What is the earliest an Airship could be built?

carlton_bach

Elfwine said:
That looks rather less like an airship and more like how draped in a fishing net is "neither clothed or naked" for traveling over the water.

And is bamboo strong enough?
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Bamboo is strong enough, especially if you use laminate. For many purposes of airship construction, so is high-quality wood. Lots of early airships used wood rather than aluminium, and they flew just fine.

The real problem is not doing it with premodern technology, though it is hard to see a society placed to figure out the details (see my hypothetical volcanic bamboo jungle whalers). Propulsion will be an issue, but theoretically, even a muscle-powered airship can work as long as the wind is not against it. The problem is that you still need a large and well-developed network of trade routes, technical expertise and labour organisation to build that thing, and I can't see a bronze-age civilisation mustering that.
 

hairysamarian

carlton_bach said:
. The problem is that you still need a large and well-developed network of trade routes, technical expertise and labour organisation to build that thing, and I can't see a bronze-age civilisation mustering that.
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Are you serious? The Minoans, the Egyptians and the Chinese (for starters) all had extensive trade and technology in their Bronze Ages. The Egyptians absolutely showed the ability to organize labor.

I'm not about to claim that such a technological leap would have been easy for them, nor am I positing world-spanning air routes in 3000 bc. But, a few inspirations in the right direction and it is absolutely plausible for an ancient culture to put something steerable into the air.
 

Jason222

Banned
It depends the first steam engine was design and build first century AD maybe even done Rome Empire. I wounder how much airship bombing effect Barbarian over power room.
 

hairysamarian

Elfwine said:
And the "function" is that of something that looks rather water-bound more than an airship that can fly over land and sea.
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And it might be, unless someone figures out a "keel" or drogue that can work over land as well. But an airship over water is still an airship, neh? I'd be pretty impressed with a functional Egyptian Empire (for example) airship over any kind of terrain. :)
 

Elfwine

hairysamarian said:
And it might be, unless someone figures out a "keel" or drogue that can work over land as well. But an airship over water is still an airship, neh? I'd be pretty impressed with a functional Egyptian Empire (for example) airship over any kind of terrain. :)
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An airship that is limited to over water is just a fancy sea-ship, IMO.

It might be impressive and it might not be, but I think it would fall short of being a *Zeppelin.
 

carlton_bach

hairysamarian said:
Are you serious? The Minoans, the Egyptians and the Chinese (for starters) all had extensive trade and technology in their Bronze Ages. The Egyptians absolutely showed the ability to organize labor.
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Yes, at a bronze age level. But impressive though that may be for their time, I doubt it would be enough to produce an airship. You would need to source all the materials in large quantities, from very distant places (to the Egyptians, Somalia and Crete were exotic lands). And of course, you will need a network of people who not only tinker with stuff until it works, but who keep doing that although nothing useful may come out of it for generations, and who spread the knowledge so someone completely unrelated can contribute a useful idea. I can't see that happening in Minoan Crete or New Kingdom Egypt, or even in Han China. The problem is the sheer complexity of the problem, and the fact that all the easy technological solutions require a huge amount of technological infrastructure before you can have them. The amount of specialised labour and expertise needed to vgive you ready access to sulfuric acid and vulcanised rubber alone is far beyond what the bronze age civilisations had IOTL.
 

Fardell

Forwards to the Iron Age:

Would the Romans be able to create such a vehicle? Did they have access to required materials? (They had Crete, certainly)

(Large slave driven 'air-tiremes' scaring Picts away from *Hadrians Wall)
 

carlton_bach

Fardell said:
Forwards to the Iron Age:

Would the Romans be able to create such a vehicle? Did they have access to required materials? (They had Crete, certainly)

(Large slave driven 'air-tiremes' scaring Picts away from *Hadrians Wall)
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I have grave doubts. They had blown glass vessels for the chemical reactions and to hold the required quantities of acid and lifting gas, but no vulcanised rubber and only so/so pneumatic apparatus. Their finest metalworking would have been up to the challenge of containing pressurised gas, but I am not sure they could have scaled it to the quantities of equipment required for airships. And the mechanics of propellers largely escaped them.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Derek Jackson said:
I saw a tv show which seemed to suggest that a human powered airship might work sort of
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1) tv show
2) there have been a couple of pedal powered blimps iotl. They require windless days, as cruising speed seems to be 10km/hr, 6mph or so. How many days can you COUNT on there being that little wind?
3) those were MODERN blimps with helium, aluminum structure, modern plastic film bags. Any early airship would be MUCH bigger and hence much slower.

So, no, not usable. Sorry.
 

Unalist

Daztur said:
What would be the earliest that simple hot air balloons would be possible? I can imagine pre-modern aristocrats travelling in hot air balloons that are tethered to ox carts while they float slowly along above the sink and sounds of the world below. If you use an ox card to draw them along they wouldn't be useful as much besides an extravagance but they could be a fun cultural quirk. Imagine the wealthy travelling in a hot air balloon from the top of one tower to the next without even setting foot on the ground, sort of a palanquin taken to the next level.
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In principle hot air ballons are possible with paleolithic technology. If you are not familiar with The Nasca Balloon check it out and it will fill in most of the particluars.
 

hairysamarian

carlton_bach said:
ready access to sulfuric acid and vulcanised rubber alone is far beyond what the bronze age civilisations had IOTL.
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Neither hydrogen nor rubber is necessary unless you are insisting on full-sized zeppelins or the equivalent, which amounts to a straw man argument. No one is seriously going to insist on modern technology being replicated so early. All I've been saying is that something which floats in the air, carries some number of people and can be steered could be invented by remarkably early cultures, given the right inspiration.
 

Elfwine

hairysamarian said:
If you're referring to this, I call that an airship. That it has a control surface dragging through water doesn't make it a boat, any more than a propeller is an airplane just because it's wing-shaped.
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That it drags through the water relates rather strongly to whether or not its a craft of the air or the water, however.

The description makes it out to be some kind of hybrid.
 

Daztur

Unalist said:
In principle hot air ballons are possible with paleolithic technology. If you are not familiar with The Nasca Balloon check it out and it will fill in most of the particluars.
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Hmmmmm, interesting. If I ever do a Land of Red & Gold style timeline it'll certainly include aristocrats in hot air balloon palanquins.
 
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