LTA’s Pathfinder 1: the Dawn of a New Age of Airships?
1 min read
Summary
Both balloons and airships are a type of aerostat, or aircraft that is lighter than air.
Dirigible or rigid airships have a supportive skeleton of some kind.
This may be made of either lightweight materials of relatively high strength to weight ratio, such as duralumin (aluminium-copper alloy) as was the case for many airships produced in the 1920s and 1930s; or newer materials with even better strength to weight properties, such as carbon fiber and titanium, as is the case for the Pathfinder 1 airship under construction by LTA.
Irrespective of the type of airship, their buoyancy can be adjusted with mechanisms such as a ballonet, or balloon inside the airship which can be inflated or deflated as needed.
Balloons and airships are very stable platforms in most conditions with no real range limit beyond the fuel and food capacity for respectively the engines and onboard crew, passengers, and cargo.
The main issue with airships is that they are relatively large, and thus cumbersome to handle, slow, susceptible to adverse weather conditions, and expensive to operate.
