Slashdot Mirror
Zeppelin Flies Again
rakerman writes "The Globe and Mail reports Japanese firm buys first new-look Zeppelin.
"Makers of the revived Zeppelin airship delivered their first helium-filled craft to a commercial user Saturday, a Japanese company that plans to use the 12-seat craft for sightseeing trips and advertising." They call themselves Zeppelin-NT, or as the Germans say "Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH"."
This is a terrible day! What a tragedy! Oh, my God! Those poor people!
Zeppelin NT came to Istanbul for a private BMW meeting I guess. Thing looks damn cool and huge :)
The Zeppelin NT has been around for at least 10 years! I've seen photos of it in Popular Science, Discover, et al.
They should upgrade to Zep 2000 (based on NT technology.)
Sounds like those are going to have to be some very pricey tickets. They'd have to be with only 12 passengers for each flight.
DeviantArt Page
NSFW" The new craft designed by Germany's Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik -- named Zeppelin NT for "New Technology" -- is filled with helium rather than the intensely flammable hydrogen that fuelled the earlier generation of airships. " The earlier generation of airships was also designed to be filled with Helium, not Hydrogen. Short supply forced them to use Hydrogen.
Mirror here. This would seem like a no-brainer for the editors. But they couldn't care less, it seems.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
You lost a great opportunity to be quiet. Don't let those pass you again.
Sincerely,
Mr Blinky
Ever since the Hindenburg accident the technology has been nearly dead, just as if we had stopped building ships after the Titanic sank.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Check out www.21stcenturyairships.com
This guy made spherical airships despite everyone telling him it would never work.
Personally, I find this much more interesting than the Zeppelin "comeback".
I've seen it fly out of Friedricshafen, Germany, and I even managed to buy a plastic model kit for it (made by Revell, curiously) in a hobby shop in Friedrichshafen. It's a neat looking machine, and I hope the firm succeeds in doing interesting things with them. There's certainly room for zeppelins in the world of aviation.
BTW, I also visited the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen; they have a 1:1 mockup of the boarding gangway, some passenger cabins and a dining area from the Hindenburg. That was an awesome experience, and I recommend it if you ever go to the Bodensee region of Germany.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Considering that the Hindenburg itself was *literally* flamebait, perhaps the mod was going all uber-meta and using the flamebait mod as a subtle show of recognition.
Then again, maybe the mod's just a dumbass.
"a Japanese company that plans to use the 12-seat craft for (...) advertising."
If they put light-emitting diodes on the sides for an electronic billboard, would that make it a LED Zeppelin?
From their website:
Fare per Person: EUR 335,00 Monday to Friday; EUR 370,00 on weekends and holidays.
Please visit www.zeppelinflug.de for booking.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
GmbH is the German equivalent of, 'Inc'. or 'Ltd.'
It's short for 'Gesellschaft mit Beschränkter Haftung' (Corporation with Limited Liability).
Das ist alle für heute. Viel Spass.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Personally I'll never understand marketing folks. =)
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Actually, it isn't a blimp, it's a proper Zeppelin. The difference? A Zeppelin has a rigid frame, a blimp does not.
Did you know that the US Navy built a few Zeppelin Aircraft Carriers in the 1930s? That's right - Zeppelins that could carry, launch and recover fighter aircraft. Fighteres were carried in a compartment in the body of the airship and were launched and recovered from a "trapeze". Link with pictures.
Zeppelins are cool. I wish they'd become more widely adopted. Stoopid Hindenburg painted with Stoopid rocket fuel...
"the total mixture might well serve as a respectable rocket propellant"
The direction and color of the flame supports this theory. Hydrogen burns with a colorless flame and would burn upwards (being lighter than air). The actual flame burned downwards and looked like a "fireworks display".
See: http://engineer.ea.ucla.edu/releases/blimp.htm
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Even though it's the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen, helium is fairly scarce on earth. The majority that we get comes from extraction from natural gas. Ambient air extraction is not economically feasible due to the low concentration (1 part per 200,000). I've heard that demand will outstrip supply by 2010 and the $19.95 Party Balloon kits at Costco will be a bit more costly. What is the future of lighter-than air transport with the "lighter" part being costly in the near future?
I think Microsoft has a solid claim for prior art on vapor technology.
Two big reasons.
first using a gas gives you a tension structure. Tension structures are easy to build light wieght and strong. Using vacume gives you a compression structure and compression structures are much harder to build light.
second Vacum isn't that much lighter than helium.
follow me on this. At STP (standard temperature and pressure) air has a weight of about 26g/mole while helium has a weight of about 4g/mole blimps run low pressure so this is about right. 1 mole is about 23 L of gas. so for 23L of heium I get 22g of lift for the same amount of vacume I get 26g of lift. So by using helium instead of vacume you only lose about 15% of te lifting capacity, but you greatly simplify construction and maintainance.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Looks like a Zeppelin to me.
-Brendan
A communication breakdown.