What is the earliest an Airship could be built?

[zoomar]

I have wondered myself why the concept of man-carrying hot air balloons waited until the 18th century to be realized.

But airships...dirigibles? In spite of many fanciful ideas, I fail to see that truly useful airships (ie. something large enough to carry a crew and/or cargo fast enough to not be at the mercy of prevailing winds) could have been developed any earlier than OTL. You need light engines and they just didn't come into existence until the late 19th century. I used to believe that perhaps a pedal powered chain drive apparatus might acheive the same result as the early engines, but I now doubt it. First, even a bicycle drive is a fairly complex machine that requires mass-produced parts, and you'd need several such drives, each driven by a heavy person. Maybe, just maybe, a modern example of such a ship using the most modern parts might work as an experiment in virtually still conditions, but what would be the range of such a craft dependent on man power? Could it reasonably be expected to carry anything heavier than the weight of its own structure, cycles, and the people who powered it?

 

[Unalist]

I have wondered myself why the concept of man-carrying hot air balloons waited until the 18th century to be realized.

But airships...dirigibles? In spite of many fanciful ideas, I fail to see that truly useful airships (ie. something large enough to carry a crew and/or cargo fast enough to not be at the mercy of prevailing winds) could have been developed any earlier than OTL. You need light engines and they just didn't come into existence until the late 19th century. I used to believe that perhaps a pedal powered chain drive apparatus might acheive the same result as the early engines, but I now doubt it. First, even a bicycle drive is a fairly complex machine that requires mass-produced parts, and you'd need several such drives, each driven by a heavy person. Maybe, just maybe, a modern example of such a ship using the most modern parts might work as an experiment in virtually still conditions, but what would be the range of such a craft dependent on man power? Could it reasonably be expected to carry anything heavier than the weight of its own structure, cycles, and the people who powered it?

Even if the Airship could only carry observers being able to manuver has alot of applications.

Exploration/cartography: Sending it out ahead of land or perhaps naval explorers would have alot of advantages. "Oh look at that way over there, we nearly missed it!"

Scientific: an obsever could gather basic information on the upper atmosphere, physiology, meteorology, areodynamics, testing gliders and parachutes in conditions that would simply push a balloon around. Granted too high a wind or other condition would quickly become a disaster.

Military: Observation, terror bombing, covert or overt insertion. Imagine Brave Achilles Air Assaulting into Troy.

 

[LHB]

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.

Depends on how big we're talking, if you're looking at something fairly small you could power it with pedals. It wouldn't move very fast and would definitely have a hard time in strong winds but on a calm day it could scoot around nicely.

Unfortunately I seriously doubt that approach could get much bigger than a small crew, all of whom would be used to move the thing, and zero passengers.

 

[Unalist]

I started off thinking that but math and practical archeology is necissary to resolve how big can you move with pedals (human power plant) with how much lift (hot air and hydrogen being the best cannidates) note if you can find a modern hot air human powered airship please direct me (human powered hydrogen yes, hot air nonhuman engine yes, human hot air not so that I can find.)

So I'm thinking you need hydrogen but I'm not seeing an easy way or motivation to mass produce it in an early period. OTL the first hydrogen balloon was from related reserch into hydrogen.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Depends on how big we're talking, if you're looking at something fairly small you could power it with pedals. It wouldn't move very fast and would definitely have a hard time in strong winds but on a calm day it could scoot around nicely.

s.

Forget 'strong winds'. Mild breezes are enough to render a modern high tech balloon useless. And how do you guarantee the day will STAY calm.

So it looks calm. You spend a couple of hours filling your airship. You take off, and an hour later your guy is blown into the next county/country, and cant get back.

Sure it COULD be built, but it would be useless for any practical purpose.

 

[Flubber]

Forget 'strong winds'. Mild breezes are enough to render a modern high tech balloon useless. And how do you guarantee the day will STAY calm.

THIS and it apparently must be repeatedly stated.

Some of you may be aware of the recent successful parachuting altitude attempt. One of the previous attempts to set that record was called off when a FIVE MILE PER HOUR breeze arose. That's right, 2012 technology and a light breeze scrubs the launch.

