Shows how a small (but man-carrying) gas blimp is built.

Explains the design and construction of ultra-light lifting-gas blimps.

A unique and indispensable guide to modern airship design and operation, for researchers and professionals working in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

In November of 1896 residents of California watched a mysterious bright light-often described as being suspended beneath a "cigar shaped" craft of considerable size-pass slowly over their cities on several occasions, sparking a media frenzy. A few months later, what appeared to be the same craft was seen in the skies over the sparsely populated prairie states of the Midwest making its way methodically eastward and appearing to literally hundreds-if not thousands-of witnesses. Then, as suddenly as the reports began, they abruptly ended, leaving a mystery that has never been satisfactorily explained by either science or historians to this day. Was it evidence of a nascent technology, appearing a full decade before Von Zeppelin began building the first of his behemoths in Germany, or was it all merely a media hoax generated by the yellow journalism of the time in an effort to increase sales? Or, most provocative of all, was it a visitor from outer space, making an early appearance? Each theory is examined in turn before J. Allan Danelek finally presents his provocative theory that the mysterious vessel was a terrestrial craft years ahead of its time that may have been destroyed just as it was on the verge of being publicly acknowledged. Admittedly controversial, the hypothesis leaves it for the reader to decide for themselves whether the history of aviation is complete as we know it or if it's merely waiting for the final chapter to be written.

Samuel Bolls’ plan was simple—go to California and parlay his camera and editing skills and the connection with his famous uncle into an entertainment industry career—but fate had other ideas. Rachael Nue, aspiring actress, with enough genetic enhancements to make her perfect saw Samuel as her way to stardom. And the giant living blimps flying overhead had their own fiery date with destiny. A hundred years after the supernova flare had set everything back, the world had been on two conflicting paths to recovery—industrial vs. genetic engineering. Samuel and Rachael’s opportunity to document history was soon going to put them in the cross hairs of a war that would steer the world in one direction, or the other. Henry Melton’s Project Saga stretches from the current day into a far future where we remake the solar system and discover humanity’s place in the universe. It’s a history not just of new technologies, but of personal choices.

This is the fascinating story of the dream of a completely new aircraft, a hybrid of the airplane and rigid airship - huge, wingless, moving slowly through the lower sky. Its early and secrect experimenta; development took twelve years' time and one and a half million dollars. McPhee chronicles the perhaps unfathomable perseverance of the aircraft's successive progenitors and makes it seem as momentous as the first trip to the moon.