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New Aircraft is Part Blimp and Part Airplane
An anonymous reader writes "Canton Rep has an interesting article on Ohio entrepreneurs who hope to get their business 'off the ground'. Brian Martin and Robert Rist think they are close to testing a prototype of their patented Dynalifter hybrid. They announced last week that their airship -- part blimp and part airplane -- has been completed, and they hope to conduct a test flight this spring. Martin and Rist hope the Dynalifter will help bring in a new transportation era. They see it as a way to move materials at a lower cost than jets and at a higher speed than ships. From the article: 'They think it could be used in emergency situations, such as Hurricane Katrina, to transport supplies. It might have military uses, such as delivering equipment and supplies to sites that might not be easily reachable.'"
Makes perfect sense to me. With advanced technology and more experience then say, the people who made the hindendburg, I'm sure we could make it work better this time.
I wonder how long it will take other formerly taboo technology to come around... I'm not all that afraid to have a nuclear reactor in my backyard(My neighbors would disagree)
My impression was that it was a true compromise, it wasn't as fat as a blimp, so could go faster and was less susceptable to cross-wind; but also had some of the fuel economy advantages of a blimp. But lost in speed compared to a try aeroplane and was less fuel economical than a full blimp.
Also it would have limited hovering capabilities not quite up to that of a helecoptor or true blimp...
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
But is it something like project Walrus?
o -gives-ok-to-hula-airships-for-airlift/index.php#m ore
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2005/10/us-cb
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
This sounds similar to the Deltoid Pumkin Seed, another airplane/blimp hybrid. It was more of a helium-filled flying wing that was tested in the seventies.
"Specifically, where could a blimp get to more easily than a helicopter?"
They can fly higher and longer than helicopters.
But in general, the perfect use for airships is AWACS. They don't have to come down to refuel periodically (they'll need food more often than they'll need fuel), so that's one less major hassle for an aircraft carrier crew to deal with.
It would also work well for similar work over land, and might work well as an anti-balistic missile laser platform.
Ummm what part of this airship is plane like? 2% ... maybe 5% on a good day? How does that makew this a hybrid?
It's a blimp with tiny wings that are control surfaces; because it seems to me that the amount of lift the wings could provide, would be insignifigant.
I have seen concepts of a delta wing blimp - that could reasonably be called a hybrid ariship-plane
I wonder if this lends its way to a new propulsion scheme?
mode 1) {when you're high enough}Take the gas in the bag and compress it into internal cylinders so that you loose lift - then glide as above.
mode 2) {when you're too low} Release gas from cylinders into bag providing lift.
Or is that what you're describing above?
I also wonder if waste heat from the engines is used to warm the gas to provide extra lift?
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
The idea of hybrid lighter than air lifting and an aerodynamic hull has been around for a while. In his 1963 book The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed essayist and journalist John McPhee covers the story the the Aereon, which was an early avitar of the dynalifter. There was a brief resurgence of interest in this aircraft design during the oil crisis in the 1970s. It now seems to be back once again now that oil has risen in price.
One of the things that those pushing this design may not be mentioning is that increasinly helium is both scarse and a strategic resource. Helium is actually "mined" from underground domes where it has been trapped (I assume formed from radioactive decay). If fleets of airships were helilum based, the price of helium would seen rise to the point where the airships were no longer cost effective. The alternative is hydrogen, but as the Hindenburg demonstrated, hydrogen has its own problems. These issues could be the reason that after over three decades this idea has not caught on.
What exactly is this quality of "blimpiness" you want to improve? The important characteristic of blimps is their buoyancy without cargo, and blimps become more buoyant if they carry a higher volume of gas or if they have less structural mass. Blimps are designed to look "puffed up" only because that shape reduces the structural mass necessary to support a given volume of gas, and a shape-changing structure would be more massive still.
Some military use is likely.
I could see these used as high altitude portable communication platforms near hot spots. I could see a fleet of UAVs being controlled from one of these. And these would fit the traditional blimp role of coastal surveillance very nicely.
Wish the web site wasn't slashdotted.
I would think a heavier than air blimp would be easier to land.
I have the impression from the few pics and diagrams I've seen that the blimp has a lifting body shape and the "wings" are primarily control surfaces. I'd be interested in reading the specs.
I believe it's still possible to book passage on many trans-ocean ships. I swear I read once that even many cargo ships actually have space to take on a very few "passengers" for a very no-frills voyage. (We are not talking a Cruise line here.)
It's also possible to book one-way trips on most cruise ships, though that's certainly not going to be cheap.
The Dynalifter isn't a Zeppelin (rigid airship): It's a heavier than air aircraft that incorporates some static lift into its design. It's not a new idea, as they point out on their site. Their patent is for the structure itself, not the concept of a "not much heavier than air" aircraft.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
in a brilliant book called "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed." He writes about an extraordinary variety of subjects, from rustlers to growing orange trees in Florida, although much of his work is about geology. But TDPS was/is entirely about this airframe and its evolution through the '60's and '70's, and includes some great material about flight into known icing conditions, the stuff that dooms small aircraft. blimps and dirigibles can often accumulate eight inches of ice and keep flying. (A small Cessna is screwed if you put on 1/2" of ice, and a jetliner isn't much better.) McPhee also wrote a lot about the quarter-scale and tenth-scale flying models of the hybrid lifting body. It's a fantastic book, and as is usual with McPhee, turns into a book about obsession and human devotion to ideas, rather than just being about the ideas themselves.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The lifting body and wings allow the craft to operate under a much wider envelope of loads and bouyant lifts. A huge problem with airships is maintaining desired buoyancy despite variations in temperature, altitude, barometric pressure, fuel expenditure, and condensation or icing loading - helium is too expensive to vent when the airship is light and cannot be generated in filght as can hydrogen, hot air or steam*. Being able to descend or ascend without losing ballast or lift gas and to operate without massive ground crews and facilities should significantly reduce the operating expense associated with helium airships. The Ohio Airships people have gotten an amazing amount done with very little money, and they seem to be selling their idea effectively to US government buyers, so it seems possible that this design will avoid the fate of all the other large airship projects of the past 60 years.
