How Blimps or Airships Fly

The terms airships and blimps are often used interchangeably. However, there is a lot of difference between these two terms. Actually, airships are divided into three types:

• Rigid airships

• Semi rigid airships

• Non rigid airships

Whereas, technically blimps are the type of non-rigid airships. The most renowned company in this field is “Good Year Company” researched on this topic. Their research shows that the term blimp was first used in 1915 A.D by a commanding officer named as Cunningham. He used this term while inspecting SS-12 airship. While inspecting he used his finger for flicking against the airship and copied the sound as blimps. Later on, this term was popularized among people and they started using it as synonymous to airships.

Blimps belong to the family of lighter aircraft with no specific structure of its envelope; rather they use helium and air for lifting purpose. Most of the blimps use only helium instead of wing for their lifting. Some people are often amazed that helium is a less power gas and how it can flew a gigantic airship. The answer is because the helium is a gas which contains the lifting capacity of 1.02 kg/m3 and it ranges from 1900 m3 (67,000 ft3) to 4800 m3 (169,000 ft3) which ultimately results in very useful payload.

As time passed, improvements were made in the blimps to make them more effective and efficient. Now the blimps are produced using the latest technology with computer-aided designs, which differentiate the blimps of today as compared to those blimps that were available 50 years ago. The envelope of a non-rigid airship includes the helium inside it, which is also a good fire extinguisher. Here one important thing to understand is that the pressure of helium gas inside an envelope is very low (approximately 1/15 psi). This low pressure of helium gas is also beneficial for a non-rigid airship because in case of any hole in the blimp, it will take hours and even days to affect the performance due to emergence of helium gas from the blimp.

Helium gas not only provides lift for a blimps but it also helps in changing the direction of a blimp. In most of the modern blimps of today, multiple ballonets are installed (some also have only one ballonet). Ballonet is a simple type of bag containing air in it for the use in the blimp. Also, these ballonets are also used to maintain the pressure in a constant way to increase the efficiency of a blimp. Another advantage of the modern non-rigid airship or blimps is that unlike airplanes, you can stay aloft as stationary without any problem. More ever, they don’t need high level of energy for their flight and only a small power is enough for it. Due to these reasons, they are more environments friendly and cost effective as compared to the modern airplanes.