Practical Airship Design Part 2

Contents and Prospectus

My fellow crew members suggested that I try to organize this series of posts so they would be able to identify the various sections they were interested in and would, hopefully, like to comment on.
Each entry below will be linked to the actual post (once I write and post them).  There is a lot of interesting stuff to cover and of course many of them overlap so the actual posts may not be quite so specific, but this is my plan so far:

• Part 1 Making the Fantastical Practical A brief introduction as to why I'm doing this and the introduction of the major fantastical element of this design, that being the mysterious ultra-powerful energy source used in the airship.
• Part 2 Contents and Prospectus  This post!
• Part 3a The Case for Steam (almost) A brief discussion of how a conventional airship flies.
• Part 3b The Case for Steam A discussion of the rationale, pros and cons, for the use of steam as the lifting gas for the airship. Much of the subsequent design discussions revolve around and depend on this design decision, as what allows an airship to fly is probably one of the most important elements to discuss.
• Part 4 To Fly Amongst the Clouds A proposal for the way our fantastical power core generates both lift gas and propulsion power.
• Part 5 Engines Tanks and Bulkheads Oh My! A discussion of one proposed layout for the "engine room" and the primary systems  including steam generators and propulsion systems.
• Part 5a More Engines Tanks and Bulkheads Oh My! After further reflection, here is a more detailed discussion of the high pressure steam system used to drive our main power plant.
• Part 5b Full Steam Ahead A summary of the design of our airship, and a description of the layout of the engine room.
• Part 5c A Self Mobile Cloud  A discussion of some of the lift control issues using steam as our lift gas.
  
• Part 6 Domestic Tranquility Systems Of course a globe trotting airship like ours is more than just an engine hanging from a balloon! The officers, crew and passengers need to be able to live aboard for extended periods of time. What's more some of the crew members are Ladies so we must include many creature comforts for them.
• Part 6a More Domestic Tranquility Systems. A document I prepared for our Role Play group summarizing the interior layout of our airship
• Part 7 Splendid She Must Be In conclusion, our Captain has ordered that she must, in addition to being one of the most technologically advanced airships of the age, be one of the most "Splendid"(tm) and this post will attempt to grant his wishes to the best of this poor flight engineer's ability.  

Additional posts as needed to discuss other aspects of the design like communications, weapons, control systems, role playing etc.

• Our Airship Presenting the HMAS Velvet Brush
• Airship Technology Speech  My character, as Engineering Officer , was ordered to give a presentation about the technical wonders of our fine ship. I decided to actually give the speech.
• An Analysis of a Real System "Steam Power Plants in Aircraft"  by  E.E. Wilson at the Bureau of Aeronautics, 1926

I hope you will follow along with me as we hash out these knotty issues and design our fantastical, yet practical, airship. To give you a taste for the kind of craft we are dealing with check out the fantastic Steampunk Art of *Voitv on Deviant Art.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

By clicking on the tag "Flight Engineer". you can find lots more Airship information.

Click here for Part 3a of the Practical Airship Design series