History of aeronautics connection with physics. History of aeronautics. Favorites. The beginning of controlled aeronautics. World history of aeronautics
Starting with the launch of the invention of the Montgolfier brothers, the history of aeronautics has more than 200 years. Today's flights balloons are organized not only for scientific or sporting purposes, but also for commercial and entertainment purposes.
The history of the appearance of balloons and the first balloonists
According to unconfirmed reports, the first balloons were launched in China in 1306 in honor of Emperor Fo Kien and in 1709 in Portugal by the monk Bartolomeo de Cusmao. The official date for the appearance of aeronautics is 1783.
It was in this year that on June 5, an unmanned aerial vehicle called hot air balloon - named after their designers, the Montgolfier brothers - Joseph and Jacques-Étienne. It was a paper ball covered with cotton and filled with hot smoke.
The first flight in a balloon was made by a sheep, a rooster and a duck - they were placed in a basket attached to the balloon and lifted into the air in September of the same year. Six months after the first official launch, people rose in a hot air balloon - a physicist Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlande. They flew 9 km in 25 minutes, while rising to a height of 915 m.
A little earlier - 2 months before the first flight of people, a balloon filled with hydrogen took off into the sky on the Champ de Mars in Paris. In honor of its creator Jacques Charles (professor of physics), he received the name charliere . This aircraft was more efficient than a hot air balloon - it rose faster and higher, but it had drawbacks - it was explosive and needed ballast. Later, dangerous hydrogen was replaced with helium.
With the beginning of the French Revolution, balloons began to be used in the army. For example, with their help, during the Franco-Prussian war, communication was established with Paris cut off from the rest of France. For 4 months, 65 balloons transported letters, dispatches and people - in total more than 3 million copies of correspondence and 150 passengers.
Later they were used to correct artillery fire in Napoleon's army, during the American Civil War, in the First and Second world war. During the Cold War, balloons were used for reconnaissance, as well as a long-range communication system with submerged submarines. In the 1960s, the Americans developed and then launched into the stratosphere 2 balloon satellites that worked as a radio reflector for 9 and 15 years.
In ordinary life, balloons are used by astronomers to raise telescopes to great heights, as well as in the development of deep quarries, unloading ships, building dams and dams, skidding forests, testing space instruments, studying jet streams in the stratosphere, and cosmic radiation.
The history of aeronautics in Russia begins in 1869, when the Commission for the Use of Aeronautics for Military Purposes was established, and already in 1880 the Russian Aeronautical Society was founded, which are still active today.
The society promotes aeronautics, organizes sports competitions and exhibitions. In addition, in 1990, a the Russian Federation aeronautics, representing the country at the European and world championships held by the World Aeronautics Federation (for hot air balloons - in even years, and for galleries - in odd years).
On a note!
For those interested in the history of Russian aviation, we recommend viewing - about the first daring conquerors of the sky.
The history of the development of aeronautics does not stand still. The advent of new materials has allowed modern balloon designers to create combined balloons - rosiers , named after Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier. Such aircraft combine the advantages of hot air balloons and chaletes, having a two-level shell - the upper part of the balloon is filled with helium, the lower part is filled with air, which is constantly heated.
Around the earth in a balloon
Of the 29 attempts to fly around the Earth in a balloon, 3 were successfully completed. The first non-stop was carried out in 1999. Its members are Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones.
The Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon, filled with air and helium, circled the earth, starting on March 1 from Switzerland and landing on March 21 in Egypt. Thus, in 20 days (more precisely, 19 days 21 hours 55 minutes), balloonists non-stop covered 46,759 km. The average flight speed of their aircraft was 98 km/h.
3 years later - in 2002, the American balloonist, yachtsman and businessman Stephen Fossett made the first non-stop solo flight around the earth in a balloon Spirit of Freedom.
