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Return of the Zeppelins
kfg writes: "While the world has focused its aeronautic attention on the Helios solar powered plane the Zeppelin NT has carried it's first paying passengers on a one hour "tourist" flight in Germany, the first Zeppelin to do so since the infamous Hindenburg disaster. This comes after its return from the Paris Airshow where it was an unqualified hit with attendees. I can't really tell you why but this news tickles me more than any other tech news in ages. Sometimes the oldest tech is the coolest. Oh yeah, tickets are $280 American." This is the baby brother of the Cargolifter model; CNN has a brief story.
I swear to god, if I was one of these eccentric billionaires, I would put my fun money towards building an enormous rigid airship instead of these sissy aluminum foil looking fly-around-the-world-in-a-balloon projects. I mean, who gives a shit about recreating 18th century technology (but much more visually boring) to do some Society for Creative Anachronism mission the biggest achievement of which is using your corporate muscle to secure right-of-passage through hostile airspace because if you don't catch the autumn jetstream you're fucked? Fuck that shit. These so-called anomalistic Richard Branson types haven't got even the imagination of a marketing exec. Stop wasting your whimsical millions on boring non-telegenic bullshit. I'll show you how it's done: Biggest zeppelin ever, and not plastered with a bunch of stupid ads for stupid shit. Just a plain grey floating aerolith the size of three Nimitzes. It wouldn't appear at such predictable events such as the Super Bowl or the Great Hasidic Chinatown Traffic Jam of 2003 (which, inconvenient as it was at the time, wound up leading to major breakthroughs in game theory, chaos theory, metatheology, and Cargo-Van-Fu), but rather as a massively imposing spirit borne upon the winds of change. Once the shadow of the rigid airship was nothing more or less than an implacable signifier of Empire; soon -- very soon -- it shall transcend such primitive jingoistic motivations to become a constant reminder of how much better an inconceivably wealthy person I would be compared to all these Donald Trump dipshits we've got polluting our worthy meritocratic ideal today. Believe you me, the first ones up against the wall... no, scratch that. Don't put holes in a perfectly good wall. As a matter of fact, someone loaded that brass shell casing with skill and love and care -- it would be an insult to their craftsmanship to waste it on those shitheads. Let's just let the masses have at them with the homemade machetes that look so crude yet perform so effectively. You're next, Giuliani.
Zeppelins have always made sense economically, and esthetically. But the fact that one is carrying passengers for the first time since FDR's first term shows the power of bad publicity. More people would have died in an airplane crash, but the powerful footage of a burning airship, together with the overwrought commentary of the on-the-scene journalist, has poisoned their rep for years.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Sounds like trouble!!
Zeppelin NT?
Now we get the Blue Blimps of Death...
it'll crash even more now....
www.Beyond7.com Insane modern art water sculpture.
Zeppelin NT:
The Zeppelin NT is a relatively small Zeppelin with only 12 passenger seats. What sets it apart from simple blimps is that a carbon tube over the whole length makes the hull more rigid. Together with three propellers with a swivel angel of up to 120 degrees, that makes for excellent manoeuvrability (specs ). They're close to production.
CargoLifter 160:
In contrast, the CargoLifter will be gigantic (specs). It'll have a length of 260m and will be able to lift up to 160 tons of cargo. So far they've built a balloon for testing purposes and a hangar that is big enough to host fourteen 747s. Both the hangar and the ballon break a number of records. There are a couple of nice webcams.
The fabric of the skin may have been the ignition source but carrying half a billion cubic feet of hydrogen to fuel the blaze doesn't help when you have a spark.
Deleted
This is a small airship, obviously meant as a demonstrator. Their site says the concept can scale from here without much trouble.
Airships wouldn't replace jet aircraft, but they could certainly supplement them as regional transportation. Despite their large size, they can land in a relatively small amount of space... the Goodyear Blimp's landing field, here in Southern California, is the size of a large store parking lot. Couple that with their quieter (than a jet) operations, and you have a great short hop commuter aircraft between smaller markets (Akron to Pittsburgh, for example) or as a transfer vehicle between metropolitan airports and bedroom communities that would otherwise be a multihour bus or van trip away.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
Oh yeah - NT? New Technology? I'm told that's the same expansion as the NT in Windows NT. *sniff sniff* I think I smell a lawsuit.
"People may buy your Zeppelin NT instead of Windows NT by mistake, so we're launching this lawsuit." Don't laugh - they'll do it.
Ash OS durbatulk, ash OS gimbatul, ash OS thrakatulk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul! Uzg-MS-ishi amal fauthut burgulli.