The very idea of a Bronze Era airship is oxymoron and the suggestions made in this thread are painfully ignorant of the many technical hurdles involved.

 

[zoomar]

THIS The very idea of a Bronze Era airship is oxymoron and the suggestions made in this thread are painfully ignorant of the many technical hurdles involved.

I pretty much agree. Even if hot air balloons were discovered/invented by an early civilization (not an inherently unrealistic possibility, that), there is no way this innovation could translate into a reliable means of transport for any purpose. While some slight degree of dirigibility might be attained in completely still conditions by creative aerostatics or primitive man-powered engines of some type, the real world rarely provides such still conditions. The best practical application for such an innovation might be as kite balloons towed by carts or ships. The elevation of the balloon might have real benefits in navigation and spotting, but beyond that...?

 

[modelcitizen]

Can a semi-airship be considered with a self-contained heat-source to keep the envelope lighter-than-air?

Say the Chinese developed something with a bamboo frame and gondola with a bamboo-framed silk fabric balloon/envelope...

What if the Chinese moved the thing around with rockets? They did invent rockets, and they had bamboo rocket launchers.

I can contemplate someone using a balloon for military purpose (surveillance, and then, at least just to try, bombardment) and aiming a bamboo rocket launcher at someone and experiencing a "eureka!" with the subsequent thrust in a specific direction.

Development after that could have builders of "air ships" designing the air ships to cut through air the way water ships go through water.

 

[carlton_bach]

Can a semi-airship be considered with a self-contained heat-source to keep the envelope lighter-than-air?

Say the Chinese developed something with a bamboo frame and gondola with a bamboo-framed silk fabric balloon/envelope...

What if the Chinese moved the thing around with rockets? They did invent rockets, and they had bamboo rocket launchers.

I'm no engineer, but givenn how large and light a successful rigid-frame hot-air airship would have to be, I suspect a rocket powerful enough to accelerate it would tear it to pieces. Hot air provides much less lift than helium or hydrogen, so the weight-to-volume ratio has to be even better than for a conventional airship. And I doubt accelerating even a duraluminum-framed zeppelin with rockets would be a good idea.

 

[modelcitizen]

I'm no engineer, but givenn how large and light a successful rigid-frame hot-air airship would have to be, I suspect a rocket powerful enough to accelerate it would tear it to pieces. Hot air provides much less lift than helium or hydrogen, so the weight-to-volume ratio has to be even better than for a conventional airship. And I doubt accelerating even a duraluminum-framed zeppelin with rockets would be a good idea.

I figured the rockets would be more like "boosters," intermittently fired to coax the thing into a specific direction. I reckon top speed would be quite unimpressive, perhaps a touch faster than jogging, and the rocket-firings would be most important for maintaining more or less correct direction, maybe.

Something on the order of a Saturn V hitched to it would be morbidly entertaining, of course.

 

[ChaosNDiscord]

Sure it COULD be built, but it would be useless for any practical purpose.

This I disagree with. In OTL American civil war stationary balloons were used by a certain general (whose name escapes me) to observe enemy fortifications and movements - and I could be wrong (and frequently am) but I believe that was the first or one of the first military uses of balloons.

A lower tech version could be tethered to galleys, exploration vessels, used by armies, etc to scout out and watch enemy movements and the like. Not that this is a perfect system, the balloon at Chancelorsville failed to notice Jackson's flanking move, but it certainly could have helped in many other engagements historically.

 

[carlton_bach]

I figured the rockets would be more like "boosters," intermittently fired to coax the thing into a specific direction. I reckon top speed would be quite unimpressive, perhaps a touch faster than jogging, and the rocket-firings would be most important for maintaining more or less correct direction, maybe.

Something on the order of a Saturn V hitched to it would be morbidly entertaining, of course.

You can't do that with black powder rockets. It's all or nothing, and enough power to accelerate something with that much inertia and drag is a pretty big oomph.

 

[modelcitizen]

You can't do that with black powder rockets. It's all or nothing, and enough power to accelerate something with that much inertia and drag is a pretty big oomph.

