Why didn't the airship get great development?

Airships are bulky, slow, inflexible and vulnerable to attack. Most of them use hydrogen as buoyancy gas, which is flammable, explosive and unsafe. At the same time, military airships are gradually replaced by aircraft because of the continuous improvement of aircraft performance.

The high cost is also a point that cannot be ignored. For example, a 40-meter-long small blimp costs about $2 million.

Too low speed is a headache, generally less than 100 km/h. Even the fastest led zeppelin or modern airship claims to be less than140km per hour.

Decline period of airship: 1929. The Hindenburg, a large airship made in Germany, is 245 meters long, with a diameter exceeding 4 1 m and a total weight of 206 tons. It flew back and forth between the United States and Germany 10 times and transported more than 1000 passengers.

Britain and France successively built their own large airships R- 100 and Akron with reference to led zeppelin. However, in 1937, when the Hindenburg landed, 35 people were killed by a hydrogen explosion caused by electrostatic sparks. Many large airships in Britain and America have also had accidents, and the development of airships has since stagnated.

Extended data:

However, in recent years, with the progress of aviation technology, airships have begun to attract people's attention. Although compared with airplanes, airships are big and stupid, inconvenient to operate, slow in speed and vulnerable to the wind.

However, the airship also has its outstanding advantages, such as vertical take-off and landing, long air time, long hovering time or slow moving speed, no oil consumption, low noise, little pollution and good economy. Moreover, with the wide use of helium filling the airship, the safety is greatly improved.

For example: Shanghai Datian CA-80 series soft manned airship and so on. Modern airships have been widely used in modern aerial survey, photography, advertising, lifesaving and air movement.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-airship