US 5,516,065 AGranted

Landing and anchoring mechanism for an airship

AssigneeLuftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH

InventorKlaus Hagenlocher

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Abstract

A landing and anchoring mechanism for an airship takes advantage of the ship's supporting frame that has a row of cross-ribs interconnected by lengthwise beams arranged between neighboring ribs. In order to make it possible to land on any landing field even without conventional and costly apparatus, and to anchor the airship against the effects of wind and weather, a bi-pod landing gear is combined with an anchoring device. The landing gear is articulately connected to the supporting frame on the one hand and to the airship gondola by respective landing gear lateral rocker arms on the other hand. The bi-pod landing gear is arranged in a crosswise plane in front of the aerodynamic center of wind pressure of the airship. At least a portion of the anchoring device is provided on the floor of the airship gondola in the area of the attachment of the landing gear lateral rocker arms to the gondola floor. The anchoring device is provided for connecting the airship with a mooring on the ground, whereby another portion of the anchoring device may be located on the ground.

Claims23

Dependent claims

An airship construction comprising a supporting frame including sets of cross-ribs (3) and longitudinal beams (4) interconnecting said sets of cross-ribs at respective nodes, each of said sets of cross-ribs defining a cross-plane perpendicularly to a longitudinal axis of said airship, a gondola (2) secured to said supporting frame, a bi-pod landing gear (5) including at least two landing wheels (21) and an anchoring device (26, 27), a wheel mounting for each of said landing wheels (21), each wheel mounting comprising a triangular truss frame, both truss frames being positioned in one cross-plane of said cross-planes, said one cross-plane being positioned forward of an aerodynamic center of wind pressure (5A) of said airship construction (1), each truss frame comprising a portion of said airship construction forming a first triangle side and two connecting elements (13, 15;

or 48) forming second and third triangle sides interconnected to form an outer triangle corner opposite said one triangle side, each of said at least two wheels being connected to a respective outer triangle corner, said two connector elements (13, 15;
48) being pivoted to ends of said first triangle side so that a triangle plane of each triangular truss frame coincides with said one cross-plane, and an anchor mounting securing said anchoring device (26, 27) to a floor of said gondola (2) in an area of said one cross-plane.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.