title: "San Salvador" content: Banco Promérica maintaining offices there. Centro Financiero Gigante is a complex of office buildings consisting of five towers, the highest of which is tall and has 19 floors. Centro Financiero Gigante is a phased project which began with the construction of the two towers. After several years the number of buildings has increased, and it has become one of the most significant business complexes in San Salvador. The tallest tower is occupied by the Telefónica phone company, the next tallest tower is used by RED Business Communication Systems. The complex also includes the Banco Azteca center, Stream Global Services representing


title: Tehran content: in ruins, and massacred many of its inhabitants. Following the invasion, many of the city's inhabitants escaped to Tehran. In July 1404, Castilian ambassador Ruy González de Clavijo visited Tehran while on a journey to Samarkand, the capital of Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, who ruled Iran at the time. In his diary, Tehran was described as an unwalled region. Italian traveler Pietro della Valle passed through Tehran overnight in 1618, and in his memoirs, he mentioned the city as "Taheran". English traveler Thomas Herbert entered Tehran in 1627, and mentioned it as "Tyroan". Herbert stated that the city had about 3,000


title: Thimphu content: Kagyupa lineage. Cheri Monastery, also called Chagri Dorjeden Monastery, was established in 1620 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal; the first monastery established by him at a young age of 27. Zhabdrung spent three years in strict retreat at Chagri and resided there for many periods throughout the rest of his life. It was at Chagri in 1623 that he established the first Drukpa Kagyu monastic order in Bhutan. The monastery, which is now a major teaching and retreat centre of the Southern Drukpa Kagyu order, is located at the northern end of Thimphu Valley, about from the capital. It sits on


title: Thimphu content: capacity to hold 10,000 spectators. However, it was completely refurbished in 2007 to accommodate 25,000 spectators for the Centenary of Wangchuk Dynasty rule in Bhutan and also the Coronation Celebrations of the fifth king of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, held on November 6, 2008. It now covers an area of about . This was also the location where national celebrations were held from the time of the third King of Bhutan. Historicity of the Changlimithang ground is traced to the 1885 battle that established the political supremacy of Gongsar Ugyen Wangchuck, Bhutan's first king. Adjacent to the main stadium


title: Tunis content: the Third Punic War. Both Tunis and Carthage were destroyed; Tunis, however, was rebuilt first under the rule of Augustus and became an important town under Roman control and the center of a booming agricultural industry. The city is mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana as "Thuni". In the system of Roman roads for the Roman province of Africa, Tunis had the title of ("way station, resting place"). Tunis, increasingly Romanized, was also eventually Christianized and became the seat of a bishop. However, Tunis remained modestly sized compared to Carthage during this time. The modern city of Tunis was settled by


title: "Raleigh, North Carolina" content: North Carolina. The airport offers service to more than 35 domestic and international destinations and serves approximately 10 million passengers a year. The airport also offers facilities for cargo and general aviation. The airport authority tripled the size of its Terminal 2 (formerly Terminal C) in January 2011. In addition to RDU, several smaller publicly owned general-aviation airports also operate in the metropolitan region: Several licensed private general-aviation airports operate in Raleigh's immediate suburban areas: Raleigh's train station is one of Amtrak's busiest stops in the Southern U.S. The station is served by four passenger trains daily: the "Silver Star",


title: Kudzu content: Kudzu Kudzu (; also called Japanese arrowroot) is a group of plants in the genus "Pueraria", in the pea family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. They are climbing, coiling, and trailing perennial vines native to much of eastern Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands. The name is derived from the Japanese name for the plant East Asian arrowroot ("Pueraria montana" var. "lobata"), or ("kuzu"). Where these plants are naturalized, they can be invasive and are considered noxious weeds. The plant climbs over trees or shrubs and grows so rapidly that it kills them by heavy shading. The plant is edible, but


title: Kudzu content: often sprayed with herbicides. The name kudzu describes one or more species in the genus "Pueraria" that are closely related, and some of them are considered to be varieties rather than full species. The morphological differences between them are subtle; they can breed with each other, and introduced kudzu populations in the United States apparently have ancestry from more than one of the species. They are: Kudzu spreads by vegetative reproduction via stolons (runners) that root at the nodes to form new plants and by rhizomes. Kudzu also spreads by seeds, which are contained in pods and mature in the


title: Kudzu content: autumn, although this is rare. One or two viable seeds are produced per cluster of pods. The hard-coated seeds can remain viable for several years, and can successfully germinate only when soil is persistently soggy for 5-7 days, with temperatures above 20°C (68°F). Once germinated, saplings must be kept in a well-drained medium that retains high moisture. During this stage of growth, kudzu must receive as much sunlight as possible. Kudzu saplings are sensitive to mechanical disturbance, and are damaged by chemical fertilizers. They do not tolerate long periods of shade or high water tables. Kudzu has been used as


title: Kudzu content: a form of erosion control and to enhance the soil. As a legume, it increases the nitrogen in the soil by a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Its deep taproots also transfer valuable minerals from the subsoil to the topsoil, thereby improving the topsoil. In the deforested section of the central Amazon Basin in Brazil, it has been used for improving the soil pore-space in clay latosols, thus freeing even more water for plants than in the soil prior to deforestation. Kudzu can be used by grazing animals, as it is high in quality as a forage and palatable to


title: Kudzu content: livestock. It can be grazed until frost and even slightly after. Kudzu had been used in the southern United States specifically to feed goats on land that had limited resources. Kudzu hay typically has a 15–18% crude protein content and over 60% total digestible nutrient value. The quality of the leaves decreases, however, as vine content increases relative to the leaf content. Kudzu also has low forage yields despite its rate of growth, yielding around two to four tons of dry matter per acre annually. It is also difficult to bale due to its vining growth and its slowness in


title: Kudzu content: shedding water. This makes it necessary to place kudzu hay under sheltered protection after being baled. Kudzu is readily consumed by all types of grazing animals, yet frequent grazing over three to four years can ruin stands. Thus, kudzu only serves well as a grazing crop on a temporary basis. Kudzu fiber has long been used for fiber art and basketry. The long runners which propagate the kudzu fields and the larger vines which cover trees make excellent weaving material. Some basketmakers use the material green. Others use it after splitting it in half, allowing it to dry and then


title: Kudzu content: rehydrating it using hot water. Both traditional and contemporary basketry artists use kudzu. Kudzu contains isoflavones, including puerarin (about 60% of the total isoflavones), daidzein, daidzin (structurally related to genistein), mirificin, and salvianolic acid, among numerous others identified. In traditional Chinese medicine, where it is known as "gé gēn" (gegen), kudzu is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs thought to have therapeutic effects. In traditional medicine, kudzu has been used as a remedy for alcoholism, hangover, measles, menopausal symptoms, diabetes mellitus, fever, common cold, and neck or eye pain. However, a 2007 study suggested that the use of the


title: Kudzu content: kudzu root is inappropriate as a hangover remedy due to increased acetaldehyde accumulation through mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase inhibition. Kudzu has no benefit for treating cancer and is specifically contraindicated in people with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. Adverse effects may occur if kudzu is taken by people with hormonal-sensitive cancer, or those taking tamoxifen, antidiabetic medications, or methotrexate. The roots contain starch, which has traditionally been used as a food ingredient in East Asia. In Vietnam, the starch called "bột sắn dây" is flavoured with pomelo oil and then used as a drink in the summer. In Japan, the plant is


title: Kudzu content: known as "kuzu" and the starch named "kuzuko". "Kuzuko" is used in dishes including "kuzumochi, mizu manjū", and "kuzuyu". It also serves as a thickener for sauces, and can substitute for cornstarch. The flowers are used to make a jelly that tastes similar to grape jelly. Roots, flowers, and leaves of kudzu show antioxidant activity that suggests food uses. Nearby bee colonies may forage on kudzu nectar during droughts as a last resort, producing a low-viscosity red or purple honey that tastes of grape jelly or bubblegum. Kudzu has also been used for centuries in East Asia to make herbal


title: Kudzu content: teas and tinctures. Kudzu powder is used in Japan to make an herbal tea called "kuzuyu". Kakkonto (葛根湯, Mandarin Chinese: "gěgēntāng", Japanese: "kakkontō") is a herbal drink with its origin in traditional Chinese medicine. It is made from a mixture of ginger, cinnamon, Chinese peony, licorice, jujube, ephedra, and powder ground from the root of the kudzu plant. As the name, which translates literally to "kudzu infusion", implies, kudzu, or "Pueraria lobata", serves as the main ingredient. Together these plants are used to create a drink containing puerarin, daidzein, paenoflorin, cinnamic acid, glycyrrhizin, ephedrine and gingerol. Kudzu fiber, known as


title: Kudzu content: ko-hemp, is used traditionally to make clothing and paper, and has also been investigated for industrial-scale use. The stems are traditionally used for basketry. It may become a valuable asset for the production of cellulosic ethanol. In the Southern United States, kudzu is used to make soaps, lotions, and compost. Kudzu's environmental and ecological damage results from its outcompeting other species for a resource. Kudzu competes with native flora for light, and acts to block their access to this vital resource by growing over them and shading them with its leaves. Native plants may then die as a result. Changes


title: Kudzu content: in leaf litter associated with kudzu infestation results in changes to decomposition processes and a 28% reduction in stocks of soil carbon, with potential implications for processes involved in climate change. Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States at the Japanese pavilion in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In the 1930s and 1940s, the vine was rebranded as a way for farmers to stop soil erosion. Workers were paid $8 per acre to sow topsoil with the invasive vine. The cultivation covered over one million acres of kudzu. It is now common along roadsides and other disturbed


title: Kudzu content: areas throughout most of the southeastern United States as far north as rural areas of Pulaski County, Illinois. Estimates of its rate of spreading differ wildly; it has been described as spreading at the rate of annually, although in 2015 the United States Forest Service estimated the rate to be only 2,500 acres per year. Kudzu was discovered July 2009 in a patch wide and across, on a south-facing slope on the shore of Lake Erie near Leamington, Ontario, about southeast of Windsor. Leamington is located in the second warmest growing region of Canada after south coastal British Columbia. Ecologist


