RC Dirigible Galley

We've all seen drawings or read stories of sailing ships attached to dirigibles, but they all seem to be powered by aircraft propellers... how unoriginal.

The "Flying Scull" is a radio-controlled model of a mythical flying ship: a cigar-shaped hydrogen dirigible, close underslung by a pirate-ship (sans sails), cannons fixed on the deck, sides and keel, and two banks of oars with very broad curved blades protrude from each side.

As you can imagine, an individual oar sweep consists of a back stroke with the blade in a vertical position, followed by a forestroke in the horizontal position. In order to compensate for asymmetric drag, the front oars angle to push the air slightly upwards as well as back, the rear oars slightly downwards. Forward and backward motion, turning and a certain amount of pitch control are all available to the operator as well as preprogrammed "dance" modes. Having only a very slight negative buoyancy, altitude can be gained by using the oars in a vertical direction.

The cannons of course really fire.

Also available is the "Air Viking": a Nordic longboat variety.