Non-rigid, semi-rigid, and rigid airships
are the three main categories. Internal pressure is used to keep non-rigid airships, sometimes known as 'blimps,' in form. Internal pressure keeps semi-rigid airships in shape, but they have a supporting structure attached to them, such as a fixed keel.
The lifting gas is housed in one or more interior gasbags or cells. Rigid airships feature an outside structural framework that preserves the shape and carries all structural loads.
Count Zeppelin was the first to fly rigid airships, and his firm, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, produced the great majority of rigid airships created. As a result, rigid airships are frequently referred to as 'zeppelins.'
In 1852, Henri Giffard of France
built the world's first successful airship. Giffard designed a
160-kilogram (350-pound) steam engine with 3 horsepower, enough to spin a big propeller at
110 revolutions per minute. Paul Haenlein, a German
engineer, was the first to use an internal-combustion engine for flight in an airship that used gas lifted from a bag as fuel in
1872.
Albert and Gaston Tissandier of France were the first to use an electric motor to power an airship in
1883. In 1897, the first rigid airship with an aluminum hull was created in
Germany. In a series of 14 nonrigid gasoline-powered airships
that he built from 1898 to 1905, Alberto Santos-Dumont, a
Brazilian living in Paris, set a number of records.