title: Kudzu content: Gerald Waldron made the Leamington find while walking along the beach. He recognized the kudzu instantly, having read about its destructive expansion in the southeastern United States. During World War II, kudzu was introduced to Vanuatu and Fiji by United States Armed Forces to serve as camouflage for equipment and has become a major weed. Kudzu is also becoming a problem in northeastern Australia, and has been seen in Switzerland and in isolated spots in Northern Italy (Lake Maggiore). In New Zealand, kudzu was declared an "unwanted organism" and was added to the Biosecurity New Zealand register in 2002. For


title: Kudzu content: successful long-term control of kudzu, destroying the underground system, which can be extremely large and deep, is not necessary. Only killing or removing the kudzu root crown and all rooting runners is needed. The root crown is a fibrous knob of tissue that sits on top of the roots. Crowns form from multiple vine nodes that root to the ground, and range from pea- to basketball-sized. The older the crowns, the deeper they tend to be found in the ground. Nodes and crowns are the source of all kudzu vines, and roots cannot produce vines. If any portion of a


title: Kudzu content: root crown remains after attempted removal, the kudzu plant may grow back. Mechanical methods of control involve cutting off crowns from roots, usually just below ground level. This immediately kills the plant. Cutting off the above-ground vines is not sufficient for an immediate kill. Destroying all removed crown material is necessary. Buried crowns can regenerate into healthy kudzu. Transporting crowns in soil removed from a kudzu infestation is one common way that kudzu unexpectedly spreads and shows up in new locations. Close mowing every week, regular heavy grazing for many successive years, or repeated cultivation may be effective, as this


title: Kudzu content: serves to deplete root reserves. If done in the spring, cutting off vines must be repeated. Regrowth appears to exhaust the plant's stored carbohydrate reserves. Cut kudzu can be fed to livestock, burned, or composted. The city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, has undertaken a trial program using goats and llamas to graze on the plant. Similar efforts to reduce widespread nuisance kudzu growth have also been undertaken in the cities of Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Tallahassee, Florida. Prescribed burning is also used on old extensive infestations to remove vegetative cover and promote seed germination for removal or treatment. While fire is


title: Kudzu content: not an effective way to kill kudzu, equipment, such as a skid loader, can later remove crowns and thereby kill kudzu with minimal disturbance of soil. A systemic herbicide, for example, glyphosate, triclopyr, or picloram, can be applied directly on cut stems, which is an effective means of transporting the herbicide into the kudzu's extensive root system. Herbicides can be used after other methods of control, such as mowing, grazing, or burning, which can allow for an easier application of the chemical to the weakened plants. In large-scale forestry infestations, soil-active herbicides have been shown to be highly effective. After


title: Kudzu content: initial herbicidal treatment, follow-up treatments and monitoring are usually necessary, depending on how long the kudzu has been growing in the area. Up to 10 years of supervision may be needed after the initial chemical placement to make sure the plant does not return. Since 1998, the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has experimented with using the fungus "Myrothecium verrucaria" as a biologically based herbicide against kudzu. A diacetylverrucarol spray based on "M. verrucaria" works under a variety of conditions (including the absence of dew), causes minimal injury to many of the other woody plants in


title: Kudzu content: kudzu-infested habitats, and takes effect quickly enough that kudzu treated with it in the morning starts showing evidence of damage by midafternoon. Initial formulations of the herbicide produced toxic levels of other trichothecenes as byproducts, though the ARS discovered growing "M. verrucaria" in a fermenter on a liquid, instead of a solid, diet limited or eliminated the problem. Kudzu Kudzu (; also called Japanese arrowroot) is a group of plants in the genus "Pueraria", in the pea family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. They are climbing, coiling, and trailing perennial vines native to much of eastern Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: Theobroma cacao Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae, native to the deep tropical regions of the Americas. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make cocoa mass, cocoa powder, confectionery, ganache and chocolate. Leaves are alternate, entire, unlobed, long and broad. The flowers are produced in clusters directly on the trunk and older branches; this is known as cauliflory. The flowers are small, diameter, with pink calyx. The floral formula is ✶ K5 C5 A(5°+5²) (5). While many of the world's flowers are pollinated


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: by bees (Hymenoptera) or butterflies/moths (Lepidoptera), cacao flowers are pollinated by tiny flies, "Forcipomyia" midges in the subfamily Forcipomyiinae. Having the natural pollinator "Forcipomyia" midges for "Theobroma cacao" was shown to have more fruit production than using artificial pollinators. The fruit, called a cacao pod, is ovoid, long and wide, ripening yellow to orange, and weighs about when ripe. The pod contains 20 to 60 seeds, usually called "beans", embedded in a white pulp. The seeds are the main ingredient of chocolate, while the pulp is used in some countries to prepare refreshing juice, smoothies, jelly, and nata. Usually discarded


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: until practices changed in the 21st century, the fermented pulp may be distilled into an alcoholic beverage. Each seed contains a significant amount of fat (40–50%) as cocoa butter. The fruit's active constituent is the stimulant theobromine, a compound similar to caffeine. Cacao ("Theobroma cacao") belongs to the genus "Theobroma" classified under the subfamily Byttnerioideae of the mallow family Malvaceae. Cacao is one of 17 species of "Theobroma". In 2008, researchers proposed a new classification based upon morphological, geographic, and genomic criteria: 10 groups have been named according to their geographic origin or the traditional cultivar name. These groups are:


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: Amelonado, Criollo, Nacional, Contamana, Curaray, Cacao guiana, Iquitos, Marañon, Nanay, and Purús. The generic name is derived from the Greek for "food of the gods"; from θεός ("theos"), meaning "god", and βρῶμα ("broma"), meaning "food". The specific name "cacao" is the Hispanization of the name of the plant in indigenous Mesoamerican languages. The cacao was known as "kakaw" in Tzeltal, K'iche' and Classic Maya; "kagaw" in Sayula Popoluca; and "cacahuatl" in Nahuatl as "bean of the cocoa-tree". "T. cacao" is widely distributed from southeastern Mexico to the Amazon basin. There were originally two hypotheses about its domestication; one said that


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: there were two foci for domestication, one in the Lacandon Jungle area of Mexico and another in lowland South America. More recent studies of patterns of DNA diversity, however, suggest that this is not the case. One study sampled 1241 trees and classified them into 10 distinct genetic clusters. This study also identified areas, for example around Iquitos in modern Peru and Ecuador, where representatives of several genetic clusters originated more than 5000 years ago, leading to development of the variety, Nacional cocoa bean. This result suggests that this is where "T. cacao" was originally domesticated, probably for the pulp


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: that surrounds the beans, which is eaten as a snack and fermented into a mildly alcoholic beverage. Using the DNA sequences and comparing them with data derived from climate models and the known conditions suitable for cacao, one study refined the view of domestication, linking the area of greatest cacao genetic diversity to a bean-shaped area that encompasses Ecuador, the border between Brazil and Peru and the southern part of the Colombian-Brazilian border. Climate models indicate that at the peak of the last ice age 21,000 years ago, when habitat suitable for cacao was at its most reduced, this area


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: was still suitable, and so provided a refugium for the species. Cacao trees grow well as understory plants in humid forest ecosystems. This is equally true of abandoned cultivated trees, making it difficult to distinguish truly wild trees from those whose parents may originally have been cultivated. Cultivation, use, and cultural elaboration of cacao were early and extensive in Mesoamerica. Ceramic vessels with residues from the preparation of cacao beverages have been found at archaeological sites dating back to the Early Formative (1900–900 BC) period. For example, one such vessel found at an Olmec archaeological site on the Gulf Coast


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: of Veracruz, Mexico dates cacao's preparation by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC. On the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, a Mokaya archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating even earlier, to 1900 BC. The initial domestication was probably related to the making of a fermented, thus alcoholic beverage. In 2018, researchers who analysed the genome of cultivated cacao trees concluded that the domesticated cacao trees all originated from a single domestication event that occurred about 3,600 years ago somewhere in Central America. Several mixtures of cacao are described in ancient texts, for ceremonial or medicinal, as well


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: as culinary, purposes. Some mixtures included maize, chili, vanilla ("Vanilla planifolia"), and honey. Archaeological evidence for use of cacao, while relatively sparse, has come from the recovery of whole cacao beans at Uaxactun, Guatemala and from the preservation of wood fragments of the cacao tree at Belize sites including Cuello and Pulltrouser Swamp. In addition, analysis of residues from ceramic vessels has found traces of theobromine and caffeine in early formative vessels from Puerto Escondido, Honduras (1100–900 BC) and in middle formative vessels from Colha, Belize (600–400 BC) using similar techniques to those used to extract chocolate residues from four


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: classic period (around 400 AD) vessels from a tomb at the Maya archaeological site of Rio Azul. As cacao is the only known commodity from Mesoamerica containing both of these alkaloid compounds, it seems likely these vessels were used as containers for cacao drinks. In addition, cacao is named in a hieroglyphic text on one of the Rio Azul vessels. Cacao is also believed to have been ground by the Aztecs and mixed with tobacco for smoking purposes. Cocoa was being domesticated by the Mayo Chinchipe of the upper Amazon around 3,000 BC. Cacao beans constituted both a ritual beverage


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: and a major currency system in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations. At one point, the Aztec empire received a yearly tribute of 980 loads ("xiquipil" in Nahuatl) of cacao, in addition to other goods. Each load represented exactly 8,000 beans. The buying power of quality beans was such that 80–100 beans could buy a new cloth mantle. The use of cacao beans as currency is also known to have spawned counterfeiters during the Aztec empire. The Maya believed the "kakaw" (cacao) was discovered by the gods in a mountain that also contained other delectable foods to be used by them. According to


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: Maya mythology, the Plumed Serpent gave cacao to the Maya after humans were created from maize by divine grandmother goddess Xmucane. The Maya celebrated an annual festival in April to honor their cacao god, Ek Chuah, an event that included the sacrifice of a dog with cacao-colored markings, additional animal sacrifices, offerings of cacao, feathers and incense, and an exchange of gifts. In a similar creation story, the Mexica (Aztec) god Quetzalcoatl discovered cacao ("cacahuatl": "bitter water"), in a mountain filled with other plant foods. Cacao was offered regularly to a pantheon of Mexica deities and the Madrid Codex depicts