In the case of the Hindenberg, not that much.
You are forgetting the fatal flaw of the Hindenberg: the canvas outer covering used a doping compound of aluminum powder and nitrocellulose. Given that these are two prime ingredients for modern solid rocket fuel, even if the Hindenberg had been filled with helium the airship was essentially a flying bomb waiting to happen.
Actually the last passenger carrying zeppelin was the Hindenburg's sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin II, number LZ-130, which was under construction at the time of the Hindenburg accident (Hindenburg was LZ-129), and completed in 1938. They were never paying passengers, the German Air Ministry never allowed this, and with the advance of war most countries forbid the Germans permission to fly the ship over their soil. Both the Hindenburg & the Graf Zeppelin II were primarily designed for helium lifting, but as the only supplier of helium at the time was the US, and the US refused to sell helium to the Germans, hydrogen had to be used. The best theory about the fire is that it was the doping solution applied to the canvas to waterpoof, which had a very low flashpoint. The Graf Zeppelin II had a different doping solution, using bronze insteal of aluminum, and also conductive connections between the skin and the body, allowing any static charges to be equalized without sparks. The Graf Zeppelin II was scrapped in 1940, due to the war's requirement for materials, after over a million miles of flight.
Where's Zeppelin IV: Their best album with Black Dog and Stairway To Heaven. Also comes with a Red Snapper for the groupies.
"Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." Dark Helmet - Spaceballs
Here is a link to a RealVideo entitled CORRECTING HISTORY: Hydrogen and the Hindenburg, including explanation by Addison Bain, retired NASA scientist.
Also add improper electrical insulation. The skin charging up isn't necessarily a problem, so long as it discharges evenly. It discharged when the mooring rope hit the ground, BUT some panels didn't because they weren't properly grounded to the airframe. You then have a potential difference between panels covered in pretty much rocket fuel and lots of fire.
Whoops. Whoops almighty.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
To be more specific, the doping material on the canvas covering used on the pre-World War II Zeppelins as a way to reflect heat and keep out moisture was a combination of aluminum powder and nitrocellulose.
It was a NASA engineer (who knew that aluminum powder and nitrocellulose are propellents in solid rocket motors) that discovered this fact from looking at a piece of the Hindenberg's canvas covering that managed to survive the crash. He noticed that the stuff burned exactly like solid rocket fuel, and using modern material analysis deduced the doping compounds I mentioned above. In short, the Hindenberg was a flying bomb waiting to happen.
It should be noted that the Zeppelin company did its own internal report (completely in 1938) that noted the doping compound's penchant to burn quickly, but the Nazi government quickly supressed the findings.
Totally different markets.
The nearest market would be the helicopter market or pleasure boat market.
Cargolifter OTOH, will compete with 747s for freight cargos.
http://www.cargolifter.com/
Deleted
Personally I'm glad to see the zepplin fly again. Especially given my affinity for steampunk.
Hi altogether,
...). It maneuvers nearly like a helicopter and can turn and climb or descent on the spot.
r ship/
...
There were technical questions about this wonderful flying machine Zeppelin NT. I will try to remember what I know from the news and the currently defunct webpage.
1. Anchoring and pick up passengers?
It operates ca. 800kg heavier than air. It can land like an aircraft and does not float away while boarding/unboarding. It has an anchoring mast, but needs only three groundpersonell for anchoring compared to roughly 20 for a standard blimp. It can do groundoperations up to 20kts wind as far as I remember, whithout ground personal at all.
2. Maneuvering?
Three Engines, two at the sides with the ability to turn the props for reverse thrust, direct lift and even downforce, one in the rear, giving forward or upward thrust and driving an additional fan for movement around vertical axis(turning). All is completely fly by wire (hopefully NOT NT controlled
3. Only 19 passengers?
There are plans to build a larger one for 40 passengers. Buy it and convert it to your own flying luxury yacht. Also, I think there are different (easier) certification rules for aircraft up to 19 passengers (commuter category)then for aircraft with more passengers.
4. Solar / electrical powered aircraft and airships
Take a look at the following link:
http://www.isd.uni-stuttgart.de/arbeitsgruppen/ai
for a solar powered airship called "Lotte". It looks really cool. I work only some hundred meters away from their place and can see it flying sometimes.
Also look at
http://www.lange-flugzeugbau.de/
for the first commercial electrical powered motorglider to be certified (hopefully) next year. The engine-unit is already flying in a modified glider.