During the flight, he set 2 absolute records:
- speed - 5 126 km;
- daily distance - 5 126 km
It took Fossett 14 days to fly around the world. 19 o'clock 50 min. During this time, he covered about 33,000 km, starting on June 19 from the western coast of Australia (near Northam) and landing on the east coast of Australia (Queensland) on July 3.
This was already the sixth attempt by the American balloonist, and he financed the first five personally and only found a sponsor for the sixth - the beer company Bud Light. Fossett spent only 4 hours a day sleeping during the flight, sleeping in fits and starts for 45 minutes.
Its ball, 43 m high and 18 m wide, had a two-level structure, covered with an outer shell, was connected to a gondola measuring 2 × 1.5 m. The upper ball was heated by the sun, the lower one - by hot air. To do this, being at an altitude of 6-8,000 m above the ground and flying at a speed of more than 200 km / h, he had to regularly clear the burners of ice from the burners and switch cylinders at an air temperature of -40 ° C. The maximum speed of his balloon when flying over the Indian Ocean was 300 km / h.
In June 20016, Russian balloonist Fedor Konyukhov set a new record for a solo round-the-world non-stop balloon flight. He covered 34,800 km on his first attempt in 11 days, starting from the east of Australia and flying over the Tasman Sea, New Zealand, the Pacific Ocean, South America, Atlantic Ocean, Africa and Indian Ocean, finished in Australia.
The advent of inexpensive and easily controlled balloons contributed to the popularization of aeronautics on all continents. The largest European ballooning festival is the European Balloon Festival, held annually in Spain.
The Thailand Balloon Festival is visited by over 200,000 people from all over the world every year. Not inferior to them in popularity and American.
For over 40 years, the most famous center of aeronautics in Europe has been Château d'Eau, an Alpine resort in Switzerland. Balloon competitions and parades are held here, and it was also from here that a team of aeronauts, the first to fly non-stop around the earth, started at one time.
International festivals held in Mexico (Mexico City), Turkey (), Italy (Umbria) are very popular among tourists and fans of aeronautics. In addition, regular fiestas and ballooning festivals are held in Pereslavl-Zalessky (Russia), Minsk (Belarus), and Belaya Tserkov (Ukraine).
From time immemorial, man has been following the flight of birds, dreaming, like them, to rise into the sky. Logic dictated: if relatively weak muscles birds can lift them into the air and support flight, man, with his much stronger muscles, can also do this. No one suspected how complex it is to combine the functions of muscles and tendons, the work of the heart and respiratory system in an ordinary bird. No one could imagine any other device for flight than a moving wing of variable curvature. For many millennia, people have tried to take off like birds, and countless lives have been lost during such attempts.
The name of the first "bird-man" who put on wings and jumped off a cliff with the intention of flying has not been preserved for centuries. Each failed attempt asked the ancient aeronauts more and more questions. Why don't flapping wings work? What's wrong with them? Philosophers, scientists, inventors have proposed various solutions, but no one has been able to provide a person with wings that would allow him to rise into the air and soar like a bird. Leonardo da Vinci filled the pages of his notebooks with sketches of various aircraft, but his ideas had the same common flaw - adherence to the principle of "bird-like" wings (Fig. 1-1).
In 1655, mathematician, physicist and inventor Robert Hook came to the conclusion that human muscular strength was not enough to fly with artificial wings. He concluded that some additional driving force is needed for flight.
The search for a solution went in different directions. In 1783, the brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier first tested a balloon filled with hot air with a person on board. The balloon stayed in the air for 23 minutes. Ten days later, Professor Jacques Charles took to the skies in a balloon filled with gas. Balloons captured the attention of the public so much that for a long time flights were associated exclusively with devices lighter than air. But for all its splendor, the hot air balloon was nothing more than a large piece of cloth flying where the wind was blowing.
