Building Gas Blimps

Building Gas Blimps
Author: Robert J. Recks
Publisher: Marc de Piolenc
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1997-12-01
Genre: Airships
ISBN: 0937568287

Shows how a small (but man-carrying) gas blimp is built.

A Leap from the Clouds

A Leap from the Clouds
Author: Jerry Kuntz
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1476647429

In the late nineteenth century, circus aerialists collaborated with show balloonists to perform death-defying stunts, initially by suspending themselves from trapeze bars beneath a balloon, later by jumping from the balloons using fabric parachutes. By the 1890s, these performances became a worldwide craze, remaining in rural fairs and fetes for decades. Many of the original balloon-parachute pioneers went on to play key roles in the creation of airships, test flying the first gliders and airplanes. Based on extensive historical research, this unusual account explores how a nineteenth-century daredevil act united with the desire to achieve human flight. These performers' contributions did not come without a price: dozens, if not hundreds, of people died in horrifying events witnessed by thousands of spectators. This book chronicles the act that had no practical purpose other than entertainment, which eventually evolved into the development of the free-fall parachute pack--a key aviation need--and the foundation of a new activity known as skydiving.

Airship Technology

Airship Technology
Author: Gabriel Alexander Khoury
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 769
Release: 2012-02-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1107019702

This comprehensive guide to modern airship design and operation, written by world experts, is the only up-to-date book on airship technology intended as a technical guide to those interested in studying, designing, building, flying, and operating airship. In addition to basic airship principles, the book covers conventional and unconventional design in a panoramic and in-depth manner focusing on four themes: (1) basic principles such as aerostatics, aerodynamics, propulsion, materials and structures, stability and control, mooring and ground handling, and piloting and meteorology; (2) different airship types including conventional (manned and unmanned), hot air, solar powered, and hybrid; (3) airship applications including surveillance, tourism, heavy lift, and disaster and humanitarian relief; and (4) airship roles and economic considerations. This second edition introduces nine new chapters and includes significant revisions and updates to five of the original chapters.

Selbyana

Selbyana
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 374
Release: 1995
Genre: Botany
ISBN:

Lighter than Air Robots

Lighter than Air Robots
Author: Yasmina Bestaoui Sebbane
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2011-11-15
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9400726635

An aerial robot is a system capable of sustained flight with no direct human control and able to perform a specific task. A lighter than air robot is an aerial robot that relies on the static lift to balance its own weight. It can also be defined as a lighter than air unmanned aerial vehicle or an unmanned airship with sufficient autonomy. Lighter than air systems are particularly appealing since the energy to keep them airborne is small. They are increasingly considered for various tasks such as monitoring, surveillance, advertising, freight carrier, transportation. This book familiarizes readers with a hierarchical decoupled planning and control strategy that has been proven efficient through research. It is made up of a hierarchy of modules with well defined functions operating at a variety of rates, linked together from top to bottom. The outer loop, closed periodically, consists of a discrete search that produces a set of waypoints leading to the goal while avoiding obstacles and weighed regions. The second level smoothes this set so that the generated paths are feasible given the vehicle's velocity and accelerations limits. The third level generates flyable, timed trajectories and the last one is the tracking controller that attempts to minimize the error between the robot measured trajectory and the reference trajectory. This hierarchy is reflected in the structure and content of the book. Topics treated are: Modelling, Flight Planning, Trajectory Design and Control. Finally, some actual projects are described in the appendix. This volume will prove useful for researchers and practitioners working in Robotics and Automation, Aerospace Technology, Control and Artificial Intelligence.

Scientific American

Scientific American
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 484
Release: 1921
Genre: Science
ISBN:

Monthly magazine devoted to topics of general scientific interest.

The Solar Economy

The Solar Economy
Author: Hermann Scheer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1136547614

The global economy and our way of life are based on the exploitation of fossil fuels, which not only threaten massive environmental and social disruption through global warming but, at present rates of consumption, will run out within decades, causing huge industrial dislocation and economic collapse. Even before then, the conflicts it causes in the Middle East and elsewhere will be frighteningly exacerbated. The alternative exists: renewable energy from renewable sources - above all, solar. Substituting renewable for fossil resources will take a new industrial revolution to avert the worst of the damage and establish a new international order. It can be done, and it can be done in time. The Solar Economy, by one of the world's most effective analysts and advocates, lays out the blueprints, showing how the political, economic and technological challenges can be met using indigenous, renewable and universally available resources, and the enormous opportunities and benefits that will flow from doing so.