Abstract
Airships are an environmentally-friendly and safe vehicle. Non-rigid airships, especially, are a soft and gentle machine to a man. A man-powered small airship with highly enhanced maneuverability developed as an indoor pleasure vehicle will satisfy man's desire to fly freely in the air. This paper introduces a design example on the basis of this idea. Helium of 1 m^3 has buoyancy of about l kg, so that a 10 m long axi-symmetric ellipsoidal body with the maximum diameter of 6 m has buoyancy of about 200 kg. The a irship has a chimney-like midship hole as a cockpit for a pilot. The hull is made of transparent film to secure outside views. The airship is powered by bicycle-like mechanisms that drive a pair of thrusters located at the fore hull through a chain train by pedaling. By making the vehicle's gravity center and its buoyancy center as close as possible, the airship can perform aerobatic flights without a fear of falling due to stall.
