Could a wind-powered airship ever work? Assuming a society has

>>52503002
That's literally what a balloon is.

Fuck lighter than air gas, what you need is a material lighter than aluminium and stronger than titanium which is the kind of shit that always turns up in fantasy. Big spherical tanks, pump out all the air until they're vacuums. Those are your float tanks.

isn't that literally a hot-air balloon

>>52503002
>>52503041
>>52503046
The problem is if you want to go in any direction other then with the wind. A sailing ships keel lets it do that, so you'd need to replicate that somehow. Maybe a big fin directly on the center of mass so it doesn't just turn you into the wind?

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You could use copper and magnets to create a crude dynamo. Use the electricity generated from a windmill to crack the Hydrogen out of water, direct it at regular atmosphere pressure into the gas cells (which would be lined with calf-gut (it's how the original zeppelins worked). Aluminum is out of reach without more technology than wind power, but bamboo or similar very light wood would be sufficient. Propulsion would require sails, and steering would be very tricky. You would only have a limited degree of control over your direction, and you would not have a backup gas reservoir. Ascent and decent would be ballast and rip-cord.

Methods to improve on the basic design could include:
Very large birdlike creatures in harnesses. You would not want them flying free, but rather inside the ship powering propellers. Not the most efficient, but probably the best you can do without resorting to some sort of burning fuel.

Any sort of magic

Use of bird skeletons large enough to serve as structural members.

No. Sails work due to ships using the hydrodynamic shape to move only only forward when force gets applied and ship coasting by with the momentum.

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>>52503045

>>52503193
Zeppelins then.

>>52503002
>Could a wind-powered airship ever work?

Work as in work like a sail boar? No. There is no way.

Wind powered maritime vessels work because they exploit the boundary between two different mediums with different densities; air and war. There is no such boundary within an atmosphere.

Sails act like aircraft wings. The wind first pushes the sails into the proper shape and then, as the wind moves across the two sides of the sail, the same Bernoulli effect occurs. Th sails are literally "sucked" forward pulling the spars, then mast, than ship along with them. That's why sail boats move fast with the wind on the aft beam rather than directly after.

Because part of the ship is "wetted", that is in the water, the water's higher density relative to the atmosphere prevents the ship from moving in the direction of the wind and instead it moves on an angle determined by the hull shape, rudder, etc.

Just use magic aether sails like in Upwind.

>>52503599
They could still work, you'd just need to think differently. A number of sails that can be flattened against the body or splayed outwards could be used to steer 360 degrees. Would be more like flippers than sails.

>>52503002
Yes, but not exactly like a sailboat. Like >>52503599 said, you need a boundery layer to be able to tack.

But you could treat them like airplanes. Use your lift cells to bring yourself up to altitude, then adjust buoyancy until you're *slightly* heavier than air. Then just glide on your wings and maneuver like a sailplane.

If you need to go further, climb using lift cells to get more altitude, and keep going.

>>52503709
Way to not fucking read.

Two mediums

Two mediums

>>52503002
Who cares if they could work? Your setting, your rules. They work if you say they work. Stop being constrained by real world rules. It's fiction, do as you please.

>>52503709
>They could still work

No it couldn't, you stupid fuck. You still need a BOUNDARY LAYER between two mediums of differing densities.

I typed >>52503599 to honestly answer the OP's question and hopefully explain to people why the idea is unworkable. If you're too fucking retarded to understand that explanation, keep your mouth shut and GTFO before you infect the others with your idiocy.

>>52503045
Yep, then you could pump in air to replicate how submarines works and set your altitude using buoyancy.

>>52503002
I was working on something like this.
Its easy. Sub out lighter then air gases for lighter then air solids. I had mine formed from combining spacial mineral shards and a liquid creating a foam like solid that lifted the airships. that meant that you could fill up the airships hull with the stuff for a sleeker look and have sails and shit. Also, you had the added cool factor of looking like you were shoveling coal.

>>52503002
Put a wind powered electric generator on the front, hang at anchor and charge from the wind, use batteries for propulsion.