Aerostat (disambiguation)
Appearance
Look up aerostat in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
An aerostat is an aircraft that remains aloft through the use of lighter-than-air gases. A narrower and more technical meaning refers only to tethered balloons.
Aerostat may also refer to:
Airships
[edit]Airships are powered aerostats:
- Airship, or dirigible, any aerostat that can be manoeuvred through the air using propellers, rudders, etc.
- Blimp, an airship with no structural framework, using only gas pressure to maintain its shape
- Rigid airship, uses only a structural framework to maintain its shape
- Semi-rigid airship, uses a partial structural framework in combination with gas pressure to maintain its shape
Balloons
[edit]Balloons are unpowered aerostats:
Tethered
[edit]The term aerostat is sometimes used to refer specifically to tethered balloons:
Untethered
[edit]Hybrids
[edit]Hybrids combine aerostatic buoyancy and aerodynamic lift.