Those Exotic Airships or Dirigibles...

The dirigible balloon created by Giffard in 185Work on developing a dirigible (steerable) balloon, nowadays called an airship, continued sporadically throughout the 19th century.

The first sustained powered, controlled flight in history is believed to have taken place on 24 September 1852 when Henri Giffard flew 15 miles (24 km) in France from Paris to Trappes with the Giffard dirigible, a non-rigid airship filled with hydrogen and powered by a 3 horsepower (2.2 kW) steam engine driving a 3 bladed propeller.

In 1863, Solomon Andrews flew his aereon design, an unpowered, controllable dirigible in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He flew a later design in 1866 around New York City and as far as Oyster Bay, New York. His technique of gliding under gravity works by changing the lift to provide propulsive force as the airship alternately rises and sinks, and so does not need a powerplant.

A further advance was made on 9 August 1884, when the first fully controllable free flight was made by Charles Renardand Arthur Constantin Krebs in a French Army electric-powered airship, La France. The 170-foot (52 m) long, 66,000-cubic-foot (1,900 m³) airship covered 8 km (5.0 mi) in 23 minutes with the aid of an 8.5 horsepower (6.3 kW) electric motor, returning to its starting point. This was the first flight over a closed circuit.

The 1884 La France, the first fully controllable airship

These aircraft were not practical. Besides being generally frail and short-lived, they were non-rigid or at best semi-rigid. Consequently, it was difficult to make them large enough to carry a commercial load.

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin realised that a rigid outer frame would allow a much bigger airship. He founded the Zeppelin firm, whose rigid Luftschiff Zeppelin 1 (LZ 1) first flew from the Bodensee on the Swiss border on 2 July 1900. The flight lasted 18 minutes. The second and third flights, in October 1900 and on 24 October 1900 respectively, beat the 6 m/s (13 mph) speed record of the French airship La France by 3 m/s (6.7 mph).

The Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont became famous by designing, building, and flying dirigibles. He built and flew the first fully practical dirigible capable of routine, controlled flight. With his dirigible No.6 he won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize on 19 October 1901 with a flight that took off from Saint-Cloud, rounded the Eiffel Tower and returned to its starting point.

By now, the airship was established as the first practicable form of air travel...  Yippee!!!