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: priests lancing their ear lobes (autosacrifice) and covering the cacao with blood as a suitable sacrifice to the gods. The cacao beverage as ritual was used only by men, as it was believed to be toxic for women and children. The first European knowledge about chocolate came in the form of a beverage which was first introduced to the Spanish at their meeting with Moctezuma in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1519. Cortés and others noted the vast quantities of this beverage the Aztec emperor consumed, and how it was carefully whipped by his attendants beforehand. Examples of cacao


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: beans, along with other agricultural products, were brought back to Spain at that time, but it seems the beverage made from cacao was introduced to the Spanish court in 1544 by Kekchi Maya nobles brought from the New World to Spain by Dominican friars to meet Prince Philip. Within a century, chocolate had spread to France, England and elsewhere in Western Europe. Demand for this beverage led the French to establish cacao plantations in the Caribbean, while Spain subsequently developed their cacao plantations in their Venezuelan and Philippine colonies (Bloom 1998, Coe 1996). A painting by Dutch Golden Age artist


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: Albert Eckhout shows a wild cacao tree in mid-seventeenth century Dutch Brazil. The Nahuatl-derived Spanish word "cacao" entered scientific nomenclature in 1753 after the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus published his taxonomic binomial system and coined the genus and species "Theobroma cacao". Traditional pre-Hispanic beverages made with cacao are still consumed in Mesoamerica. These include the Oaxacan beverage known as "tejate". In 2016, cocoa beans were cultivated on roughly worldwide. Cocoa beans are grown by large agroindustrial plantations and small producers, the bulk of production coming from millions of farmers with small plots. A tree begins to bear when it is four


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: or five years old. A mature tree may have 6,000 flowers in a year, yet only about 20 pods. About 1,200 seeds (40 pods) are required to produce 1 kg (2.2 lb) of cocoa paste. Historically, chocolate makers have recognized three main cultivar groups of cacao beans used to make cocoa and chocolate: Forastero, Criollo and Trinitario. The most prized, rare, and expensive is the Criollo group, the cocoa bean used by the Maya. Only 10% of chocolate is made from Criollo, which is arguably less bitter and more aromatic than any other bean. In November 2000, the cacao beans


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: coming from Chuao were awarded an appellation of origin under the title "Cacao de Chuao" (from Spanish-"cacao of Chuao"). The cacao bean in 80% of chocolate is made using beans of the Forastero group, the main and most ubiquitous variety being the Amenolado variety, while the arriba variety (such as the Nacional variety) are less commonly found in Forastero produce. Forastero trees are significantly hardier and more disease-resistant than Criollo trees, resulting in cheaper cacao beans. Major cocoa bean processors include Hershey's, Nestlé and Mars, all of which purchase cocoa beans via various sources. Chocolate can be made from "T.


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: cacao" through a process of steps that involve harvesting, fermenting of "T. cacao" pulp, drying, harvesting, and then extraction. Roasting "T. cacao" by using superheated steam was found to be better than conventional roasting (use of ovens) because it resulted in same quality of cocoa beans in a shorter amount of time. In 2016, world production was 4.5 million tonnes, led by Ivory Coast with 33% of global production and Ghana with 19% of the total (table).. The pests and diseases to which cacao is subject, along with climate change, mean that new varieties will be needed to respond to


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: these challenges. Breeders rely on the genetic diversity conserved in field genebanks to create new varieties, because cacao has recalcitrant seeds that cannot be stored in a conventional genebank. In an effort to improve the diversity available to breeders, and ensure the future of the field genebanks, experts have drawn up A Global Strategy for the Conservation and Use of Cacao Genetic Resources, as the Foundation for a Sustainable Cocoa Economy. The strategy has been adopted by the cacao producers and their clients, and seeks to improve the characterization of cacao diversity, the sustainability and diversity of the cacao collections,


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: the usefulness of the collections, and to ease access to better information about the conserved material. Some natural areas of cacao diversity are protected by various forms of conservation, for example national parks. However, a recent study of genetic diversity and predicted climates suggests that many of those protected areas will no longer be suitable for cacao by 2050. It also identifies an area around Iquitos in Peru that will remain suitable for cacao and that is home to considerable genetic diversity, and recommends that this area be considered for protection. Other projects, such as the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre,


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: aim to combat cacao diseases and preserve genetic diversity. Phytopathogens (parasitic organisms) cause much damage to "Theobroma cacao" plantations around the world. Many of those phytopathogens, which include many of the pests named above, were analyzed using mass spectrometry and allow for guiding on the correct approaches to get rid of the specific phytopathogens. This method was found to be quick, reproducible, and accurate showing promising results in the future to prevent damage to "Theobroma cacao" by various phytopathogens. A specific type of bacteria "Streptomyces camerooniansis" was found to be beneficial for "T. cacao" by helping plant growth by accelerating


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: seed germination of "T. cacao," inhibiting growth of various types of microorganisms (such as different oomycetes, fungi, and bacteria), and preventing rotting by "Phytophthora megakarya". Various plant pests and diseases can cause serious problems for cacao production. The genome of "T. cacao" is diploid, its size is 430 Mbp, and it comprises 10 chromosome pairs (2n=2x=20). In September 2010, a team of scientists announced a draft sequence of the cacao genome (Matina1-6 genotype). In a second, unrelated project, the International Cocoa Genome Sequencing Consortium-ICGS, co-ordinated by CIRAD, first published in December 2010 (online, paper publication in January 2011), the sequence


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: of the cacao genome, of the Criollo cacao (of a landrace from Belize, B97-61/B2). In their publication, they reported a detailed analysis of the genomic and genetic data. The sequence of the cacao genome identified 28,798 protein-coding genes, compared to the roughly 23,000 protein-coding genes of the human genome. About 20% of the cacao genome consists of transposable elements, a low proportion compared to other plant species. Many genes were identified as coding for flavonoids, aromatic terpenes, theobromine and many other metabolites involved in cocoa flavor and quality traits, among which a relatively high proportion code for polyphenols, which constitute


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: up to 8% of cacao pods dry weight. The cacao genome appears close to the hypothetical hexaploid ancestor of all dicotyledonous plants, and it is proposed as an evolutionary mechanism by which the 21 chromosomes of the dicots' hypothetical hexaploid ancestor underwent major fusions leading to cacao's 10 chromosome pairs. The genome sequence enables cacao molecular biology and breeding for elite varieties through marker-assisted selection, in particular for genetic resistance to fungal, oomycete and viral diseases responsible for huge yield losses each year. In 2017-18, due to concerns about survivability of cacao plants in an era of global warming in


title: "Theobroma cacao" content: which climates become more extreme in the narrow band of latitudes where cacao is grown (20 degrees north and south of the equator), the commercial company, Mars, Incorporated and the University of California, Berkeley are using CRISPR to adjust DNA for improved hardiness of cacao in hot climates. Theobroma cacao Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae, native to the deep tropical regions of the Americas. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make cocoa mass, cocoa powder, confectionery, ganache and chocolate. Leaves are alternate,


title: "Hawker Hurricane" content: 9,986 were built by Hawker (who produced the type at Brooklands from December 1937 to October 1942 and Langley from October 1939 to July 1944), while Hawker's sister company, the Gloster Aircraft Company, constructed 2,750. The Austin Aero Company completed 300 Hurricanes. Canada Car and Foundry was responsible for the production of 1,451 Hurricanes. In 1939, production of 100 Hurricanes was initiated in Yugoslavia by Zmaj and Rogožarski. Of these, 20 were built by Zmaj by April 1941. Recognising that the supply of British-made Merlin engines might not be guaranteed, it was decided to fit one of the Yugoslavian Hurricanes


title: "Datura stramonium" content: Datura stramonium Datura stramonium, known by the English names jimsonweed or devil's snare, is a plant in the nightshade family. It is believed to have originated in Mexico, but has now become naturalized in many other regions.<ref name= 'NPGS/GRIN'></ref> Other common names for "D. stramonium" include thornapple and moon flower, and it has the Spanish name "toloache". Other names for the plant include hell's bells, devil's trumpet, devil's weed, tolguacha, Jamestown weed, stinkweed, locoweed, pricklyburr, false castor oil plant, devil's cucumber, and thornapple. Datura has been used in traditional medicine to relieve asthma symptoms and as an analgesic during surgery


title: "Datura stramonium" content: or bonesetting. It is also a powerful hallucinogen and deliriant, which is used entheogenically for the intense visions it produces. However, the tropane alkaloids responsible for both the medicinal and hallucinogenic properties are fatally toxic in only slightly higher amounts than the medicinal dosage, and careless use often results in hospitalizations and deaths. "Datura stramonium" is a foul-smelling, erect, annual, freely branching herb that forms a bush up to tall. The root is long, thick, fibrous, and white. The stem is stout, erect, leafy, smooth, and pale yellow-green to reddish purple in color. The stem forks off repeatedly into branches,


title: "Datura stramonium" content: and each fork forms a leaf and a single, erect flower. The leaves are about long, smooth, toothed, soft, and irregularly undulated. The upper surface of the leaves is a darker green, and the bottom is a light green. The leaves have a bitter and nauseating taste, which is imparted to extracts of the herb, and remains even after the leaves have been dried. "Datura stramonium" generally flowers throughout the summer. The fragrant flowers are trumpet-shaped, white to creamy or violet, and long, and grow on short stems from either the axils of the leaves or the places where the


title: "Datura stramonium" content: branches fork. The calyx is long and tubular, swollen at the bottom, and sharply angled, surmounted by five sharp teeth. The corolla, which is folded and only partially open, is white, funnel-shaped, and has prominent ribs. The flowers open at night, emitting a pleasant fragrance, and are fed upon by nocturnal moths. The egg-shaped seed capsule is in diameter and either covered with spines or bald. At maturity, it splits into four chambers, each with dozens of small, black seeds. "Datura stramonium" is native to North America, but was spread to the Old World early. It was scientifically described and


