In a previous post we mentioned that early airships had motors powered by electricity stored in accumulators. We have since learned they shifted to diesel motors later. This was because their accumulators did not have capacity for long distance flight. We became curious. What were those accumulators exactly? We discovered they were early capacitors.
The Different Types of Accumulators We Discovered
An accumulator is a device that stores energy, and delivers it when required. This energy can be thermal, mechanical, or electrical.
Common everyday examples are pumped storage schemes, flywheels, and energy storage batteries. In fact, we were flattered to learn that ‘accumulators’ refer to lead-acid batteries in electricity textbooks,.
Would You Like to Know About the First Electric Airship?
We are glad you do, because it is an interesting story. The inventor was Gaston Tissandier, a chemist, meteorologist, and aviator of note. His first claim to fame was escaping Paris in a hot air balloon in 1870. That was when the Prussian army was preparing to attack.
Gaston and his pal Claude-Jules went up in a balloon that drifted out over the sea when he was twenty-five years old. A fortunate breeze sprang up, and brought them safely back to land.
Seven years later, the two companions drifted up to an unbelievable 28,000 feet in an improved balloon. Alas, the experience left Gaston deaf, and his two friends deceased from breathing thin air.
We think they were as brave as were early space explorers. Albeit a little late, Gaston Tissandier realized he could not allow a hot air balloon to drift about without controlling it.
Therefore he fitted a Siemens electric motor to an airship in 1883. Logically, accumulators must have supplied the power. The event went almost unnoticed as the world’s first electric flight.
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Electric Airplanes Disruptive Influence
Preview image: Airship Hangers at Cardington
