the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency DERA on a Skyship 600, an earlier airship built by the Munk team to a similar pressure-stabilized design. Several hundred high-velocity bullets were fired through the hull, and even two hours later the vehicle would have been able to return to base. The airship is virtually impervious to automatic rifle and mortar fire: ordnance passes through the envelope without causing critical helium loss. In all instances of light armament fire evaluated under both test and live conditions, the vehicle was able to complete its mission and return to base. The internal hull pressure is maintained at only 1–2% above surrounding air pressure, the vehicle is highly tolerant to physical damage or to attack by small-arms fire or missiles.[92]