title: "Datura stramonium" content: named by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1753, although it had been described a century earlier by botanists such as Nicholas Culpeper. Today, it grows wild in all the world's warm and moderate regions, where it is found along roadsides and at dung-rich livestock enclosures. In Europe, it is found as a weed on wastelands and in garbage dumps. The seed is thought to be carried by birds and spread in their droppings. Its seeds can lie dormant underground for years and germinate when the soil is disturbed. The Royal Horticultural Society has advised worried gardeners to dig it up


title: "Datura stramonium" content: or have it otherwise removed, while wearing gloves to handle it. All parts of "Datura" plants contain dangerous levels of the tropane alkaloids atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine, which are classified as deliriants, or anticholinergics. The risk of fatal overdose is high among uninformed users, and many hospitalizations occur amongst recreational users who ingest the plant for its psychoactive effects. The amount of toxins varies widely from plant to plant. As much as a 5:1 variation can be found between plants, and a given plant's toxicity depends on its age, where it is growing, and the local weather conditions. Additionally, within


title: "Datura stramonium" content: a given datura plant, toxin concentration varies by part and even from leaf to leaf. When the plant is younger, the ratio of scopolamine to atropine is about 3:1; after flowering, this ratio is reversed, with the amount of scopolamine continuing to decrease as the plant gets older. In traditional cultures, a great deal of experience with and detailed knowledge of "Datura" was critical to minimize harm. An individual datura seed contains about 0.1 mg of atropine, and the approximate fatal dose for adult humans is >10 mg atropine or >2–4 mg scopolamine. "Datura" intoxication typically produces delirium, hallucination, hyperthermia,


title: "Datura stramonium" content: tachycardia, bizarre behavior, and severe mydriasis with resultant painful photophobia that can last several days. Pronounced amnesia is another commonly reported effect. The onset of symptoms generally occurs around 30 to 60 minutes after ingesting the herb. These symptoms generally last from 24 to 48 hours, but have been reported in some cases to last as long as two weeks. As with other cases of anticholinergic poisoning, intravenous physostigmine can be administered in severe cases as an antidote. In Ayurveda, datura has long been used for asthma symptoms. The active agent is atropine. The leaves are generally smoked either in


title: "Datura stramonium" content: a cigarette or a pipe. During the late 18th century, James Anderson, the English Physician General of the East India Company, learned of the practice and popularized it in Europe. The Zuni people once used datura as an analgesic to render patients unconscious while broken bones were set. The Chinese also used it as a form of anesthesia during surgery. John Gerard's "Herball" (1597) states, William Lewis reported in the late 18th century that the juice could be made into "a very powerful remedy in various convulsive and spasmodic disorders, epilepsy and mania," and was also "found to give ease


title: "Datura stramonium" content: in external inflammations and haemorrhoids." The ancient inhabitants of what is today central and southern California used to ingest the small black seeds of datura to "commune with deities through visions". Across the Americas, other indigenous peoples such as the Algonquin, Navajo, Cherokee, Luiseño and the indigenous peoples of Marie-Galante also used this plant in sacred ceremonies for its hallucinogenic properties. In Ethiopia, some students and "debtrawoch" (lay priests), use "D. stramonium" to "open the mind" to be more receptive to learning, and creative and imaginative thinking. In his book, "The Serpent and the Rainbow", Wade Davis identified "D. stramonium",


title: "Datura stramonium" content: called "zombi cucumber" in Haiti, as a central ingredient of the concoction vodou priests use to create zombies. The common name "datura" has its origins in India, where the sister species Datura metel is considered particularly sacred — believed to be a favorite of Shiva in Shaivism. Datura prefers rich, calcareous soil. Adding nitrogen fertilizer to the soil will increase the concentration of alkaloids present in the plant. Datura can be grown from seed, which is sown with several feet between plants. Datura is sensitive to frost, so should be sheltered during cold weather. The plant is harvested when the


title: "Datura stramonium" content: fruits are ripe, but still green. To harvest, the entire plant is cut down, the leaves are stripped from the plant, and everything is left to dry. When the fruits begin to burst open, the seeds are harvested. For intensive plantations, leaf yields of and seed yields of are possible. The genus name is derived from the plant's Hindi name धतूरा "dhatūra", ultimately from Sanskrit धत्तूर "" 'white thorn-apple'. "Stramonium" is originally from Greek "nightshade" and "mad". In the United States, the plant is called "jimsonweed", or more rarely "Jamestown weed"; it got this name from the town of Jamestown,


title: "Datura stramonium" content: Virginia, where British soldiers consumed it while attempting to suppress Bacon's Rebellion. They spent 11 days in altered mental states: Fossil seeds like seeds of "Datura stramonium" have been found in Pliocene strata of Belarus. Also known as "BURUNDANGA" and "ESCOPOLAMINA" in Spanish : https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escopolamina Datura stramonium Datura stramonium, known by the English names jimsonweed or devil's snare, is a plant in the nightshade family. It is believed to have originated in Mexico, but has now become naturalized in many other regions.<ref name= 'NPGS/GRIN'></ref> Other common names for "D. stramonium" include thornapple and moon flower, and it has the Spanish


title: "Battle of the Bulge" content: troops. They quickly captured portions of the 3rd Battalion of the 394th Infantry Regiment. They destroyed a number of American armored units and vehicles, and took several dozen prisoners who were subsequently murdered. Peiper also captured of fuel for his vehicles. Peiper advanced north-west towards Büllingen, keeping to the plan to move west, unaware that if he had turned north he had an opportunity to flank and trap the entire 2nd and 99th Divisions. Instead, intent on driving west, Peiper turned south to detour around Hünningen, choosing a route designated Rollbahn D as he had been given latitude to choose


title: "Battle of the Bulge" content: he correctly identified Springfield as the capital of Illinois because the American MP who questioned him mistakenly believed the capital was Chicago. The tightened security nonetheless made things very hard for the German infiltrators, and a number of them were captured. Even during interrogation, they continued their goal of spreading disinformation; when asked about their mission, some of them claimed they had been told to go to Paris to either kill or capture General Dwight Eisenhower. Security around the general was greatly increased, and Eisenhower was confined to his headquarters. Because Skorzeny's men were captured in American uniforms, they were


title: Airship content: Airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from large gasbags filled with a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability. Helium gas has almost the same lifting capacity and is not flammable, unlike hydrogen, but is rare and relatively expensive. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while helium was only used for


title: Airship content: airships in that country. Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air. The envelope of an airship may form a single gasbag, or may contain a number of internal gas-filled cells. An airship also has engines, crew, and optionally also payload accommodation, typically housed in one or more "gondolas" suspended below the envelope. The main types of airship are non-rigid, semi-rigid, and rigid. Non-rigid airships, often called "blimps", rely on internal pressure to maintain their shape. Semi-rigid airships maintain the envelope shape by internal pressure, but have some form of supporting structure, such


title: Airship content: as a fixed keel, attached to it. Rigid airships have an outer structural framework that maintains the shape and carries all structural loads, while the lifting gas is contained in one or more internal gasbags or cells. Rigid airships were first flown by Count Zeppelin and the vast majority of rigid airships built were manufactured by the firm he founded. As a result, rigid airships are often called zeppelins. Airships were the first aircraft capable of controlled powered flight, and were most commonly used before the 1940s; their use decreased over time as their capabilities were surpassed by those of


title: Airship content: aeroplanes. Their decline was accelerated by a series of high-profile accidents, including the 1930 crash and burning of British "R101" in France, the 1933 and 1935 storm-related crashes of the twin airborne aircraft carrier U.S. Navy helium-filled rigids, the and USS "Macon" respectively, and the 1937 burning of the hydrogen-filled "Hindenburg". From the 1960s, helium airships have been used in applications where the ability to hover in one place for an extended period outweighs the need for speed and manoeuvrability, such as advertising, tourism, camera platforms, geological surveys, and aerial observation. During the pioneer years of aeronautics, terms such as


title: Airship content: "airship", "air-ship", "air ship" and "ship of the air" meant any kind of navigable or dirigible flying machine. In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to "ships of the air," with smaller passenger types as "air yachts." In the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as "ships of the air" or "flying-ships". Nowadays the term "airship" is used only for powered, dirigible balloons, with sub-types being classified as rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid. Semi-rigid architecture is the more recent, following advances in deformable structures and the exigency of reducing weight and volume of the airships.


title: Airship content: They have a minimal structure that keeps the shape jointly with overpressure of the gas envelope. An "aerostat" is an aircraft that remains aloft using buoyancy or static lift, as opposed to the aerodyne, which obtains lift by moving through the air. Airships are a type of aerostat. The term "aerostat" has also been used to indicate a tethered or moored balloon as opposed to a free-floating balloon. Aerostats today are capable of lifting a payload of 3,000 pounds to an altitude of more than 4.5 kilometers above sea level. They can also stay in the air for extended periods


title: Airship content: of time, particularly when powered by an on-board generator or if the tether contains electrical conductors. Due to this capability, aerostats can be used as platforms for telecommunication services. For instance, Platform Wireless International Corporation announced in 2001 that it would use a tethered 1,250-pound airborne payload to deliver cellular phone service to a 140-mile region in Brazil. The European Union's ABSOLUTE project was also reportedly exploring the use of tethered aerostat stations to provide telecommunications during disaster response. Airships were originally called "dirigible balloons", from the French "ballon dirigeable" or shortly "dirigeable" (meaning "steerable", from the French "diriger" –


title: Airship content: to direct, guide or steer). This was the name that inventor Henri Giffard gave to his machine that made its first flight on 24 September 1852. A blimp is a non-rigid aerostat. In American usage it refers specifically to a non-rigid type of dirigible balloon or airship. In British usage it refers to any non-rigid aerostat, including barrage balloons and other kite balloons, having a streamlined shape and stabilising tail fins. The term zeppelin is a genericized trademark that originally referred to airships manufactured by the German Zeppelin Company, which built and operated the first rigid airships in the early


