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A lifting gas or lighter-than-air gas is a gas that has a density lower than normal atmospheric gases and rises above them as a result, making it useful in lifting lighter-than-air aircraft. Only certain lighter than air gases are suitable as lifting gases. Dry air has a density of about 1.29 g/L (gram per liter) at standard conditions for ...
An airship[ a ] is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. [ 1 ] Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air to achieve the lift needed to stay airborne.
A vacuum airship, also known as a vacuum balloon, is a hypothetical airship that is evacuated rather than filled with a lighter-than-air gas such as hydrogen or helium. First proposed by Italian Jesuit priest Francesco Lana de Terzi in 1670, [1] the vacuum balloon would be the ultimate expression of lifting power per volume displaced.
A modern aerostat used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS) An aerostat (from Ancient Greek ἀήρ (aḗr) 'air' and στατός (statós) 'standing', via French) is a lighter-than-air aircraft that gains its lift through the use of a buoyant gas. Aerostats include unpowered balloons and ...
It held 200,000 cubic metres (7,062,000 cu ft) of gas in 16 bags or cells with a useful lift of approximately 232 t (511,000 lb). This provided a margin above the 215 t (474,000 lb) average gross weight of the ship with fuel, equipment, 10,000 kg (22,000 lb) of mail and cargo, about 90 passengers and crew and their luggage.
Some airship designs that use a lighter-than-air lifting gas heat a portion of the gas, which is usually maintained in enclosed cells to gain additional lift. Heating the lifting gas causes expansion of the gas in order to further lower the density of the lifting gas, which results in greater lift.
Helium is the least water-soluble monatomic gas, [95] and one of the least water-soluble of any gas (CF 4, SF 6, and C 4 F 8 have lower mole fraction solubilities: 0.3802, 0.4394, and 0.2372 x 2 /10 −5, respectively, versus helium's 0.70797 x 2 /10 −5), [96] and helium's index of refraction is closer to unity than that of any other gas. [97]
Hybrid airship. A hybrid airship is a powered aircraft that obtains some of its lift as a lighter-than-air (LTA) airship and some from aerodynamic lift as a heavier-than-air aerodyne. A dynastat is a hybrid airship with fixed wings and/or a lifting body and is typically intended for long-endurance flights. It requires forward flight to create ...