Balloons finally allowed man to take to the air, but this was just one of the many problems balloonists had to solve. The balloon did not allow to control the speed and direction of flight. This problem was solved by a kite - a toy that was known in the East for more than two millennia, but appeared in the West only in the 13th century. Also in ancient China kites were used for surveying the area and determining the direction of the wind in navigation (in the version controlled by a person), as well as signaling devices and for entertainment (in the uncontrolled version). Observation of the movement of a kite allowed us to answer many questions regarding the possibility of flying devices heavier than air.
One of those who believed that experiments with kites would reveal the secrets of controlled aeronautics was Sir George Cayley. Born in England ten years before the Montgolfier brothers' flight, Cayley spent his whole life developing a heavier-than-air flying vehicle equipped with kite-shaped wings (Fig. 1-2). Called the "father of aeronautics", Cayley discovered the basic principles on which modern aviation is based, built a working model of an aircraft, and even tested the first human-piloted airplane in history.
For fifty years after Caylee's death, scientists and inventors worked towards a powered flying machine. So, the English inventor William Samuel Henson designed a huge monoplane, which was driven by a steam engine located inside the fuselage. The German engineer Otto Lilienthal proved in practice that human flight on an apparatus heavier than air is possible. And finally, the dream was made a reality by Wilber and Orville Wright in the American city of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903.
The Wright brothers, owners of a bicycle shop, spent four years experimenting with kites, a homemade wind tunnel, and various engines for their biplane. Their significant achievement was a scientific, rather than a purely practical approach to solving the problem. The Flyer biplane built by the brothers was an example of bold design and brilliant engineering (Figure 1-3). On that historic day, the Wright brothers made four flights, spending a total of 98 seconds in the air. The era of aviation has begun.
In addition, there are controlled balloons - airships.
In Peru, during an archaeological expedition, scientists found a drawing on the wall of one of the tombs. It depicted an apparatus in the form of a giant tetrahedral pyramid that hovered in the air, and at the bottom a basket was tied to it, in which there were people. The drawing was carefully measured and the approximate dimensions of the aircraft depicted on it were calculated. After that, the framework of the pyramid and the gondola were built, using materials that were commonly used by the Peruvian Indians for construction. After the apparatus was covered with material, a huge structure was obtained, having almost 10 m in height and up to 30 m at the base. A fire was lit under the pyramid, and after a while the pyramid rose into the sky and pulled the basket behind it!
The project of an aircraft lighter than air is known, which was proposed in 1670 by the priest Francesco de Lana-Terzi. The balloon was supposed to consist of a wooden boat, cables, four-copper hollow balls, from which the air is pumped out, sails and a hand oar. The inventor believed that balls of thin copper with a vacuum inside would lift the entire structure into the air. However, how to make such thin but strong spheres? So the project of Francesco de Lana-Terzi remained unrealized.
Supposedly the first successful balloon flight was made by a Jesuit priest, Bartolomeo Lorenzo de Gusmao. This solemn event took place in 1709 in the presence of royalty and nobility.
The balloon was a paper shell filled with heated air. The heated air came from an earthenware pot mounted on a pallet suspended from the bottom of the ball. Something was burning in the pot. The balloon quickly gained height.
In France, the first balloon filled with warm air, was invented and flown in 1783 by the brothers Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier. By the name of the creators, such balloons are called "hot air balloons".
Modern hot air balloons are also balloons that rise due to heated air. The shell is sewn from heat-resistant panels, the main material is a synthetic fabric with a special coating that provides airtightness.
The balloon is equipped with a propane-butane burner unit, which is designed to heat the air in the balloon shell, and a set of cylinders for fuel storage. In addition, there are barometric instruments and a fan on board to pre-purge cold air into the shell.
In 1988, a hot air balloon with a volume of 24,000 cubic meters was raised in Holland, its 50 passengers were accommodated in a comfortable two-deck basket.
Italian painter Guardi Francesca (1712 - 1793)
The rise of the balloon.
