Zeppelin Rigid Airship

6
Mar

Zeppelin Rigid Airship

The Truth about Helium Balloons

Have you heard about the Pixar movie “Up”? There’s a movie that dares to tackle the very real issue of: should you escape society by way of a thousand helium balloons? What is the truth about helium anyway? Helium balloons are balloons that have been filled with helium, a certain type of gas. Helium is the most popular type of floating balloon, but it’s not necessarily the only kind. Any balloon that is filled with a gas less dense than air or lighter than air will float. Only air balloons will remain stagnant.

Are the stereotypes of balloon home relocation and airborne bicycling really true? Even helium balloons can be affected by external factors like strong winds, weather and climate so don’t try any blast-off experiments at home. Exaggerated though movies might be the fact of the matter is that gas balloons do float and do have the stability to carry a crew of people. After all, blimps are a form of gas balloon. (Though zeppelins are not; they are a type of rigid airship)

Science says that just as the heaviest things fall down, so anything lighter than air has the tendency to rise. Since helium weighs 0.1785 grams per liter, it is lighter than air. Case in point: if you were to fill two soda pop bottles with helium and another with air, the one containing helium would weight a lot less than the air bottle.

Wait a minute, hydrogen is lighter than helium. Why don’t people use that to fill balloons? They do sometimes, but helium balloons are usually preferred because they are not as flammable a substance as hydrogen. If you’re using with hydrogen, know that even the slightest spark could set off an explosion. This is what caused the notorious Hindenburg disaster.

As for as what helium looks like? Nothing. Nor does it have color, an odor, a taste or any identifiable features. Helium is produced from natural gas wells where it is extracted from the crude natural gas stream and purified. At this point helium can be stored and shipped for consumer use, and in either gas or liquid form.

You can order helium balloons online and for a discounted price. Buy balloons in bulk and make sure the party gets started right, with a bunch of colorful and magical balloons to Welcome those kids (young and old) to the festivities!

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Party-Shop.ie provides a wide range of party supplies for all of your special events. From helium balloons to costumes, you'll find everything you need at affordable prices.

R/C Rigid airship, need plans, preferably Hindenburg or Graf Zeppelin

Im wanting to build a radio controlled rigid airship, modeled after either the Hindenburg or Graf Zeppelin. But I am having a hard time finding the blueprints for either airship. Its going to be 6 to 8 ft in length and I need the blueprints to make the parts. Any thoughts to where I can get these without having to go to Germany? Dont worry, it will be filled with helium, and not hydrogen

I don't think you can practically scale it down and expect it to fly, especially if you follow the blue prints for the structure inside that makes it rigid. The RC airship models, even when they look like the Hindenburg, are blimps in that the gas envelope is entirely empty. I would expect that the skin, not getting proportionately thinner would get heavier and the volume that provides lift is reducing as the 3/2's root of the area (it is getting smaller faster than the area is getting lighter.)
Taking thedimensionss from here

http://www.historicaviation.com/product_info.po%3bjsessionid=z2fNNXgm0DxmsoILxI8fSBPV?ID=7632

an 88" long model would be 18" in diameter. Figuring that as a cylinder 80" by 18" gives a volume of 20357 cu.in or 11.78 cubic feet.
This site http://www.myairship.com/faq/index.html says 1000 cu.ft. will lift 60 pounds so 1 cubic foot will lift about 1 ounce and 12 cubic feet will lift 12 ounces, which is not much fabric, much less RC, drive motors and steering gear.
This site http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/WindTunnel/Activities/buoy_Archimedes.html says "density of helium is 0.18 kg/ m3 and the density of air is 1.30 kg/ m3" so the net lift is 1.12 kg/m3 and Google calculator says (1.12 kg) / (cu. meter) = 0.0699193158 pound / (cu. foot)
which is a bit more than above 1.11870905 ounces per cubic foot or 13.4 ounces from 12 cu.ft.

This site has links to models & plans in paper, etc.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/airship/models.htm

LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin