R80 (airship)

The R80 was a British rigid airship, first flown on 19 July 1920 and the first fully streamlined airship to be built in Britain. Originally a military project for the British Admiralty, she was completed for commercial passenger-carrying purposes. However, R80 proved too small for this role, and after being briefly used to train the United States Navy personnel who were to crew the ill-fated ZR-2 airship she was retired, eventually being scrapped in 1925.

Development

Construction was began by Vickers in their airship shed at Walney Island, Barrow-in-Furness, in November 1917 to a design by Barnes Wallis and H. B. Pratt. Vickers had originally contracted to build R37, but due to a lack of vacant sheds and a war-time steel shortage preventing construction of a new larger one, the smaller shed at Walney was used instead. This had been used to build R27 and R29, and the size of the R80 was limited by the small size of the shed.

Work progressed slowly due to labour shortages, and with the end of the First World War, the future of military airships was reviewed. The Air Ministry stopped the work in the summer of 1919 as it was considered that the ship was no longer of military or commercial value. Vickers, however, continued to fit out the ship with commercial objectives in mind but the scheme unfortunately fell through. Co-designer H. B. Pratt completed a report envisaging an intercity European flight route, similar to that being run by the Zeppelin company:

R80

R80 may refer to:

Aircraft

Ferris wheels

R80 road

The R80 is a provincial route in South Africa that connects Pretoria with Soshanguve. It is a dual carriageway freeway, with 2 or 3 lanes in each direction at different points.

It passes through the Theo Martins Gateway (Afrikaans:Theo Martins Poort), a mountain pass over the Magaliesberg mountains, and the northbound carriageway has an infamous rising hairpin bend, approaching the pass, as the freeway abruptly switches an from east-west to a south-north direction.

An interchange has been constructed that links the road with the N4 Northern Bypass, which is part of the Platinum Bakwena Toll Road.

External links

Airship

An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from large gas bags filled with a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.

In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability. Helium gas has almost the same lifting capacity and is not flammable, unlike hydrogen, but is rare and relatively expensive. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while helium was only used for airships by the United States. Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air.

The envelope of an airship may form a single gas bag, or may contain a number of internal gas-filled cells. An airship also has engines and crew and/or payload accommodation, typically housed in one or more "gondolas" suspended below the envelope.

The main types of airship are non-rigid, semi-rigid, and rigid. Non-rigid airships, often called "blimps", rely on internal pressure to maintain the shape of the airship. Semi-rigid airships maintain the envelope shape by internal pressure, but have some form of supporting structure, such as a fixed keel, attached to it. Rigid airships have an outer structural framework which maintains the shape and carries all structural loads, while the lifting gas is contained in one or more internal gas bags or cells. Rigid airships were first flown by Count Zeppelin and the vast majority of rigid airships built were manufactured by the firm he founded. As a result, all rigid airships are sometimes called zeppelins.

Airship (disambiguation)

An airship or dirigible is an aerostat (lighter than air aircraft) that can be steered and propelled through the air using propellers, rudders, or other thrust mechanisms.

See also

Eberron

Eberron is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game, set in a period after a vast destructive war on the continent of Khorvaire. Eberron is designed to accommodate traditional D&D elements and races within a differently toned setting; Eberron combines a fantasy tone with pulp and dark adventure elements, and some non-traditional fantasy technologies such as trains, skyships, and mechanical beings which are all powered by magic.

Eberron was created by author and game designer Keith Baker as the winning entry for Wizards of the Coast's Fantasy Setting Search, a competition run in 2002 to establish a new setting for the D&D game. Eberron was chosen from more than 11,000 entries, and was officially released with the publication of the Eberron Campaign Setting hardback book in June 2004. The campaign setting book was written by Baker, Bill Slavicsek, and James Wyatt.

In June 2005, the Eberron Campaign Setting book won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game Supplement of 2004.