In 1766, the Englishman Henry Cavendish received "combustible air" - hydrogen. Professor Cavallo began to fill paper balls and soap bubbles with hydrogen and observe them floating in the air. And it took quite a bit of time for a balloon filled with hydrogen to rise into the sky.
In 1785, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffreys became the first people to fly across the English Channel in a hot air balloon. They started from the British city of Dover and landed in French Calais. In flight, they had problems - the balloon began to lose lift. First they dropped the ballast, then absolutely everything that was in the basket, then even their clothes ...
In 1804, in honor of the coronation of Napoleon, a solemn launch of balloons takes place. One of them descends on the tomb of Nero in Rome, which causes a huge scandal.
In September 1804, the famous chemist and physicist J.L. Gay-Lussac, on behalf of the Paris Academy of Sciences, made a scientific air journey alone, flying 160 miles. The flight lasted 6 hours. Gay-Lussac reached a height of about 7 miles.
On August 17, 1859, a hot air balloon took off from the US state of Indiana with an unusual cargo for that time - mail. Since then, this day has been considered the birthday of airmail. Thus letters were first sent by air.
In 1861, in the United States, the military for the first time transmitted a telegraph message from the balloon "Enterprise" to Earth.
Gradually, balloons began to be used as military equipment.
In 1849, during the struggle of Italy for independence, the Austrian troops organized with the help of small (volume 82 m 3) free balloons bombarding Venice with incendiary and explosive bombs.
In 1859, at the Battle of Solferino, the French aeronaut F. Nadar reconnoitered the location of the Austrian troops from a tethered balloon, taking photographs of the enemy's positions.
Tethered balloons for reconnaissance and artillery fire correction were also used in the United States during the Civil War of 1861-65.
In the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, through free balloons, a connection was established between Paris surrounded by the Germans and the rest of France. For 4 months, 3 million letters and dispatches were transported on 65 balloons with a total weight of 16,675 kg and 150 passengers. However, the Prussian military began to use anti-aircraft guns to destroy flying balloons.
The Paris Communards used balloons to scatter revolutionary leaflets.
Such balloons were successfully used both in the First World War - for reconnaissance and adjusting artillery fire, and in the Second World War - as barrage balloons. The military use of balloons continued during the Cold War. Reconnaissance balloons freely crossed the border in the thickness of the clouds, it was almost impossible to detect them with locators.
In July 1897, pilot Solomon Auguste André made the first flight in a hot air balloon to the Arctic. In 1997, in honor of the 100th anniversary of this event, aerialists held the First Balloon Festival at the North Pole.
Since then, every year the most daring teams of aeronauts fly to the Pole to fill their balloon with hot air and rise into the sky above the very top of the planet.
In 1900, the 1st International Aeronautical Congress opened in Paris. Among the representatives from Russia - N. E. Zhukovsky.
In October 1905, the International Aeronautical Federation of Aeronauts was created in France.
The end of the 19th century - the beginning of the 20th century was marked by the peak of aeronautics. A variety of balloon flights were made for scientific and recreational purposes. The design of balloons and their equipment were improved, records of altitude and flight range were set. Gradually, other flying techniques developed, and ballooning remained the privilege of athletes. AT different countries flying clubs began to appear, uniting aeronautical athletes.
In 1973, a new design balloon was created. - solar balloon. Of all aircraft, it has the greatest lift. Its balloon is filled with air and has no burner, yet it is able to rise into the air. When the exhaust valve fails, it does not fall, but rises indefinitely until it bursts. Its shell is black, it absorbs the sun's rays well. The lifting force is created by the air heated by the sun's rays. So, in a "solar" balloon - the air is heated not by a burner, but by the sun.
In 1978, three Americans Ben Abruzzo, Maxi Anderson and Larry Newman crossed the Atlantic for the first time in a hot air balloon. When approaching France, the balloon began to lose altitude. The ballast was used up over Iceland. All things began to be thrown overboard - oxygen cylinders, expensive devices, cameras and a movie camera, clothes, logbook, radio.
In 1981, Japanese balloonists Asuka and Americans Anderson, Clark and Newman on the Double Eagle V balloon were subdued Pacific Ocean.
In 1995, pilot Bill Arras made the first balloon flight over Antarctica.
In March 1999, after completing a flight around the globe lasting 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes, the Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon set an absolute world flight distance record - 40,814 km. This record was set by balloonists Bertrand Piccard (Switzerland) and Brian Jones (Great Britain).
In July 2002, the second-ever non-stop flight around the earth in a hot air balloon was made by American pilot Steve Fossett. On the "Bud Light Spirit of Freedom" balloon, he covered 34,242 km in 320 hours and 33 minutes.
Currently, the World Aeronautics Federation holds alternating world championships: in even years - for hot air balloons, in odd years - for gas balloons.
INTERESTING
The Japanese aerospace unmanned aircraft started the tests without a takeoff run and silently. So he got to a height of 22 km, where he separated from the first stage and climbed another 55 km under his own power. Then the engine undocked and the aircraft began a gliding descent. Interestingly, the first stage of lifting the aircraft was a balloon.
For many years, one of the unattainable desires of people was the ability to fly, or at least take to the air. What inventions have not been invented to make this happen. Once, the fact that objects of small weight can rise when exposed to hot air was recorded, and this became the impetus for the development of aeronautics.
It is believed that the world's first hot air balloon was created in 1783. How did it happen? History sends us back to the distant XVI-XVII centuries. It was then that the prototypes of the first balls appeared, which could not show themselves in practice. In parallel, in 1766, the chemist Henry Cavendish was the first to detail the properties of a gas such as hydrogen, which was used in his work with soap bubbles by the Italian physicist Tiberio Cavallo. He filled the bubbles with this gas, and they quickly soared into the air, since hydrogen is 14 times lighter than air. This is how the main two lift forces used in balloon flights today appeared - hydrogen and hot air.
These discoveries did not solve all the problems of flight. To create a balloon, a special material was required that would not be too heavy and would also be able to hold the gas inside. The scientists-inventors performed the solution of this problem different ways. Moreover, several designers competed for the championship of discoveries at once, the main of them are the brothers Jacques-Etienne and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, as well as the famous professor Jacques Alexander Charles from France.
The Montgolfier brothers did not have special knowledge about the properties and characteristics of various gases, but they had a great desire for discovery. At first they experimented with smoke and steam. There were attempts to use hydrogen, but they were affected by the problem of the lack of a special fabric that would not allow this gas to pass through. Also, its cost was quite expensive, and Montgolfier returned to experiments with hot air.
The first hot air balloon was created in 1782. The Montgolfier brothers made it, although it was small in size, only 1 cubic meter in volume. But still, it was already a real ball that rose to a height of more than 30 meters above the ground. Soon the experimenters made a second balloon. It was already much larger than its predecessor: with a volume of 600 cubic meters and a diameter of 11 meters, a brazier was placed under the ball. The fabric for the balloon was silk, pasted over with paper on the inside. The ceremonial launch of the balloon in the presence of a large audience was carried out on June 5, 1783, which was organized by the already famous Montgolfier brothers. With the help of hot air, the balloon was raised to a height of 2 thousand meters! This fact was even written to the Paris Academy. Since then, balloons that use hot air have been named after their inventors - hot air balloons.
Such achievements of Montgolfier spurred Jacques Alexandre Charles to intensify the development of his new invention - a balloon that uses hydrogen to rise. He had assistants - mechanics brothers Robert. They managed to make a silk ball impregnated with rubber, the diameter of which was 3.6 m. They filled it with hydrogen using a special hose with a valve. A special installation was also made for extracting gas, which was obtained as a result of chemical reactions when metal filings interacted with water and sulfuric acid. To prevent acid fumes from spoiling the shell of the ball, the resulting gas was purified with cold water.
The first hydrogen balloon was launched on August 27, 1783. It happened on the Champ de Mars. Before the eyes of two hundred thousand people, the balloon rose so high that it was no longer visible behind the clouds. After 1 km, the hydrogen began to expand, as a result of which the shell of the balloon burst, and the balloon fell to the ground in a village near Paris. But they did not know anything about such an important experiment, and the inventors did not have time to arrive, as the frightened residents tore the unusual ball to shreds. So a great invention worth 10,000 francs fell into disrepair. Since 1783, hydrogen balloons have been called charliers, in honor of Charles.
History of aeronautics
Charles balloon
Nadar managed to take a foggy photograph from the battlefield on a balloon, but Godard could not report anything significant. During the American War, from to 1900, the armies of the northern states very often used tied or attached balls (a é rostats ballons captifs) to keep an eye on the position of the enemy in the vast forests where the battle was fought, and on the outcome of the battle. Balls of this kind are held on a leash in the Giffard way with a very strong rope. Rising, the balloon itself develops a rope. The twisting of the rope, that is, the lowering of the ball, which occurs without releasing gas, is carried out using a steam engine. Due to the large weight and large number of passengers, the lifting force, and therefore the size of the ball, must be very large; for example, the volume of Giffard's "ballon captif" in London in the city and in Paris in 1878-1879 reached 12,000 cubic meters. m. The boat of the balloon, like an omnibus, accommodated 32 people; the rope was 650 m long and weighed about 3000 kg. The arena arranged for this ball had a diameter of 175 meters and was surrounded by a wall covered with canvas.
Giffard tethered balloon
Part of the used balloons perished (they suffered greatly from the fire of long-range weapons and were good only in calm weather), but still the results were very good; and after the end of the war of 1870-1871. military engineers of all countries have already tested balloons for suitability for military purposes. It was proposed to give signals to the troops from balloons. The use of the telephone for aerial reconnaissance was also tested in Russian army, bringing satisfactory results: the tied ball was connected to the headquarters or to the observation detachment by telephone, so that the observer on the ball could continuously report on all movements of the enemy detachments.
cigar-shaped balloon
Antique airship Giffard (1852) - combustible, soft, without air compartments, with variable volume, with a steam engine, propeller, rudders and safety valve. Its advantage is that the shell with gas, freely expanding and contracting, retains its lifting force unchanged at "any height and with any change in temperature and pressure of the atmosphere. (It is necessary that outside and inside the airship the temperature and pressure be the same or approximately are equal, the temperature difference must be constant. The first condition is observed until the balloon is inflated to failure. The temperature difference then increases, then decreases. Under the action of the sun, the difference increases, and when the sun hides behind the clouds, this difference decreases. Hence the first disadvantage of such a soft airship , which consists in the fact that, depending on the weather, the airship either falls or rushes into the sky. |
(Airship, stratoplane and starship as three stages of the greatest achievements of the USSR)
Airship Dupuy de Loma
Dupuy de Lom built his oval-shaped ball, 36 m long and with a capacity of 3564 cubic meters. meters. A propeller was attached to the boat, 6 m wide and 3 meters long, consisting of 4 wings, each about 1 meter wide. The wings were covered with silk taffeta. The screw made 21 revolutions per minute and was driven by 4 people. At this propeller speed, the ball did independently 2.22 meters per second. If the screw was rotated by 8 people, its average speed reached 28 - 32 revolutions, and the ball moved at a speed of 2.28 m per second. In addition, a triangular sail, 5 meters high, was placed between the boat and the ball of the balloon, which played the role of a rudder. This sail, with the help of a mast, fixed at a fixed point of support, could be installed in any position. A double rope net surrounded this entire airship. The trial raising, which took place on February 2, from the Fort-nave, in Vincennes, was very favorable for the inventor. The rudder worked despite the wind. The ball could travel an average of 10 km per hour. The test gave the predicted result that it is possible to move against the wind, the speed of which is less than the speed of the balloon. If the wind was stronger than the independent movement of the ball, the rudder was inactive. Engineer Gaenlein in Mainz built a balloon in the city, in the form of an elongated body of rotation, with pointed ends, with a 4-wing propeller and a rudder, but instead of human power, he used a Lenoar gas machine of 3.6 horsepower, weighing 233 kg .
Airship Henlein
This balloon also had a small compensation ball of the Meunier system inside. In order to soften and reduce the shock when the ball is lowered to the ground, a special device was placed at the bottom of the rook. The speed of the Gaenlein balloon, built at the expense of the capitalists, during the experiments in Brunn, reached a maximum value of about 5 meters per second. Rufus Porter in New York and Marriott in San Francisco also made attempts to arrange a balloon that could be controlled. Captain Templer in England wanted to achieve the ability to travel in any direction, exploring the air currents at different heights (a similar suggestion was made by the Montgolfiers), in order to use them in the desired direction. Owing to the extremely frequent and rapid changes in these currents, it has proved extremely difficult to investigate and utilize this side of the matter. All previous attempts to control the ball with the help of sails were rejected when it was found that the main condition for controlling the ball is its own movement. The rudder is inactive as soon as the wind picks up and carries the balloon with it at the same speed and in the same direction with the flow of air; therefore the sail of the boat, which should have given direction, is inactive under the influence of the current of air. The task of aeronautics is to achieve control of the ball by means of special air wings, a propeller and a movable rudder.
The question of aeronautics, if we admit the possibility of controlling a balloon, depends and is connected entirely with the invention of a special engine suitable for aeronautics, as light and strong as possible. Until then, apart from the hand-rotated screw used by Dupuy de Lome, steam or gas engines were used, which turned out to be too heavy and dangerous in terms of fire. With the invention of accumulators, these reservoirs electrical energy, attempts were immediately made to use electric motors (dynamos), which are incomparably lighter and safer than steam and gas engines.
Zeppelin
1900. The experimental airship "LZ 1" (LZ stood for "Luftschiff Zeppelin") had a length of 128 m, two engines were installed on it Daimler
Airship "LZ 4"
Construction of the first Zeppelin airships began in 1899 at a floating assembly plant on Lake Constance in Manzell Bay, Friedrichshafen. It was intended to simplify the launch procedure, since the workshop could sail with the wind. The experimental airship "LZ 1" (LZ stood for "Luftschiff Zeppelin") had a length of 128 m, two engines were installed on it Daimler 14.2 hp (10.6 kV) and balanced by moving the weight between its two gondolas.
The first flight of the Zeppelin took place on July 2. It lasted only 18 minutes as LZ 1 was forced to land on the lake after the weight balancing mechanism broke down. After the refurbishment of the craft, the rigid airship technology was successfully tested on subsequent flights, breaking the French airship speed record by 6 m/s. France by 3 m / s, but this was still not enough to attract significant investment in the airship industry. This happened a few years later, as a result, the count received the necessary funding.
20th century
In addition to aeronautics, based on the specific lightness of a balloon, they also began to think about its implementation with the help of flying machines, which would be heavier than air, but would be held in it and fly with the help of dynamic effort. Accordingly, aeronautics had two main directions (Until the beginning of the 20s of the 20th century, the term "aeronautics" meant air travel in general.): , and 2) aviation, giving. the ability to rise and stay in the air. The supporters of the first direction belong to. practicing aeronauts of the 19th century Supporters of aviation, or aviators, was. all aeronautical theorists, mainly mathematicians, engineers, physiologists and technologists. Them scientific work in aeronautics are also extremely important for supporters of balloons, since they are based on air resistance and a propeller. Great difficulty in implementing the plans of aviators comp. that in the nineteenth century neither their flying bodies nor engines could. be built as light as the calculation requires. Professor D.