title: Airship content: years of the twentieth century. The initials LZ, for (German for "Zeppelin airship"), usually prefixed their craft's serial identifiers. Streamlined rigid (or semi-rigid) airships are usually referred to as "Zeppelin", because of the fame that this company has acquired due to the number of airships it produced. Hybrid airships fly with a positive aerostatic contribution, usually equal to the empty weight of the system, and the variable payload is sustained by propulsion or aerodynamic contribution. Airships are classified according to their method of construction into rigid, semi-rigid and non-rigid types. A rigid airship has a rigid framework covered by an


title: Airship content: outer skin or envelope. The interior contains one or more gasbags, cells or balloons to provide lift. Rigid airships are typically unpressurised and can be made to virtually any size. Most, but not all, of the German Zeppelin airships have been of this type. A semi-rigid airship has some kind of supporting structure but the main envelope is held in shape by the internal pressure of the lifting gas. Typically the airship has an extended, usually articulated keel running along the bottom of the envelope to stop it kinking in the middle by distributing suspension loads into the envelope, while


title: Airship content: also allowing lower envelope pressures. Non-rigid airships are often called "blimps". Most, but not all, of the American Goodyear airships have been blimps. A non-rigid airship relies entirely on internal gas pressure to retain its shape during flight. Unlike the rigid design, the non-rigid airship's gas envelope has no compartments. It typically has smaller internal bags or "ballonets" containing air, however. At sea level, these are filled with air. As altitude is increased, the lifting gas expands and air from the ballonets is expelled through valves to maintain the hull's shape. To return to sea level, the process is reversed:


title: Airship content: air is forced back into the ballonets by both scooping air from the engine exhaust and using auxiliary blowers. The two main parts of an airship are its gas-containing envelope and a gondola or similar structure slung beneath and containing crew and other equipment. The engines may be mounted in the gondola or elsewhere off the envelope. The basic structure of an airship may be rigid, semi-rigid or non-rigid, as described. The envelope itself is the structure, including textiles that contains the buoyant gas. Internally two ballonets placed in the front part and in the rear part of the hull


title: Airship content: contains air. surrounding one or more gas-bags or ballonets within it. The problem of the exact determination of the pressure on an airship envelope is still problematic and has fascinated major scientists such as Theodor Von Karman over history. Fins at the rear of the envelope stabilize the airship, allowing it to fly straight. On some smaller designs these fins are themselves part of a gas bag and gain their shape only when inflated. A few airships have been metal-clad, with rigid and nonrigid examples made. Each kind used a thin gastight metal envelope, rather than the usual rubber-coated fabric


title: Airship content: envelope. Only four metal-clad ships are known to have been built, and only two actually flew: Schwarz's first aluminum rigid airship of 1893 collapsed, while his second flew; the nonrigid ZMC-2 built for the U.S. Navy flew from 1929 to 1941 when it was scrapped as too small for operational use on anti-submarine patrols; while the 1929 nonrigid Slate Aircraft Corporation "City of Glendale" collapsed on its first flight attempt. Both nonrigid ships nevertheless had strong metal monocoque envelopes that, while they maintained their shape uninflated, required an overpressure during flight. Early airships used hydrogen as their lifting gas, which


title: Airship content: is the lightest available. Typically, hydrogen was generated during the filling process, by reacting dilute sulphuric acid with metal filings. The first hydrogen balloon in 1783 used iron filings, while the British Nulli Secundus of 1907 used zinc. Later, the United States began to use helium because it is non-flammable and has 92.7% of the buoyancy (lifting power) of hydrogen. Following a series of airship disasters in the 1930s, and especially the Hindenburg disaster where the airship burst into flames, hydrogen fell into disuse. Thermal airships use a heated lifting gas, usually air, in a fashion similar to hot air


title: Airship content: balloons. The first to do so was flown in 1973 by the British company Cameron Balloons. The term "gondola" is used to describe a crew car of an airship, slung beneath the centre of the envelope. These may be short, for cockpit and landing gear alone, or longer to provide passenger space. Early gondolas were open structures slung beneath the envelope, while later ones were enclosed and hung directly from the internal framing. A nonrigid blimp carries all of its passengers within a gondola. Rigid airships may have further passenger or cargo space inside the envelope. The large airship "Graf


title: Airship content: Zeppelin" was noted for its distinctively short passenger gondola, mounted far forward so as to improve ground clearance. The majority of crew accommodation and cargo holds were placed inside the envelope. Small airships carry their engine(s) in their gondola. Where there were multiple engines on larger airships, these were placed in separate nacelles, termed "power cars" or "engine cars". To allow asymmetric thrust to be applied for maneuvering, these power cars were mounted towards the sides of the envelope, away from the centre line gondola. This also raised them above the ground, reducing the risk of a propeller strike when


title: Airship content: landing. Widely spaced power cars were also termed "wing cars", from the use of "wing" to mean being on the side of something, as in a theater, rather than the aerodynamic device. These engine cars carried a crew during flight who maintained the engines as needed, but who also worked the engine controls, throttle etc., mounted directly on the engine. Instructions were relayed to them from the pilot's station by a telegraph system, as on a ship. While elevators and swivelling propellers provide fine control of altitude, larger changes of height used to be controlled by either venting gas to


title: Airship content: lose altitude or dropping ballast to gain altitude. Large airships typically carried several water tanks fore and aft, allowing them to adjust longitudinal trim as well as height. Some modern designs instead pump lifting gas between the gas bags and storage cylinders. The main advantage of airships with respect to any other vehicle is of environmental nature. They require less energy to remain in flight, if compared to any other air vehicle. In 1670 the Jesuit Father Francesco Lana de Terzi, sometimes referred to as the "Father of Aeronautics", published a description of an "Aerial Ship" supported by four copper


title: Airship content: spheres from which the air was evacuated. Although the basic principle is sound, such a craft was unrealizable then and remains so to the present day, since external air pressure would cause the spheres to collapse unless their thickness was such as to make them too heavy to be buoyant. A hypothetical craft constructed using this principle is known as a "Vacuum airship". A more practical dirigible airship was described by Lieutenant Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier in a paper entitled ""Mémoire sur l’équilibre des machines aérostatiques"" (Memorandum on the equilibrium of aerostatic machines) presented to the French Academy on 3


title: Airship content: December 1783. The 16 water-color drawings published the following year depict a streamlined envelope with internal ballonnets that could be used for regulating lift: this was attached to a long carriage that could be used as a boat if the vehicle was forced to land in water. The airship was designed to be driven by three propellers and steered with a sail-like aft rudder. In 1784 Jean-Pierre Blanchard fitted a hand-powered propeller to a balloon, the first recorded means of propulsion carried aloft. In 1785 he crossed the English Channel in a balloon equipped with flapping wings for propulsion and


title: Airship content: a birdlike tail for steering. The 19th century saw continued attempts to add methods of propulsion to balloons. The Australian William Bland sent designs for his "Atmotic Airship" to the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, where a model was displayed. This was an elongated balloon with a steam engine driving twin propellers suspended underneath. The lift of the balloon was estimated as 5 tons and the car with the fuel as weighing 3.5 tons, giving a payload of 1.5 tons. Bland believed that the machine could be driven at and could fly from Sydney to London in less


title: Airship content: than a week. In 1852 Henri Giffard became the first person to make an engine-powered flight when he flew in a steam-powered airship. Airships would develop considerably over the next two decades. In 1863 Solomon Andrews flew his aereon design, an unpowered, controllable dirigible in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and offered the device to the U.S. Military during the Civil War. He flew a later design in 1866 around New York City and as far as Oyster Bay, New York. This concept used changes in lift to provide propulsive force, and did not need a powerplant. In 1872, the French


title: Airship content: naval architect Dupuy de Lome launched a large navigable balloon, which was driven by a large propeller turned by eight men. It was developed during the Franco-Prussian war and was intended as an improvement to the balloons used for communications between Paris and the countryside during the siege of Paris, but was completed only after the end of the war. In 1872 Paul Haenlein flew an airship with an internal combustion engine running on the coal gas used to inflate the envelope, the first use of such an engine to power an aircraft. Charles F. Ritchel made a public demonstration


title: Airship content: flight in 1878 of his hand-powered one-man rigid airship, and went on to build and sell five of his aircraft. In 1874 Micajah Clark Dyer filed U.S. Patent 154,654 'Apparatus for Navigating the Air". It is believed successful trial flights were made between 1872-1874, but detailed dates are not available. The apparatus used a combination of wings and paddle wheels for navigation and propulsion. “In operating the machinery the wings receive an upward and downward motion, in the manner of the wings of a bird, the outer ends yielding as they are raised, but opening out and then remaining rigid


title: Airship content: while being depressed. The wings, if desired, may be set at an angle so as to propel forward as well as to raise the machine in the air. The paddle-wheels are intended to be used for propelling the machine, in the same way that a vessel is propelled in water. An instrument answering to a rudder is attached for guiding the machine. A balloon is to be used for elevating the flying ship, after which it is to be guided and controlled at the pleasure of its occupants.”. More details can be found in the book about his life. In


title: Airship content: 1883 the first electric-powered flight was made by Gaston Tissandier, who fitted a Siemens electric motor to an airship. The first fully controllable free flight was made in 1884 by Charles Renard and Arthur Constantin Krebs in the French Army airship "La France". La France made the first flight of an airship that landed where it took off; the long, airship covered in 23 minutes with the aid of an electric motor, and a battery. It made seven flights in 1884 and 1885. In 1888 the design of the Campbell Air Ship, designed by Professor Peter C. Campbell, was submitted


title: Airship content: to aeronautic engineer Carl Edgar Myers for examination. After his approval it was built by the Novelty Air Ship Company. It was lost at sea in 1889 while being flown by Professor Hogan during an exhibition flight. In 1888–97 Frederich Wölfert built three airships powered by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft-built petrol engines, the last of which caught fire in flight and killed both occupants in 1897. The 1888 version used a 2 hp single cylinder Daimler engine and flew from Canstatt to Kornwestheim. In 1897, an airship with an aluminum envelope was built by the Hungarian-Croatian engineer David Schwarz. It made


title: Airship content: its first flight at Tempelhof field in Berlin after Schwarz had died. His widow, Melanie Schwarz, was paid 15,000 marks by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin to release the industrialist Carl Berg (airship builder) from his exclusive contract to supply Schwartz with aluminium. In 1897—99 Konstantin Danilewsky, medical doctor and inventor from Kharkiv (now Ukraine, then Russian Empire), built four muscle-powered airships, of gas volume 150—180 cub.m. About 200 ascents were made within a framework of experimental flight program, at two locations, with no significant incidents In July 1900, the Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ1 made its first flight. This led to the


title: Airship content: most successful airships of all time: the Zeppelins, named after Count von Zeppelin who began working on rigid airship designs in the 1890s, leading to the flawed LZ1 in 1900 and the more successful LZ2 in 1906. The Zeppelin airships had a framework composed of triangular lattice girders covered with fabric that contained separate gas cells. At first multiplane tail surfaces were used for control and stability: later designs had simpler cruciform tail surfaces. The engines and crew were accommodated in "gondolas" hung beneath the hull driving propellers attached to the sides of the frame by means of long drive


title: Airship content: shafts. Additionally, there was a passenger compartment (later a bomb bay) located halfway between the two engine compartments. Alberto Santos-Dumont was a wealthy Brazilian who lived in France and had a passion for flying. He designed 18 balloons and dirigibles before turning his attention to fixed-winged aircraft. On 19 October 1901 he flew his airship "Number 6", a small semi-rigid with a detached keel, from the Parc Saint Cloud to and around the Eiffel Tower and back in under thirty minutes. This feat earned him the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize of 100,000 francs. Many inventors were inspired by Santos-Dumont's


title: Airship content: small airships and a veritable airship craze began worldwide. Many airship pioneers, such as the American Thomas Scott Baldwin, financed their activities through passenger flights and public demonstration flights. Stanley Spencer built the first British airship with funds from advertising baby food on the sides of the envelope. Others, such as Walter Wellman and Melvin Vaniman, set their sights on loftier goals, attempting two polar flights in 1907 and 1909, and two trans-Atlantic flights in 1910 and 1912. In 1902, the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo published details of an innovative airship design in Spain and France. With a non-rigid


title: Airship content: body and internal bracing wires, it overcame the flaws of these types of aircraft as regards both rigid structure (zeppelin type) and flexibility, providing the airships with more stability during flight, and the capability of using heavier engines and a greater passenger load. In 1905, helped by Captain A. Kindelán, he built the airship "España" at the Guadalajara military base. Next year he patented his design without attracting official interest. In 1909 he patented an improved design that he offered to the French Astra company, who started mass-producing it in 1911 as the Astra-Torres airship. The distinctive three-lobed design was


title: Airship content: widely used during the Great War by the Entente powers. Other airship builders were also active before the war: from 1902 the French company Lebaudy Frères specialized in semirigid airships such as the "Patrie" and the "République", designed by their engineer Henri Julliot, who later worked for the American company Goodrich; the German firm Schütte-Lanz built the wooden-framed SL series from 1911, introducing important technical innovations; another German firm Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft built the "Parseval-Luftschiff" (PL) series from 1909, and Italian Enrico Forlanini's firm had built and flown the first two Forlanini airships. On May 12, 1902, the inventor and Brazilian aeronaut


title: Airship content: Augusto Severo de Albuquerque Maranhao and his French mechanic, Georges Saché, died when they were flying over Paris in the airship called Pax. A marble plaque at number 81 of the Avenue du Maine in Paris, celebrates the location of Augusto Severo accident. The Catastrophe of the Balloon "Le Pax" is a 1902 short silent film recreation of the catastrophe, directed by Georges Méliès. In Britain, the Army built their first dirigible, the "Nulli Secundus", in 1907. The Navy ordered the construction of an experimental rigid in 1908. Officially known as His Majesty's Airship No. 1 and nicknamed the "Mayfly",


title: Airship content: it broke its back in 1911 before making a single flight. Work on a successor did not start until 1913. In 1910 Walter Wellman unsuccessfully attempted an aerial crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the airship "America". The prospect of airships as bombers had been recognized in Europe well before the airships were up to the task. H. G. Wells' "The War in the Air" (1908) described the obliteration of entire fleets and cities by airship attack. The Italian forces became the first to use dirigibles for a military purpose during the Italo–Turkish War, the first bombing mission being flown


title: Airship content: on 10 March 1912. It was World War I, however, that marked the airship's real debut as a weapon. The Germans, French and Italians all used airships for scouting and tactical bombing roles early in the war, and all learned that the airship was too vulnerable for operations over the front. The decision to end operations in direct support of armies was made by all in 1917. Many in the German military believed they had found the ideal weapon with which to counteract British naval superiority and strike at Britain itself, while more realistic airship advocates believed the zeppelin's value


title: Airship content: was as a long range scout/attack craft for naval operations. Raids on England began in January 1915 and peaked in 1916: following losses to the British defenses only a few raids were made in 1917–18, the last in August 1918. Zeppelins proved to be terrifying but inaccurate weapons. Navigation, target selection and bomb-aiming proved to be difficult under the best of conditions, and the cloud cover that was frequently encountered by the airships reduced accuracy even further. The physical damage done by airships over the course of the war was insignificant, and the deaths that they caused amounted to a


title: Airship content: few hundred. Nevertheless, the raid caused a significant diversion of British resources to defense efforts. The airships were initially immune to attack by aircraft and anti-aircraft guns: as the pressure in their envelopes was only just higher than ambient air, holes had little effect. But following the introduction of a combination of incendiary and explosive ammunition in 1916, their flammable hydrogen lifting gas made them vulnerable to the defending aeroplanes. Several were shot down in flames by British defenders, and many others destroyed in accidents. New designs capable of reaching greater altitude were developed, but although this made them immune


title: Airship content: from attack it made their bombing accuracy even worse. Countermeasures by the British included sound detection equipment, searchlights and anti-aircraft artillery, followed by night fighters in 1915. One tactic used early in the war, when their limited range meant the airships had to fly from forward bases and the only zeppelin production facilities were in Friedrichshafen, was the bombing of airship sheds by the British Royal Naval Air Service. Later in the war, the development of the aircraft carrier led to the first successful carrier-based air strike in history: on the morning of 19 July 1918, seven Sopwith 2F.1 Camels


title: Airship content: were launched from and struck the airship base at Tondern, destroying zeppelins L 54 and L 60. The British Army had abandoned airship development in favour of aeroplanes before the start of the war, but the Royal Navy had recognized the need for small airships to counteract the submarine and mine threat in coastal waters. Beginning in February 1915, they began to develop the SS (Sea Scout) class of blimp. These had a small envelope of and at first used aircraft fuselages without the wing and tail surfaces as control cars. Later, more advanced blimps with purpose-built gondolas were used.


title: Airship content: The NS class (North Sea) were the largest and most effective non-rigid airships in British service, with a gas capacity of , a crew of 10 and an endurance of 24 hours. Six bombs were carried, as well as three to five machine guns. British blimps were used for scouting, mine clearance, and convoy patrol duties. During the war, the British operated over 200 non-rigid airships. Several were sold to Russia, France, the United States, and Italy. The large number of trained crews, low attrition rate and constant experimentation in handling techniques meant that at the war's end Britain was


title: Airship content: the world leader in non-rigid airship technology. The Royal Navy continued development of rigid airships until the end of the war. Eight rigid airships had been completed by the armistice, (No. 9r, four 23 Class, two R23X Class and one R31 Class), although several more were in an advanced state of completion by the war's end. Both France and Italy continued to use airships throughout the war. France preferred the non-rigid type, whereas Italy flew 49 semi-rigid airships in both the scouting and bombing roles. Aeroplanes had essentially replaced airships as bombers by the end of the war, and Germany's


title: Airship content: remaining zeppelins were destroyed by their crews, scrapped or handed over to the Allied powers as war reparations. The British rigid airship program, which had mainly been a reaction to the potential threat of the German airships, was wound down. A number of nations operated airships between the two world wars. Britain, the United States and Germany were the only constructors of rigid airships, with Italy and France making limited use of Zeppelins handed over as war reparations. Italy, the Soviet Union, the United States and Japan mainly operated semi-rigid airships. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany


title: Airship content: was not allowed to build airships of greater capacity than a million cubic feet. Two small passenger airships, LZ 120 "Bodensee" and its sister ship LZ 121 "Nordstern", were built immediately after the war but were confiscated following the sabotage of the wartime Zeppelins that were to have been handed over as war reparations: "Bodensee" was given to Italy and "Nordstern" to France. On May 12, 1926, the Italian semi-rigid airship "Norge" was the first aircraft to fly over the North Pole. The British R33 and R34 were near-identical copies of the German L 33, which had come down almost


title: Airship content: intact in Yorkshire on 24 September 1916. Despite being almost three years out of date by the time they were launched in 1919, they became two of the most successful airships in British service. The creation of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in early 1918 created a hybrid British airship program. The RAF was not interested in airships while the Admiralty was, so a deal was made where the Admiralty would design any future military airships and the RAF would handle manpower, facilities and operations. On 2 July 1919, R34 began the first double crossing of the Atlantic by an


title: Airship content: aircraft. It landed at Mineola, Long Island on 6 July after 108 hours in the air; the return crossing began on 8 July and took 75 hours. This feat failed to generate enthusiasm for continued airship development, and the British airship program was rapidly wound down. During World War One, the U.S. Navy acquired its first airship, the DH-1, but it was destroyed while being inflated shortly after delivery to the Navy. After the war, the U.S. Navy contracted to buy the R 38, which was being built in Britain, but before it was handed over it was destroyed because


title: Airship content: of a structural failure during a test flight. America then started constructing the , designed by the Bureau of Aeronautics and based on the Zeppelin L 49. Assembled in Hangar No. 1 and first flown on 4 September 1923 at Lakehurst, New Jersey, it was the first airship to be inflated with the noble gas helium, which was then so scarce that the "Shenandoah" contained most of the world's supply. A second airship, , was built by the Zeppelin company as compensation for the airships that should have been handed over as war reparations according to the terms of the


