68
votes
Comfortable way of entering and exiting Airships anywhere at will
Jetpacks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocketeer_(film)
If you are going to have airships, you need jetpacks. I can picture the crewman spotting the grocery coming into view below as he is ...
- 305k
58
votes
Accepted
How could steampunk civilizations get lifting gas?
It turns out it's not that hard to make hydrogen gas for an airship, and you can do it yourself.
Take some dilute sulphuric acid.
Put small pieces of metal in the acid - iron, zinc, and aluminum ...
- 102k
39
votes
Would oceans filled with long-lived, omnivore, intelligent Krakens make sea travel impossible?
Octopi play.
source
The ocean can be terrifying. More terrifying is being played with by an intelligent predator. It grabs a person then leaves. It hits the boat and then leaves. It throws a huge ...
- 305k
36
votes
How to limit the usefulness of an anti-gravity mineral to airship construction in steampunk?
It only works at high concentrations
Like fission, you need a minimum amount of this material for it to generate lift power.
Gather a cube meter of this material and it would barely lift itself; but ...
- 7,469
35
votes
Accepted
Airship lifeboats, design alternatives
The safest place is still aboard your airship.
Unlike seagoing vessels, airships do not traverse a medium that is potentially deadly for humans. When a ship sinks, people need to still be able to ...
- 12.1k
34
votes
LED light or heating element?
You would want to use a heating element. If you use a light (whether visible light from a LED or infrared from a quartz heating element), some of the energy is turned into light, rather than heat. ...
- 133k
32
votes
How could a pre-gunpowder army challenge the enemy's air superiority?
Perhaps you overspent on the wrong weapon
WWI taught us that early (WWI-era) air warfare, while romantic, has serious drawback when used against ground troops.
The greatest strategic impact of ...
- 28.9k
30
votes
Accepted
How to make the era of airships last longer?
No Hindenburg disaster - I'm aware this isn't enough alone but it is key
One of the largest influences on the decline of airships was the publicity of the Hindenburg disaster. A mixture of imagery ...
- 11k
30
votes
Accepted
What types of things could go wrong in an airship during a storm?
The outer skin of a zeppelin could start to rip. Someone would have to go on top to sew it up and stop the rip.
Internally, bracing struts might snap and need to be replaced.
Many airships had engine ...
- 119k
30
votes
Accepted
Would a "Rigid" balloon "filled" with a vacuum work better than a hydrogen balloon in an earth atmosphere?
Not very much. 1 mole of a gas occupies 22.7 litres at 0°C. One mole is the molecular mass in grams. Thus one mole of hydrogen weighs 2 grams, and one mole of air is (28 * 0.8 + 32 * 0.2) = 28.8 grams....
- 1,387
29
votes
Comfortable way of entering and exiting Airships anywhere at will
Skycrane
As long as you have lifting power, there is no reason that you can't just pick up and lower a large, comfortable elevator box (doesn't have to be shaped like a house).
If you want to keep ...
- 85.7k
29
votes
Air-traffic control for medieval airships
During Middle Age ships cruised the seas with no communication whatsoever with both land and other ships. If there was any communication it was only when the ship was in sight or ear distance.
Despite ...
- 297k
28
votes
Smallest possible size for a manned airship
Let's assume that you're using helium as your lifting gas.
If that's the case, you get about a gram of lifting capacity per litre of helium. That means that you want 1000 L of gas for every kg you ...
- 54.2k
27
votes
How might airships be made using 18th century technology?
Sorry but no. No aluminium and no internal combustion engines means no airships.
You must have aluminium -- there is no substitute for its combination of strength and lightness; and to smelt ...
- 94.7k
27
votes
How to best use my hypothetical “Heavenium” for airship propulsion?
Heavenium engine
Take an ordinary water wheel. No water. Put a piece of heavenium under one side of the wheel. The side above the heavenium will become lighter, and the wheel will rotate. Use this ...
- 94.7k
26
votes
What would make airships viable economically?
A zombie apocalypse!
No, wait! I'm not kidding. That would be a perfect opportunity to bring back lighter-than-air transportation. After all,... the vessels are lighter than air.
If you have an ...
- 69.3k
26
votes
Accepted
Airborne 18th century soldier: Feasible?
Leonardo da Vinci's parachute was conceived in the late 1400's, and modern reproductions (made of linen BTW) work just fine.
Reproduction of Leonardo's parachute
The difficulty with early parachutes ...
- 97.8k
25
votes
Quick destruction of a helium filled airship?
The envelope of the airship is a red herring. As noted by other commenters, it is extremely hard to destroy because you're just hitting a giant pillow full of non-flammable nothing.
(There have been ...
- 11.9k
23
votes
Air-traffic control for medieval airships
For congested airspace: Flags, Candles, coloured glass, and a codebook.
So Semaphore Code is probably the best option (using flags to communicate), but also modern air traffic control has a backup ...
- 44.3k
22
votes
Would oceans filled with long-lived, omnivore, intelligent Krakens make sea travel impossible?
I am not sure that those kraken would consider human ships interesting prey. After all most of the ship is inedible (wood) and hunting those little, pesky critters hugging to the "huge log" ...
- 2,301
22
votes
Are airships practical in a world without much metal?
Trees and wood in the past has been a strategic resource. If you look at ship building, forests and trees like oak were protected by the King. The shipwrights would look at the branches and forks, and ...
- 6,922
21
votes
Comfortable way of entering and exiting Airships anywhere at will
Small landing pad on top of airship, used by a conventional helicopter, flying cars, or drones for deliveries. In fact, groceries can be delivered by drone straight to the receiving hatch in the main ...
- 10.7k
21
votes
How functional/versatile would airships utilizing perfect-vacuum-balloons be?
16% more functional / versatile than existing helium airships.
This is not the best use of Besker in your world.
As was already pointed out in the comments; Hydrogen has 93% of the lifting power of ...
- 44.3k
20
votes
What would make airships viable economically?
As mentioned before, hybrid airships are getting back in fashion, it has been made more secure than before and it hits the middle ground between efficiency and speed.
It uses less fuel than planes ...
- 5,692
20
votes
What types of things could go wrong in an airship during a storm?
A failure that's quite likely in a violent storm is damage to fins, rudders, or elevators. Presuming these are built similarly to what they were on the Zeppelins of the 1900-1940 era, turbulence ...
- 46.2k
20
votes
Post-apocalyptic aircraft
hydrogen is too weak – one flaming arrow and the approaching flying
battle-platform turns into (cinematographically appealing) fireworks.
Only if your engineers are idiots. The cinematic flames ...
- 42.5k
19
votes
Preindustrial airships with minimalist magic
You don't need magic to explain pre-industrial airships, just more abundant and accessible sources of naturally occurring helium than real Earth has.
Hot air balloons are (arguably) pre-industrial; ...
- 2,398
19
votes
How to limit the usefulness of an anti-gravity mineral to airship construction in steampunk?
When the material is “grounded”, it doesn’t give lift. They haven’t been able to figure out if it is some kind of static charge or a magic connection to the earth, but if it is connected to the ground ...
- 418
19
votes
Medieval airship nomads
Hunting birds bring nearby food sources back to the airships
Falcons for migrating birds
Cormorants for fish
Falconry is a Eurasian hunting method dating from the 13th Century BCE and well into the ...
- 407
19
votes
How to slow and limit the scope of the internal combustion engine in powering an airship
Limited/Unavailable Fossil Fuels
If this planet isn't like Earth and hasn't undergone it's own version of the carboniferous era there may be few if any fossil fuel reserves to depend on. In this case, ...
- 2,233
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible