how do you control a zeepelin?

Question

from films ect i see they just have a streering wheel, just like what you would have on a ship. and there are like dial presures ect

Answer 1

Hi M,

first, I suppose, one should learn how to say the word and how to spell it...it was a 'Zeppelin' otherwise known generally as an airship.

Originally airships were filled with hydrogen and carried the immense danger that a huge amount of highly inflammable gas always entails. The disastrous results of that error has been seen a number of times caught on newreels and film of the time.

Nowaday, the few airships that exist (the Goodyear, for example) are filled with Helium and not hydrogen, so there is far less danger.

However, to your question...they were steered in a few ways. They either had a rudder, which, just like the rudder on a ship (using water pressure) turns the airship by the act of air passing over its suface.

Other methods included having 'turnable' engines which steered rather like the action of tugs on a large ship, or like jets on a spacecraft.

The reason they fell out of favour, apart from the horrendous publicity of the fires on early ships, was that people clamoured for more speed (and still do)

They are also more affected by high winds and can become uncontrollable if a high wind strikes. As a transatlantic voyage would take several days they were liable to run into unexpected weather conditions.

Also, as the voyage was slower than today's jet liners, the cost of keeping people fed and entertained soon escalated so few people could afford to travel that way.

On the real airships, which basically are very simple balloons with a motor or motors to drive them through the air, there is little need for dials and gauges and most of those you may have seen belong to the fictional craft of writers such as Jules Verne and the Hollywood films that were made during the 1950's and '60's, the dials and gauges there were only for 'film authenticity' and had no real use.

Incidentally, your use of the word/s 'ect' is incorrect. The proper shortened term is 'etc.' (the full version was/is two words, 'et cetera'- latin, which means 'and so on...'. Hence the shortened version which is more normally used 'etc.')

Cheers, Good sailing,

BobSpain

Answer 2

Actually three wheels rudder elevator and water control to pitch the nose up or down 500 lbs. of water could be transfered fore and aft. Lighter than air ships were slow and unable to fly in heavy winds. Control was like a ship on water Captian first officer and navigator and several mechanics greasing the 8 mabak engines. Valve train on those engines had to be lubricated every four hours. Throttle controls ran foward to the control cabin. Paying customers and crew were kept apart. Captian could meet customers.

Answer 3

Usually Airships have 4 fins in the tail, vertical fins are the rudder, horizontal fins are the elevator, some modern airships have also 3 fins, in this case il not so simple to identify the role of every fin, they act togheter....
to control altitude, they also inflate or deflate the gas sections or release weight, or to control attitude they could also move masses from the nose to the tail and viceversa.
So airships controls are quite similar to submarine controls because they use at the same time fluidodynamic(rudder, elevator) controls and aero/hydrostatic (tanks full of gas, water, air...) controls

Answer 4

they had a rudder and propellers

Answer 5

it has a rudder.