Aeronautics

thumb|A modern airship, Zeppelin NT D-LZZF in 2010 thumb|The LZ 129 Hindenburg|LZ 129 Hindenburg was the largest airship ever built and was destroyed in 1937. thumb|120px|upright|Dirigible airships compared with related aerostats, from the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1890–1907 An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air to achieve the lift needed to stay airborne.

thumb|NH90 TTH Caïman (EBU) at the [[Paris Air Show - Le Bourget 2025]] thumb|Air France, Airbus A380-861, F-HPJA thumb|Space Shuttle Atlantis|Space Shuttle Atlantis on a [[Shuttle Carrier Aircraft]]

difference in wind speed or direction over a short distance

position relative to vessel direction

distance a vehicle can travel

imaginary straight line joining the leading and trailing edges of an aerofoil

Wikimedia list article

ratio of the lift of an aircraft to its weight

Lofting is a drafting technique to generate curved lines. It is used in plans for streamlined objects such as aircraft and boats. The lines may be drawn on wood and the wood then cut for advanced woodworking. The technique can be as simple as bending a flexible object, such as a long strip of thin wood or thin plastic, so that it passes over three non-linear points, and scribing the resultant curved line; or as elaborate as plotting the line using computers or mathematical tables.