AEROSTAT

Aerostat

An aerostat is a lighter than air craft that gains its lift through the use of a buoyant gas which is lighter than air. Aerostats include unpowered balloons and powered airships. A balloon may be free-flying or tethered. An aerostat's main component is one or more gasbags, a lightweight skin containing a lifting gas to provide buoyancy, to which other components such as a gondola containing equipment or people are attached. Especially with airships, the gasbags are often protected by an outer envelope. One of the most recent deployments of an aerostat was seen at the opening ceremony of the nineteenth 2010 Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi, India. The aerostat ...

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aerostat

Noun

  1. An aircraft, such as a dirigible or balloon, that derives its lift from buoyancy rather than from wings or rotors.
  2. A moored balloon flown in a semi-permanent manner, as a border patrol monitoring balloon affixed at 18,000 feet (~6km).


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: aerostat
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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