Though they fly at speeds lower than the fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, they have the advantage of range, endurance and hover; the latest ones on the drawing board boast of the advantage of payload too. [...] A mooring mast spire atop the Empire State Building is a symbolic relic of a time when airships were believed to be the future of air mobility.6 The lurking fear of accidental fires due to the use of the highly inflammable hydrogen gas, in the initial years, was a big negative incentive. [...] Pankaj Som Chaturvedi of TRA Aerospace asserts that it was not the use of hydrogen gas but the highly inflammable paint applied on the surface of the airship that aggravated the fire. [...] well with some of today’s leading airlift aircraft of the They are also being world – the C-130, the C-17 and the C-5. [...] Despite want of statistical data in the open domain on the airlifts carried out by the Indian Air Force, it may be safe to assume that a major portion of the effort is devoted to peacetime transportation of men and cargo and airborne training of the troops.
- Pages
- 14
- Published in
- India
