Exactly. An airship requires engines, and decent ones at that. You're not going to get that before the technological equivalent of 1800 OTL, more likely 1850. Should be doable by then, but wouldn't be much help, as it would still require calm air, massive gangs of handlers at each end and the weight of the steam engine would mean the useful payload wasn't that great.I'd say, for Europe, anything faster than a century or so than OTL would require an unrecognizable world. And even that would mean a very different Europe.
You also need working engines to have an airship and not just a hydrogen balloon, after all.
Carlton mentioned a great alternative idea: gliders. Again a glider has a very limited control and you need to start from a great height. What else could be used to power the flight that wasn't an engine? Something that is technologically available much earlier? Gunpowder.
A civilization where both gliders and fireworks were independently used, eventually might have some guy with a death wish that would put both things together. The first explosive trials would provide improvements on the placement of the rocket so it wouldn't consume the glider. Further tests could improve the speed gain with different combustibles. Eventually they would find something powerful enough they can lift off without needing to start from a height.
For such glider, i'm assuming you'd need at least a steel frame. I'm not sure if silk has the mechanical properties to withstand the air speed without ripping. Maybe only synthetic fabrics can.
If this is at all possible, eventually the glider frame would include a capsule to protect the pilot, and not long after, the glider itself would be changed into actual wings.
If this works, reaction-powered flight could appear much earlier than engine-powered one.
GURPS Alternate Earths did something similar, with a surviving Roman Empire using rocket-launched gliders (jactovolantes, to use their term) for scouting and message delivery. Being such a glider pilot would definitely be a high-risk occupation.
No. Hot air balloons theoretically yes, but to build an airship you need lifting gas. Hot air can exert great political lift, but physically, it's limited. To produce hydrogen (your most likely candidate for lifting gas) as well as to hold it, you need a lot better technology than your average bronze-age civilisation can provide. Of course if you wanted, you could posit a civilisation of bronze-age silkweaving dwellers in bamboo forests tangled with rubber vines on the seashore that go whaling (for goldbeaters' skin) and live near an area of volcanicv activity where meteoric iron abounds and sulphuric acid is produced naturally. But seriously.
You can use bamboo or other strong but lightweight wood for a frame. You can get steam engines using coal gas rather than coal to save weight for power. For all this using more or less OTL tech means 1850 or a little before...
how about compressed air for propulsion.
Bit like this idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireless_locomotive
can't find reference to how powerful they were, but they are able to work several hours on one charge. power probably comparable to same size shunting locs.
The thread seems to be running along a line of the expected, so to speak. No one has considered sail-powered airships, which are at least theoretically possible. Imagine a very bright group of early engineers with access to lots of bamboo, give them the realization that they need to drag some sort of keel-like object for steerage, and you have a situation worthy at least of consideration.