Fuelless Flight with Air Submarine?

An anonymous reader writes "Using the same physics principles as submarines, a new company is planning a fuelless air ship. Recent advances in ultra light and strong materials are making this concept a practical reality." There's no question that changes in buoyancy can be used to propel a vehicle, but "fuelless" is going to be tricky.

Comments

Re:Actually it is safer

[Romeozulu]

The remaining engines will have to push harder to maintain speed but this makes the entire aircraft want to turn constantly. Very few runways come in corners.

IMAP (I am a pilot), losing an engine on a commercial plane is no big deal. Any asymmetric thrust is easily countered by the auto-pilot or the pilot by use of the rudders. Landing on one engine is also no big deal. The only issue is holding altitude while flying high, the plane might need to descend to 20,000 or so, then it can hold altitude (required to by the regs). Even loosing an engine on take-off is not a big deal. The plane must have enough speed before rotating (Vr) to maintain flight if one engine goes out.

Re:Holy *hit BatMan

[tehdaemon]

The term 'lighter than air' is not wrong, it is simply incomplete It should be 'lighter than the air it displaces' Not sure if you were missing that point or not, but you were not clear on that.

The blimp thing. Blimps are basically oval balloons. They hold their shape because they are pressurized. (blown up!) as such the gas inside is under pressure, I imagine quite a bit ~5 lbs/square inch at least. This is in direct conflict with the goal of being bouyant, as pressurized gas is more dense.

On the other hand, this plane would be a rigid airship. It would hold it's shape regardless of pressure inside (within limits, too much or too little, pop or squish.) My point here is that comparing rigid airships to blimps in lifting volume is not that simple. Also, rigid airships can have much better areodynamics than blimps. Oh, and they do not constantly change shape. If you want to go higher, either have the gas bags inside only partly full at the fround (limits lift, does not waste gas) or add valves and vent it (limits range, cause you will not have enough lift when you decend again, unless you use ballast . . .)

I take this article with a large bucket of salt too, but not for any of the reasons you listed.