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Experimental Balloon Building Some of the materials listed here are intended for aircraft use, some come from other fields but work just fine, some are unproven and may be dangerous. Please apply caution and common sense when referring to these pages.

balloon: Information From Answers.com Highly informative article

How to Fly a Hot Air Balloon Learn the basics of hot air ballooning, the parts of the hot air balloon, and tips for flight assembly, in this free video series.

History of Hot Air Ballooning In 1960 the evolution of the hot air balloon flared in one bright burst after 177 years of virtually static advancement. Since brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier launched the first unmanned hot air balloon in France in 1783, comparatively little progress had been made in ballooning. But that all changed in October of 1960 when some imaginative people launched the first manned hot air balloon flight with a continuous burner source and petroleum fuel -- the birth of the modern day balloon system. See also Aeronautics - Balloons (1700-1900)

The Flying Kettle Project has as its fundamental premise, the use of steam as the lifting gas for lighter-than-air craft. There are two types of lighter-than-air craft: balloons (which are unpowered) and airships (which are power-driven). Thus this Project has its two aspects: the Steam Balloon and the Steam Airship. These ideas at first sight appear whimsical if not comical - which can only be beneficial to this Project from the publicity point of view. However they are quite serious proposals, we believe solidly founded in technological feasibility.

Lighter-Than-Air Balloons and airships are lighter-than-air (LTA), and fly because they are buoyant, which is to say that the total weight of the aircraft is less than the weight of the air it displaces. The Greek philosopher Archimedes (287 BC – 212 B.C.) first established the basic principle of buoyancy. While the principles of aerodynamics do have some application to balloons and airships, LTA craft operate principally as a result of aerostatic principles relating to the pressure, temperature and volume of gases. A balloon is an unpowered aerostat, or LTA craft. An airship is a powered LTA craft able to maneuver against the wind...

Balloon Lift If the weight of the volume of air displaced by the balloon is less than the weight of the balloon and the gas inside, the balloon will drop to the ground. If the weight of the air displaced by the balloon is greater than the weight of the balloon and the gas inside, the balloon will float upwards. This force, or buoyancy, either positive or negative, is exactly the difference in the weight of the balloon and its contents, versus the weight of the volume of air displaced...

Howstuffworks "How Hot Air Balloons Work" If you actually need to get somewhere, a hot air balloon is a fairly impractical vehicle. You can't really steer it, and it only travels as fast as the wind blows. But if you simply want to enjoy the experience of flying, there's nothing quite like it.

Blimps:  An airship is a large lighter-than-air gas balloon that can be navigated by using engine-driven propellers. There are three types of airships: rigid (has an internal metal frame to maintain the envelope's shape); semi-rigid (rigid keels run the length of the envelope to maintain its shape); and non-rigid (internal pressure of the lifting gas, usually helium, maintains the envelope's shape). This essay focuses on non-rigid airships (commonly called blimps) because they are the primary type of airship in general use today.

Lighter-Than-Air Craft More Than a Bag of Hot Air, Alaska Science ... A fairly common sight around the urban areas of Alaska is that of brightly colored hot air balloons drifting serenely along above the scenery. It all looks so easy that one is tempted to think that anybody could be a balloonist. It's not quite that simple...

Lighter-Than-Air Transportation Neat lesson outline also has tons of links at the bottom of the page.

Airship: A zeppelin is really just one brand of airship named after its inventor, Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin. Zeppelins were built from 1900 to 1939 as rigid airships. They were - and still are today - very popular because of their pioneering successes. But there were and are still numerous airship types and brands.

Blimp and Airship Info - The Lighter Than Air Society

Blimp and Airship Glossary

Hot Air Ballooning Videos and DVDs - HotAir.TV

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