Mmmmaybe a bunch of small ones?

Like the itty bitty jets used to position big space craft in space...?

Oh hey.

 

[Flubber]

In OTL American civil war stationary balloons...

ACW balloons used envelopes of tight, machine woven cloth which was then rubberized before being inflated by hydrogen produced by industrial machinery. There is NO COMPARISON between the scientific and manufacturing capabilities of 1860s America and Bronze Age nations.

A lower tech version...

... wouldn't exist because neither the envelope or the quantity of gasses it require can be constructed at a lower level of technologies. You are unaware of the technical hurdles involved and of the technical abilities of the cultures discussed here.

The oft-quoted Nazca balloon is an anachronism because it applied modern knowledge to a selected portion of ancient manufacturing abilities. The balloon could not have been conceived of, let alone constructed, by the people of the time.

 

[Flubber]

Mmmmaybe a bunch of small ones? Like the itty bitty jets used to position big space craft in space...?

How do you control the rockets' firing? How do you ensure the rockets ignite when you want them to do so? How do you ensure only the rockets you want to ignite ignite? How do you replace expended rockets?

 

[zoomar]

This I disagree with. In OTL American civil war stationary balloons were used by a certain general (whose name escapes me) to observe enemy fortifications and movements - and I could be wrong (and frequently am) but I believe that was the first or one of the first military uses of balloons.

A lower tech version could be tethered to galleys, exploration vessels, used by armies, etc to scout out and watch enemy movements and the like. Not that this is a perfect system, the balloon at Chancelorsville failed to notice Jackson's flanking move, but it certainly could have helped in many other engagements historically.

It would be useless as an airship, which is what Dathi was talking about. I don't think anybody is saying that tethered balloons can't be useful. But a balloon, even one drug around by a ship, is not an airship.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

It would be useless as an airship, which is what Dathi was talking about. I don't think anybody is saying that tethered balloons can't be useful. But a balloon, even one drug around by a ship, is not an airship.

Exactly. This thread is about AIRSHIPS not tethered balloons.

A tethered balloon could have been built MUCH earlier than OTL and been useful.

 

[modelcitizen]

How do you control the rockets' firing? How do you ensure the rockets ignite when you want them to do so? How do you ensure only the rockets you want to ignite ignite? How do you replace expended rockets?

There are two pictures that I put together to illustrate my "setup" for this concept.

The airship (or blimp) that I "see" has open sides above the "basket" attached underneath the envelope/balloon.

Around on the railing of the basket are perhaps eight mounting placements on which to clamp on a rocket tube, that is, a bamboo tube pre-packed with rocket propellant/powder. (I'm imagining the Chinese will work on the powder for longer-burning/less-explosive compositions, or they'll just deal with the kabooms, perhaps with kabooms of varying sizes/force.)

A rocket-tube or rocket-tubes can be clamped onto the appropriate mounting placement or placements and then ignited. The tube or tubes can then be un-clamped and then replaced as the crew decides.

I earlier noted that this vessel will likely have a low top speed, since the folks aboard won't like hauling more than a certain number of these combustible rocket tubes on board.

Below is a pic of the vessel itself,

 

[Flubber]

Exactly. This thread is about AIRSHIPS not tethered balloons.

Precisely. The thread is about airships, not tethered balloons and not gliders propelled by black powder rockets either shudder

A tethered balloon could have been built MUCH earlier than OTL and been useful.

It's not going to built much earlier than the mass production of fine cloth, paper, or both because you need shitloads to construct a lifting envelope.

The Montgolfiers used a combination of taffeta, a cloth woven from silk, and paper for their balloons. Coming from a paper making family they had access to plenty of the former and funds enough to purchase the latter in the quantities needed. A few years later, J. Charles and the Roberts brothers used rubber coated taffeta for their hydrogen balloon experiments which were paid for by aristocratic subscriptions.

 

[Flubber]

There are two pictures that I put together to illustrate my "setup" for this concept.

I'll refrain from comment because I don't believe a truthful response to your "idea" would be worth getting kicked or banned.