title: Airship content: Versailles Treaty but had been sabotaged by their crews. This construction order saved the Zeppelin works from the threat of closure. The success of the "Los Angeles", which was flown successfully for eight years, encouraged the U.S. Navy to invest in its own, larger airships. When the "Los Angeles" was delivered, the two airships had to share the limited supply of helium, and thus alternated operating and overhauls. In 1922 Sir Dennistoun Burney suggested a plan for a subsidised air service throughout the British Empire using airships (the Burney Scheme). Following the coming to power of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government


title: Airship content: in 1924, the scheme was transformed into the Imperial Airship Scheme, under which two airships were built, one by a private company and the other by the Royal Airship Works under Air Ministry control. The two designs were radically different. The "capitalist" ship, the "R100", was more conventional, while the "socialist" ship, the R101, had many innovative design features. Construction of both took longer than expected, and the airships did not fly until 1929. Neither airship was capable of the service intended, though the R100 did complete a proving flight to Canada and back in 1930. On 5 October 1930,


title: Airship content: however, the R101, which had not been thoroughly tested after major modifications, crashed on its maiden voyage at Beauvais in France killing 48 of the 54 people aboard. Among the dead were the craft's chief designer and the Secretary of State for Air. The disaster put an end to further British airship development. The Locarno Treaties of 1925 lifted the restrictions on German airship construction, and the Zeppelin company started construction of the "Graf Zeppelin" (LZ 127), the largest airship that could be built in the company's existing shed, and intended to stimulate interest in passenger airships. The "Graf Zeppelin"


title: Airship content: burned "blau gas", similar to propane, stored in large gas bags below the hydrogen cells, as fuel. Since its density was similar to that of air, it avoided the weight change as fuel was used, and thus the need to valve hydrogen. The "Graf Zeppelin" was a great success and had an impressive safety record, flying over (including the first circumnavigation of the globe by air) without a single passenger injury. The U.S. Navy experimented with the use of airships as airborne aircraft carriers, developing an idea pioneered by the British. The USS "Los Angeles" was used for initial experiments,


title: Airship content: and the and , the world's largest at the time, were used to test the principle in naval operations. Each carried four F9C Sparrowhawk fighters in its hangar, and could carry a fifth on the trapeze. The idea had mixed results. By the time the Navy started to develop a sound doctrine for using the ZRS-type airships, the last of the two built, USS "Macon", had been lost. The seaplane had become more capable, and was considered a better investment. Eventually, the U.S. Navy lost all three U.S.-built rigid airships to accidents. USS "Shenandoah" flew into a severe thunderstorm over


title: Airship content: Noble County, Ohio while on a poorly planned publicity flight on 3 September 1925. It broke into pieces, killing 14 of its crew. USS "Akron" was caught in a severe storm and flown into the surface of the sea off the shore of New Jersey on 3 April 1933. It carried no life boats and few life vests, so 73 of its crew of 76 died from drowning or hypothermia. USS "Macon" was lost after suffering a structural failure offshore near Point Sur Lighthouse on 12 February 1935. The failure caused a loss of gas, which was made much worse


title: Airship content: when the aircraft was driven over pressure height causing it to lose too much helium to maintain flight. Only two of its crew of 83 died in the crash thanks to the inclusion of life jackets and inflatable rafts after the "Akron" disaster. The Empire State Building was completed in 1931 with a dirigible mast, in anticipation of passenger airship service. Various entrepreneurs experimented with commuting and shipping freight via airship. In the 1930s the German Zeppelins successfully competed with other means of transport. They could carry significantly more passengers than other contemporary aircraft while providing amenities similar to those


title: Airship content: on ocean liners, such as private cabins, observation decks, and dining rooms. Less importantly, the technology was potentially more energy-efficient than heavier-than-air designs. Zeppelins were also faster than ocean liners. On the other hand, operating airships was quite involved. Often the crew would outnumber passengers, and on the ground large teams were necessary to assist mooring and very large hangars were required at airports. By the mid-1930s only Germany still pursued airship development. The Zeppelin company continued to operate the "Graf Zeppelin" on passenger service between Frankfurt and Recife in Brazil, taking 68 hours. Even with the small "Graf Zeppelin",


title: Airship content: the operation was almost profitable. In the mid-1930s work started to build an airship designed specifically to operate a passenger service across the Atlantic. The "Hindenburg" (LZ 129) completed a successful 1936 season, carrying passengers between Lakehurst, New Jersey and Germany. 1937 started with the most spectacular and widely remembered airship accident. Approaching the Lakehurst mooring mast minutes before landing on 6 May 1937, the "Hindenburg" burst into flames and crashed. Of the 97 people aboard, 36 died: 13 passengers, 22 aircrew, and one American ground-crewman. The disaster happened before a large crowd, was filmed and a radio news reporter


title: Airship content: was recording the arrival. This was a disaster that theater goers could see and hear in newsreels. The "Hindenburg" disaster shattered public confidence in airships, and brought a definitive end to their "golden age". The day after the "Hindenburg" crashed, the "Graf Zeppelin" landed at the end of its flight from Brazil. This was the last international passenger airship flight. "Hindenburg"s sister ship, the "Graf Zeppelin II" (LZ 130), could not carry commercial passengers without helium, which the United States refused to sell to Germany during wartime. The "Graf Zeppelin" made several test flights and conducted some electronic espionage until


title: Airship content: 1939 when it was grounded due to the beginning of the war. The two "Graf Zeppelins" were scrapped in the spring of 1940. Development of airships continued only in the United States, and to a smaller extent, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had several semi-rigid and non-rigid airships. The semi-rigid dirigible SSSR-V6 OSOAVIAKhIM was among the largest of these craft, and it set the longest endurance flight at the time of over 130 hours. It crashed into a mountain in 1938, however, killing 13 of the 19 people on board. While this was a severe blow to the Soviet


title: Airship content: airship program, they continued to operate non-rigid airships until 1950. While Germany determined that airships were obsolete for military purposes in the coming war and concentrated on the development of aeroplanes, the United States pursued a program of military airship construction even though it had not developed a clear military doctrine for airship use. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, bringing the United States into World War II, the U.S. Navy had 10 nonrigid airships: Only "K"- and "TC"-class airships were suitable for combat and they were quickly pressed into service against Japanese and German submarines,


title: Airship content: which were then sinking American shipping within visual range of the American coast. U.S. Navy command, remembering airship's anti-submarine success in World War I, immediately requested new modern antisubmarine airships and on 2 January 1942 formed the ZP-12 patrol unit based in Lakehurst from the four "K" airships. The ZP-32 patrol unit was formed from two "TC" and two "L" airships a month later, based at NAS Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, California. An airship training base was created there as well. The status of submarine-hunting Goodyear airships in the early days of World War II has created significant confusion. Although


title: Airship content: various accounts refer to airships "Resolute" and "Volunteer" as operating as "privateers" under a Letter of Marque, Congress never authorized a commission, nor did the President sign one. In the years 1942–44, approximately 1,400 airship pilots and 3,000 support crew members were trained in the military airship crew training program and the airship military personnel grew from 430 to 12,400. The U.S. airships were produced by the Goodyear factory in Akron, Ohio. From 1942 till 1945, 154 airships were built for the U.S. Navy (133 "K"-class, 10 "L"-class, seven "G"-class, four "M"-class) and five "L"-class for civilian customers (serial numbers


title: Airship content: "L-4" to "L-8"). The primary airship tasks were patrol and convoy escort near the American coastline. They also served as an organization centre for the convoys to direct ship movements, and were used in naval search and rescue operations. Rarer duties of the airships included aerophoto reconnaissance, naval mine-laying and mine-sweeping, parachute unit transport and deployment, cargo and personnel transportation. They were deemed quite successful in their duties with the highest combat readiness factor in the entire U.S. air force (87%). During the war, some 532 ships without airship escort were sunk near the U.S. coast by enemy submarines. Only


title: Airship content: one ship, the tanker "Persephone", of the 89,000 or so in convoys escorted by blimps was sunk by the enemy. Airships engaged submarines with depth charges and, less frequently, with other on-board weapons. They were excellent at driving submarines down, where their limited speed and range prevented them from attacking convoys. The weapons available to airships were so limited that until the advent of the homing torpedo they had little chance of sinking a submarine. Only one airship was ever destroyed by U-boat: on the night of 18/19 July 1943, the "K-74" from ZP-21 division was patrolling the coastline near


title: Airship content: Florida. Using radar, the airship located a surfaced German submarine. The "K-74" made her attack run but the U-boat opened fire first. "K-74"s depth charges did not release as she crossed the U-boat and the "K-74" received serious damage, losing gas pressure and an engine but landing in the water without loss of life. The crew was rescued by patrol boats in the morning, but one crewman, Aviation Machinist's Mate Second Class Isadore Stessel, died from a shark attack. The U-Boat, , was slightly damaged and the next day or so was attacked by aircraft, sustaining damage that forced it


title: Airship content: to return to base. It was finally sunk on 24 August 1943 by a British Vickers Wellington near Vigo, Spain. Fleet Airship Wing One operated from Lakehurst, New Jersey, Glynco, Georgia, Weeksville, North Carolina, South Weymouth NAS Massachusetts, Brunswick NAS and Bar Harbor Maine, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Argentia, Newfoundland. Some Navy blimps saw action in the European war theater. In 1944-45, the U.S. Navy moved an entire squadron of eight Goodyear K class blimps (K-89, K-101, K-109, K-112, K-114, K-123, K-130, & K-134) with flight and maintenance crews from Weeksville Naval Air Station in North Carolina to Naval Air


title: Airship content: Station Port Lyautey, French Morocco. Their mission was to locate and destroy German U-boats in the relatively shallow waters around the Strait of Gibraltar where magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) was viable. PBY aircraft had been searching these waters but MAD required low altitude flying that was dangerous at night for these aircraft. The blimps were considered a perfect solution to establish a 24/7 MAD barrier (fence) at the Straits of Gibraltar with the PBYs flying the day shift and the blimps flying the night shift. The first two blimps (K-123 & K-130) left South Weymouth NAS on 28 May 1944


