Airship

An airship (Hikōsen) is a flying craft that stays aloft through buoyant gases rather than powered lift. That passive flotation gives the type longer range and better fuel economy than airplanes such as the flying boat. Before the year 850, only the nations beyond Paradis Island possessed airships, the island's century of isolation having kept the technology out of reach; by 854 the Survey Corps secures a ship of its own and uses it to pull its forces out of the raid on Liberio. On Paradis itself, Armin Arlert's parents once tried to cross the Walls in a hot air balloon, an unpowered cousin of the airship, and were killed by the Military Police for the attempt, leaving Armin an orphan.

Designs vary, but the ribbing visible through the envelope suggests most airships are built around rigid frames, and their envelopes hold shape even after landing; for that reason most of the ships shown would technically classify as zeppelins. Marley's craft mount their propellers beside a single enormous compartment running close to two thirds the length of the frame, and the bridge, the machine guns, and the cargo and passenger spaces all sit together in that compartment beneath the ship.

Militarily the airship is a flexible platform. The same vessel can observe a battlefield from altitude, parachute troops or Titan fodder from its hold, sweep ground targets with machine-gun fire, or drop explosive barrels as a crude bomber. Its weakness is its fragility: thrown stones from the Beast Titan are enough to bring entire flights down.

Marley operates airships earlier and more widely than any other power. One flies out of Liberio as far back as the year 817, when a young Grisha Yeager and his sister Faye trail it to its hangar and are seized by Public Security officers for leaving the internment zone. In the last stage of the Marley Mid-East War, an airship hovers above Fort Slava carrying Reiner Braun, Zeke Yeager, and a hold of captive Eldians; the captives are dropped and transformed mid-air by Zeke into Titans, a living bombardment that breaks the fort and destroys the Mid-East Allied Navy.

The Survey Corps gains its own ship by 854. Piloted by Onyankopon, it follows a path of rooftop lights to extract the Paradis forces after the raid on Liberio; Porco Galliard's attempt to destroy it fails, but Gabi Braun and Falco Grice board by killing a soldier, and Gabi's gunfire kills Sasha Blouse during the flight home. In the War for Paradis arc the type fares poorly. Marleyan airships supporting the assault on Shiganshina strafe the Yeagerists from above until Zeke's barrage of stones downs all five, one wreck landing on the gate to Wall Maria and blocking it. Two surviving ships carry news of the Rumbling back to the mainland, and the fleet later launched from Fort Salta drops its bombs from too high to matter, then falls to fragments hurled by the Beast Titan that Eren manifests from his own Titan's back, its wreckage trampled by the advancing Wall Titans.