Okay - I know how a balloon: it’s all a matter of density differences, and so forth. So… What if I took an enclosed gasbag, filled it halfway with helium (no hydrogen!), and heated that until it expanded to fill the bag completely - would this increase the lifting power by an appreciable percentage? And if so, would this be practical? Would I need something like a huge, heavy strut network for the heating elements and a power source more powerful than generators run by the engines? Would this work?
IANABalloonist, but given that hot air balloons work when filled with nothing but, well, hot air, I would assume that a helium balloon filled with hot helium would work better than one filled with “room temperature” helium.
Sorry, you’re too late, Redukter, it’s already been done.
On the Web page, those are all links–check some of them out, see if there are diagrams.