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http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/cargolifter/
"The CargoLifter CL 160 is a semi-rigid airship under development by CargoLifter AG, a German company that plans to build airships capable of carrying enormous loads for the bulk air freight market. In May 2002, the CL 160 development was halted due to financial problems and the status of the programme is uncertain. In June 2002, the company made an application for insolvency. In August 2002, work on Cargolifter's other major programme, the CL 75 lifting balloon was also halted."

whereas these 747's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-400 see to hit bout 124 tons

The lifting power of an airship goes up with it's volume (3 dimensional), while its weight only goes up with surface area (2 dimensional), as a consequence the ship doesn't need to get much bigger to substantialy increase its lifting capability.

So while this thing is just over 6 times longer than the blimp you were in, it's able to lift 160 tons of additional weight.

This is not the only lifting body design for an airship currently in production today. The SkyCat project by the Advanced Technologies Group in the UK has been developing a lifting body airship for several years now and is very near completion.

Unlike the Dynalifter project (which will use underslung cargo pods) the SkyCat has a hollow central section in the body into which trucks and other vehicles may be driven, kind of like the hold in a ferry.

The skycat is designed to take off and land like a conventional aircraft but it uses two concentric hovercraft cussions instead of conventional landing gear so it can land on hastily prepaired air strips or water if necessary. Once it has landed the pump on the inner hovercraft cussion is reversed creating a vacume that sucks the SkyCat to the ground so that it won't drift off

The Skycat project has had interest from the Americam military and the Chinese government.
In fact the US military has even carried out several tests on the remote controlled SkyCat prototypes and concluded that the lifting body airship design is safer for use in hostile situations than a helicopter.

For further conceptual ideas for uses of the SkyCat see World SkyCat who appear to be a company set up to market the skycat when it reaches full production.

I can't find any references to it on line but the discovery channel in the UK did a fantastic documentary on the SkyCat project a couple of years ago, where they didn't mention the Dynalifter project but they did mention the CargoLifter (German only).
CargoLifter is a massive semi rigid air ship that is designd to lift huge payloads via a winch whilst airborn, transport them to where they are needed and deploy them using the same winch mechanism.
The CargoLifter project is currently on hold due to a lack of funding.
For further information in english on the CargoLifter project see this article at aerospace-technology.com.

This is not the only lifting body design for an airship currently in production today. The SkyCat project by the Advanced Technologies Group in the UK has been developing a lifting body airship for several years now and is very near completion.

Unlike the Dynalifter project (which will use underslung cargo pods) the SkyCat has a hollow central section in the body into which trucks and other vehicles may be driven, kind of like the hold in a ferry.

The skycat is designed to take off and land like a conventional aircraft but it uses two concentric hovercraft cussions instead of conventional landing gear so it can land on hastily prepaired air strips or water if necessary. Once it has landed the pump on the inner hovercraft cussion is reversed creating a vacume that sucks the SkyCat to the ground so that it won't drift off

The Skycat project has had interest from the Americam military and the Chinese government.
In fact the US military has even carried out several tests on the remote controlled SkyCat prototypes and concluded that the lifting body airship design is safer for use in hostile situations than a helicopter.

For further conceptual ideas for uses of the SkyCat see World SkyCat who appear to be a company set up to market the skycat when it reaches full production.

I can't find any references to it on line but the discovery channel in the UK did a fantastic documentary on the SkyCat project a couple of years ago, where they didn't mention the Dynalifter project but they did mention the CargoLifter (German only).
CargoLifter is a massive semi rigid air ship that is designd to lift huge payloads via a winch whilst airborn, transport them to where they are needed and deploy them using the same winch mechanism.
The CargoLifter project is currently on hold due to a lack of funding.
For further information in english on the CargoLifter project see this article at aerospace-technology.com.

2001:
CargoLifter AG based to the South of Berlin in Germany is developing "Lighter-than-Air" systems for logistics and other applications. The Company's first product, the CL 75 AC balloon based system has been in prototype flight test since October 2001.

2002:
For reasons of insolvency the CargoLifter AG Board of Managing Directors today filed an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings on the assets of CargoLifter AG at the Cottbus District Court.

I'm not saying it can't, or shouldn't be done, it makes sense on some levels, i.e. not having to ship your tons of goods via truck->rail->boat->rail->truck, but I remember reading about the operation mentioned above a few years back. It was no garage business, they had a wealthy shipping magnate with a lot of vertical expertise, a slew of aerospace engineers, and a ton of capital.

The problem, IIRC, was that the infrastructure to handle these things (big hangars) are gone, and real estate is too valuable to go around scooping it up near transportation hubs, where they could be integrated into existing systems. I think they went broke, not because the airships were too costly to build, but there weren't any other facilities to land/unload/service the things, and they had to build those too. The problem is easy to spot when you look at their plans.

Anyone left who remembers the fabulously failing Cargolifter AG in Germany? http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/cargo lifter/

Boeing 747-400 has a wingspan of 211ft 5in (64.4m), max takeoff weight of 412,770kg and a maximum range of 8,430 statute miles.

Well, IIRC, ESA participated in the financing of Hubble. I think it wasn't a lot of money but still, does ESA have something to say about the future of Hubble ?

So, I suggest a modest investment of a fraction of the proposed cost in: CargoLifter. A decently large fleet wouldn't cost tens of billions, and would provide cheep fast enough cargo service. We could scrap the alaska-siberia issue (being close is not as nescesary), and concentrate on moving stuff between the pacific coastal areas (like San Francisco up to Vancouver (is it?) over to Japan, Hong Kong and some of China). See also: a summary of the cargolifter project.

Now I am a fan of both trains and airships, so ultimately I should like to see both come to pass. But before the bearing-tunnel is a good idea, I should like to see capable, speedy, regular, and affordable rail travel instituted between North American cities at least, then central america and south america too. By regular, I mean Boston to Chicago or Washington at least four times daily (one way), and close locations like Worcester to New York (or even just Boston), or Houston to Dallas, hourly or if they're really close (like an hour appart) then half hourly.

-Daniel

Ahhh. The Swiss Rail