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Aviation Glossary :: Non-Rigid Airship  Aviation Glossary :: Non-Rigid Airship FAA Written Test Preparation
Aviation Glossary Welcome to the Dauntless Aviation Glossary!

At Dauntless, our editorial staff maintains the web's largest unified glossary of aviation terms. This glossary is built from a combination of official, quasi-official, and proprietary sources (including original material that we develop oursselves). Uniquely, we often provide multiple definitions of a given term so that you can find that which best applies to you. In order to maximize your learning efficiency, this glossary (and similar ones for our international users) is incresingly fully integrated into our aviation learning apps, including our FAA written test prep and FAA practical test prep software and apps. If you like this glossary, you'll love them with their polished learning environments and world's best and clearest content (please do give them a try.).

Non-Rigid Airship
Non-Rigid Airship
An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft which can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from large gas bags filled with a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.

In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability. Helium gas has almost the same lifting capacity and is also nonflammable, but is rare and relatively expensive. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and, for a while, helium was rarely used for airships outside the United States.

Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air.

The outer envelope of an airship may be formed from its single gas bag, or may be a separate supported skin. Besides the main envelope, an airship also has engines and crew and/or payload accommodation, typically in a gondola hung beneath the envelope.

The main types of airship are non-rigid, semi-rigid, and rigid.

  • Non-rigid airships, often called "blimps", rely on internal pressure to maintain the shape of the airship.
  • Semi-rigid airships maintain the envelope shape by internal pressure, but have some form of supporting structure, such as a fixed keel, attached to it. Rigid airships have an outer structural framework which maintains the shape and carries all structural loads, while the lifting gas is contained in one or more internal gas bags or cells.
  • Rigid airships were first flown by Count Zeppelin and the vast majority of rigid airships built were manufactured by the firm he founded. As a result, all rigid airships are sometimes called zeppelins.
source: Wikitionary / Wikipedia and Related Sources (Edited)

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Disclaimer: While this glossary in most cases is likely to be highly accurate and useful, sometimes, for any number of editorial, transcription, technical, and other reasons, it might not be. Additionally, as somtimes you may have found yourself brought to this page through an automated term matching system, you may find definitions here that do not match the cotext or application in which you saw the original term. Please use your good judgement when using this resource.


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