So, Zeppelin NT? The sight of any flying airship, might it be a blimp or a Zeppelin, is just cool. Especially with a huge outboard color display on the ballonett for delivering messages and fun stuff in the dark. No noise, only a little humming overhead and a large ship passing gently.
Even cooler is, to hitch a ride. Last year a friend of mine won one in another airship, and I had the pleasure to accompanny her. Two hours over Munich in Summer, with the windows down, like in a car, gently floating in the thermals at 50 kph close over the city. Just incomparable to any other flying experience I had before. A Ship, not a plane!
Justdreaminggoneflyingregards
A helicopter will carry more than a blimp.
Copters like the Skycrane, Chinook or the USAF/USMC H-53 can carry alot more then a blimp in worse weather conditions.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/h-53.htm
"The helicopter is capable of lifting 16 tons (14.5 metric tons) at sea level, transporting the load 50 nautical miles (57.5 miles) and returning. A typical load would be a 16,000 pound (7264 kilogram) M198 howitzer or a 26,000 pound (11,804 kilogram) Light Armored Vehicle."
"Sea Dragon is capable of carrying up to 55 troops or a 16-ton payload 50 nautical miles or a 10-ton payload 500 nautical miles."
External cargo of up to 36,000 pounds may be transported by using either the single- or two-point suspension system.
In the long run, I just don't see a blimp providing the cost/lift capability of a helicopter. The numbers above are for US helicopters, the price to performance ratio of Russian helicopters is even greater. Another problem with the blimp is weather. You start to get cross-winds you lose alot of control in a blimp compared to a helo.
By the late 30's, flying boats where already carrying passangers across the Atlantic. When land planes that could fly this far came along, airships would have had it. An 40's aircraft would have carried about the same number of passangers. Be twice as fast, only needed about 5 crew and would have cost about an order of magnitude less to build. You just can't argue with that.
They should give the thing electric engines. They should cover the top half with solar cells, add something to store the engergy in (the fuel cells they are going to put on helios), and a small diesel generator in case all of that is not enough. Then it would be much more NT than it is now.
Zeppelin for Workgroups: Allowed rudimentary communications with other Zeppelins in the area, so their pilots could call and say "Oh my God!! I'm being burned alive!!!" Manufacturer claims "Safest Zeppelin yet!!"
Zeppelin 95:Much hyped successor to Zeppelin 3.x series. New 'easy to use' control panel resulted in many Zeppelin 95s floating out of control, as their pilot's didn't think to look under 'Start' to shutdown. Manufacturer claims "Safest Zeppelin yet!!"
Zeppelin NT 3.51:Industrial strength Zeppelin, filled with new and improved 'Helium' gas, which is designed to not incinerate its passengers twice a day. However, customers are deterred by the 'retro-styled' control panel, and sluggish handling with gondolas of the day. Manufacturer claims "Safest Zeppelin yet!!"
Zeppelin 98:Same as Zeppelin 95, but with only one choice of inflight movie channel, and the video screen is stapled to the passenger's faces so they can't look at any other inflight movies even if they want to. Still explodes regularly. Manufacturer claims "Safest Zeppelin yet!!"
Zeppelin NT 4.0Addresses speed concerns of Zeppelin NT 3.51 by integrated the gondola control panel into the actual airframe itself. Occasional H2 impurities in the airframe result in spectacular incineration when the gondola control panel sometimes short circuits. Manufacturer claims "Safest Zeppelin yet!!"
Zeppelin ME: No-one cared about this one. Manufacturer didn't bother wasting time claiming "Safest Zeppelin yet!!"
Zeppelin 2000:Not too bad an airship...however, none of the seats or fittings from any of the previous Zeppelins can actually be installed without tweaking. Some pieces of equipment don't fit at all
Zeppelin XP:If you get out of your seat, you have to buy another ticket. If you cross your legs, you have to buy another ticket. If you get out the in-flight magazine, you have to buy another ticket. Continually radios back to Zeppelin headquarters about what you have in your suitcase. However, the gondola decor is really nice looking, and only a few beta testers have been incinerated alive so far.There was an article in Wired magazine the other year about this. It seems the US government controls about 80% of the worlds reserves of helium, which is of course nonflammable but due to the tensions of the 1930's refused to export to Germany leading to the use of hydrogen instead.
Of course the interesting point is the supposedly hugh amounts of helium on the Moon, any excuse for a trip I guess!
On another note: I'm currently waiting for a delivery of a new Server system - which is stuck in a traffic jam, if only these blimps were available now we could have real blue sky computing 8)