title: Airship content: and flew to Argentia, Newfoundland, the Azores, and finally to Port Lyautey where they completed the first transatlantic crossing by nonrigid airships on 1 June 1944. The blimps of USN Blimp Squadron ZP-14 (Blimpron 14, aka "The Africa Squadron") also conducted mine-spotting and mine-sweeping operations in key Mediterranean ports and various escorts including the convoy carrying United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Yalta Conference in 1945. Airships from the ZP-12 unit took part in the sinking of the last U-Boat before German capitulation, sinking the "U-881" on 6 May 1945 together with


title: Airship content: destroyers Atherton and Mobery. Other airships patrolled the Caribbean, Fleet Airship Wing Two, Headquartered at NAS Richmond, Florida, covered the Gulf of Mexico from Richmond and Key West, Florida, Houma, Louisiana, as well as Hitchcock and Brownsville, Texas. FAW 2 also patrolled the northern Caribbean from San Julian, the Isle of Pines (now called Isla de la Juventud) and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as Vernam Field, Jamaica. Navy blimps of Fleet Airship Wing Five, (ZP-51) operated from bases in Trinidad, British Guiana and Paramaribo, Suriname. Fleet Airship Wing Four operated along the coast of Brazil. Two squadrons, VP-41 and


title: Airship content: VP-42 flew from bases at Amapá, Igarapé-Açu, São Luís Fortaleza, Fernando de Noronha, Recife, Maceió, Ipitanga (near Salvador, Bahia), Caravelas, Vitória and the hangar built for the "Graf Zeppelin" at Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro. Fleet Airship Wing Three operated squadrons, ZP-32 from Moffett Field, ZP-31 at NAS Santa Ana, and ZP-33 at NAS Tillamook, Oregon. Auxiliary fields were at Del Mar, Lompoc, Watsonville and Eureka, California, North Bend and Astoria, Oregon, as well as Shelton and Quillayute in Washington. From 2 January 1942 until the end of war airship operations in the Atlantic, the blimps of the Atlantic fleet


title: Airship content: made 37,554 flights and flew 378,237 hours. Of the over 70,000 ships in convoys protected by blimps, only one was sunk by a submarine while under blimp escort. The Soviet Union flew a single airship during the war. The "W-12", built in 1939, entered service in 1942 for paratrooper training and equipment transport. It made 1432 flights with 300 metric tons of cargo until 1945. On 1 February 1945, the Soviets constructed a second airship, a "Pobeda"-class ("Victory"-class) unit (used for mine-sweeping and wreckage clearing in the Black Sea) that crashed on 21 January 1947. Another "W"-class - W-12bis "Patriot"


title: Airship content: - was commissioned in 1947 and was mostly used until the mid 1950s for crew training, parades and propaganda. Although airships are no longer used for major cargo and passenger transport, they are still used for other purposes such as advertising, sightseeing, surveillance, research and advocacy. In the 1980s, Per Lindstrand and his team introduced the "GA-42" airship, the first airship to use fly-by-wire flight control, which considerably reduced the pilot's workload. The world's largest thermal airship () was constructed by the Per Lindstrand company for French botanists in 1993. The "AS-300" carried an underslung raft, which was positioned by


title: Airship content: the airship on top of tree canopies in the rain forest, allowing the botanists to carry out their treetop research without significant damage to the rainforest. When research was finished at a given location, the airship returned to pick up and relocate the raft. In the spring of 2004, Lindstrand Technologies supplied the world's first fully functional unmanned airship to the Ministry of Defense in Spain. This airship carried a classified payload and its surveillance mission was also classified. Four years later, this airship, which is designated "GA-22", still flies on an almost daily basis. In June 1987, the U.S.


title: Airship content: Navy awarded a US$168.9 million contract to Westinghouse Electric and Airship Industries of the UK to find out whether an airship could be used as an airborne platform to detect the threat of sea-skimming missiles, such as the Exocet. At 2.5 million cubic feet, the Westinghouse/Airship Industries Sentinel 5000 (Redesignated YEZ-2A by the U. S. Navy) prototype design was to have been the largest blimp ever constructed. Additional funding for the Naval Airship Program was killed in 1995, however, and development was discontinued. The "CA-80" airship, which was produced in 2000 by Shanghai Vantage Airship Manufacture Co., Ltd., had a


title: Airship content: successful trial flight in September 2001. This was designed for the purpose of advertisement and propagation, air-photo, scientific test, tour and surveillance duties. It was certified as a grade-A Hi-Tech introduction program (№ 20000186) in Shanghai. The CAAC authority granted a type design approval and certificate of airworthiness for the airship. In the 1990s the Zeppelin company returned to the airship business. Their new model, designated the Zeppelin NT, made its maiden flight on 18 September 1997. there were four NT aircraft flying, a fifth was completed in March 2009 and an expanded NT-14 (14,000 cubic meters of helium, capable


title: Airship content: of carrying 19 passengers) was under construction. One was sold to a Japanese company, and was planned to be flown to Japan in the summer of 2004. Due to delays getting permission from the Russian government, the company decided to transport the airship to Japan by sea. One of the four NT craft is in South Africa carrying diamond detection equipment from De Beers, an application at which the very stable low vibration NT platform excels. The project included design adaptations for high temperature operation and desert climate, as well as a separate mooring mast and a very heavy mooring


title: Airship content: truck. NT-4 belonged to Airship Ventures of Moffett Field, Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area, and provided sight-seeing tours. Blimps are used for advertising and as TV camera platforms at major sporting events. The most iconic of these are the Goodyear Blimps. Goodyear operates three blimps in the United States, and The Lightship Group, now The AirSign Airship Group, operates up to 19 advertising blimps around the world. Airship Management Services owns and operates three Skyship 600 blimps. Two operate as advertising and security ships in North America and the Caribbean. Airship Ventures operated a Zeppelin NT for


title: Airship content: advertising, passenger service and special mission projects. They were the only airship operator in the U.S. authorized to fly commercial passengers, until closing their doors in 2012. Skycruise Switzerland AG owns and operates two Skyship 600 blimps. One operates regularly over Switzerland used on sightseeing tours. The Switzerland-based Skyship 600 has also played other roles over the years. For example, it was flown over Athens during the 2004 Summer Olympics as a security measure. In November 2006, it carried advertising calling it "The Spirit of Dubai" as it began a publicity tour from London to Dubai, UAE on behalf of


title: Airship content: The Palm Islands, the world's largest man-made islands created as a residential complex. Los Angeles-based Worldwide Aeros Corp. produces FAA Type Certified Aeros 40D Sky Dragon airships. In May 2006, the U.S. Navy began to fly airships again after a hiatus of nearly 44 years. The program uses a single American Blimp Company A-170 nonrigid airship, with designation MZ-3A. Operations focus on crew training and research, and the platform integrator is Northrop Grumman. The program is directed by the Naval Air Systems Command and is being carried out at NAES Lakehurst, the original centre of U.S. Navy lighter-than-air operations in


title: Airship content: previous decades. In November 2006 the U.S. Army bought an A380+ airship from American Blimp Corporation through a Systems level contract with Northrop Grumman and Booz Allen Hamilton. The airship started flight tests in late 2007, with a primary goal of carrying of payload to an altitude of under remote control and autonomous waypoint navigation. The program will also demonstrate carrying of payload to The platform could be used for Multi-Intelligence collections. In 2008, the "CA-150" airship was launched by Vantage Airship. This is an improved modification of model "CA-120" and completed manufacturing in 2008. With larger volume and increased


title: Airship content: passenger capacity, it is the largest manned nonrigid airship in China at present. An airship was prominently featured in the James Bond film "A View to a Kill", released in 1985. The Skyship 500 had the livery of Zorin Industries. In late June 2014 the Electronic Frontier Foundation flew the GEFA-FLUG AS 105 GD/4 blimp AE Bates (owned by, and in conjunction with, Greenpeace) over the NSA's Bluffdale Utah Data Center in protest. Hybrid designs such as the Heli-Stat airship/helicopter, the Aereon aerostatic/aerodynamic craft, and the CycloCrane (a hybrid aerostatic/rotorcraft), struggled to take flight. The Cyclocrane was also interesting in


title: Airship content: that the airship's envelope rotated along its longitudinal axis. In 2005, a short-lived project of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was Walrus HULA, which explored the potential for using airships as long-distance, heavy lift craft. The primary goal of the research program was to determine the feasibility of building an airship capable of carrying of payload a distance of and land on an unimproved location without the use of external ballast or ground equipment (such as masts). In 2005, two contractors, Lockheed Martin and US Aeros Airships were each awarded approximately $3 million to do feasibility studies


title: Airship content: of designs for WALRUS. Congress removed funding for Walrus HULA in 2006. In 2010, the U.S. Army awarded a $517 million (£350.6 million) contract to Northrop Grumman and partner Hybrid Air Vehicles to develop a Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) system, in the form of three HAV 304s. The project was cancelled in February 2012 due to it being behind schedule and over budget; also the forthcoming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan where it was intended to be deployed. Following this the Hybrid Air Vehicles HAV 304 Airlander 10 was repurchased by Hybrid Air Vehicles then modified and reassembled in Bedford,


title: Airship content: UK, and renamed the Airlander 10. It is currently being tested in readiness for its UK flight test programme. , a French company, manufactures and operates airships and aerostats. For 2 years, A-NSE has been testing its airships for the French Army. Airships and aerostats are operated to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support. Their airships include many innovative features such as water ballast take-off and landing systems, variable geometry envelopes and thrust–vectoring systems. The U..S government has funded two major projects in the high altitude arena. The Composite Hull High Altitude Powered Platform (CHHAPP) is sponsored by U.S.


title: Airship content: Army Space and Missile Defense Command. This aircraft is also sometimes called "HiSentinel High-Altitude Airship". This prototype ship made a five-hour test flight in September 2005. The second project, the high-altitude airship (HAA), is sponsored by DARPA. In 2005, DARPA awarded a contract for nearly $150 million to Lockheed Martin for prototype development. First flight of the HAA was planned for 2008 but suffered programmatic and funding delays. The HAA project evolved into the High Altitude Long Endurance-Demonstrator (HALE-D). The U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin launched the first-of-its kind HALE-D on July 27, 2011. After attaining an altitude of ,