Back to results
US 12,617,519 B2Granted
Airship with self-ballasting airframe
OwnerDavid James Prum, Gregory Joseph Opasinventors
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
OwnerDavid James Prum, Gregory Joseph Opasinventors
Estimating the term…
The invention features an apparatus for airborne transport of cargo. Such an apparatus includes a controller and an airship having a hull, an airframe that supports the hull, and at least one ballast chamber. The controller is configured to actively ballast the airship by causing the ballast chamber to contain a variable mass of air. The controller thus controls the mass or weight of air in each ballast chamber. In some embodiments, the ballast chamber's mass is the sum of a fixed mass and a variable mass. The variable mass is that of air that has been pressurized by some variable amount to a pressure above atmospheric pressure. The controller causes the variable mass to change by changing the number of air molecules in the ballast chamber, either by causing that number to increase or decrease.
An apparatus for airborne transport of cargo, said apparatus comprising
A method comprising controlling lift of an airship having an airframe having a portion that supports at least a portion of a hull thereof, wherein said ballast chamber is one of a plurality of ballast chambers, each of said ballast chambers having a variable mass, wherein said controller is configured to vary the mass of each of said ballast chambers, and wherein said ballast chambers comprise longitudinal ballast chambers that extend along an axis of said airship and toroidal ballast chambers having centers that intersect said axis, wherein each of said ballast chambers comprises a bladder that is impermeable to air and a jacket that encloses said bladder to provide radial support to said bladder, wherein controlling said lift comprises increasing a mass of a ballast chamber aboard said airship.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.