Answered
How does an airship work?
Well, it depends on the airship. The mechanics behind various airship designs are usually quite different from one another, but they all operate under the same basic principle…s. For a flying machine to be defined as an airship, it must attain lift through some means of lighter-than-air buoyancy, and it must be steerable. Most airships use lighter-than-air gasses such as hydrogen or helium to generate the lift they require to fly. To understand why these lighter gasses allow the airship to fly, picture a boat on the ocean. When the boat has air in it, which is lighter than water, it will float; but if the hull is breached, water will flood in and the boat will sink. The same is true of an airship; that is, the like the ships of the sea, airships float on air because they weigh less than air. Airships, unlike some of their other lighter-than-air counterparts (Such as hot air balloons), don't rely on natural air currents to move, and they can be steered. Airships generally have one or more engines which push it forward (Or in some designs, pull it forward), usually via a propeller. They also tend to have rudders which allow them to steer by directing the flow of air, similar to those used on the wings and tail of an airplane. (MORE)