The main innovation in the Ohio Airships design is in the novel rigid internal structure which uses a keel beam supported by stays (cables) from a tower in the manner of a suspension bridge. This should allow greater loads relative to the airframe mass, including positive or negative loads from the wings.
*Steam is potentially the most economical lift gas since it gives 60% of helium lift or 200% of hot air lift, is essentially free if generated as a by-product of a steam engine, and the airship envelope acts as a condenser for the engine, reducing weight. This makes both the lift gas and propulsion much more efficiently produced than helium bags or IC engines See www.flyingkettle.com for more details.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
I'm 6'4" and have regularly flown from the Eastern seaboard of the US to various cities in China. Flying sucks, but it sure as hell beats the alternatives. Plus, planes don't waste fuel - they're actually much more efficient than cars or trucks in terms of gallons per mile and the amount of people and cargo they can carry. Not to mention the time/value of money savings.
I've never understood the irrational annoyance that people get when someone in front of them reclines their seat - who fucking cares? Just recline your seat too, then you're back where you started, and a little more comfortable to boot.
I've flown long flights (at least 12 hours on a single hop) for 24 years, and been over six feet tall for the last 9 of them, and I've never had ANY knee damage, not to mention irreversible knee damage.
Get real.
$45 per U Colocation Special
>Cheap, comfortable, fuel efficent. Pick 2. Tramp steamer. Try: fast, cheap, comfortable, fuel efficient. Rigid airships could be fast, actually: they can be built in the ideal streamlined form, so all your drag is due to wetted area rather than induced and separation drag. Strap some big jets on, and off you go. In the 1930's, the German Zeppelins were flying nonstop from Germany to Argentina. In the NINETEEN THIRTIES. Back when flying across the Atlantic in an airplane was a somewhat big deal. And talk about comfort: full cabins, beds, a dude playing the piano.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
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.
Helium is just a place-holder. You make some ships and prove that they work and are cheap, then you replace the helium with hydrogen. It can even be generated from the ship's fuel if there are slow leaks. The hindenberg's shell burned, not the hydrogen. Hydrogen can plenty safe in airships with the right designs... far safer than using thousands of gallons of jet fuel. You aren't going to shoot a hydrogen airship with a handgun (or a rocket for that matter) and have it explode.
But still: the Hindenburg burned. It burned like a bomb. And yet, most of the people lived. How many lived through the Towers crash? The thing about hydrogen is that it goes up, really really fast, especially when it's hot hydrogen. In comparison, Jet A isn't easy to light on fire. But when it does burn, it burns hot and deep and for a long time. You have a few seconds of severe excitement in a big hydrogen fire and then everything's done. It's almost like using explosives in coalmines: if the blast is fast enough, it won't ignite flammable gases. If I had my choice, I'd much rather crash in a hydrogen-filled blimp than a jet airliner.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The first application that came to my mind after reading their site was air deployed rocketry.
n =projects.view&workid=EE0A866A-F1C1-C18B-7D3CB327B CAF3542
I'd be interested to see the numbers for cargo tonnage carrying capacity and max altitude of a full size (~1000 ft) freighter craft.
Combine this airship with t/space's air-launched lanyard rocketry, and there is an awesome potential for large tonnage air launched private spacecraft.
http://www.transformspace.com/index.cfm?fuseactio
As stated on the Dynalifter web site, their airship is NOT lighter than air, even when empty. So the only "savings" in weight are limited to the weight of the mass of the ship. That doesn't seem like a large percentage to me, when compared to the weight of the payload that the ship will be carrying.
Looking at a couple other aircraft:
Boeing 747
Weight Empty: 361,600 lbs
Maximum Take-Off Weight: 825,600 lbs
Empty Weight ~= 43% of maximum take-off weight
C-5 Galaxy cargo plane
Weight Empty: 374,000
Maximum Take-Off weight: 840,000 lbs
Empty Weight ~= 44% of maximum take-off weight
How much fuel would an airship hybrid really save, since it still has to pull the entire weight of the payload, which accounts for more than 50% of the weight of other fully-loaded modern aircraft? And would the fuel savings really justify the other hassles of dealing with an airship hybrid?
To add one more problem to the list: Aircraft using buoyancy don't scale down well. It's hard to get started in the buoyant craft business on a small scale. When I was a kid, I so desperately wanted to build a scale zeppelin that I could fly. I was crushed to discover that it took roughly 1 cubic meter of helium to lift 1 kg (at 1 g).
I am not a crackpot.
In terms of survival rate in case of accident. When a passenger plane crashes, often close to 100% of people on board die. In the case of the Hindenburg accident, though, this rate was of 36%. Also, your comment on hydrogen burning upwards is very adequate. In fact, considering that the danger of hydrogen flames tends to be overestimated, hydrogen is much cheaper and easier to manufacture than helium, and hydrogen provides more buyoancy than helium, I myself would rather use hydrogen instead of helium in an airship.
as AC pointed out, it is a 10% bonus not 100%. I'm not going to dispute the flammability of the skin, but the color of the resulting flame isn't indicitive of much. Hydrogen burning in air at STP is virtually colorless (I've been burned because I couldn't see the flame in daylight). It is a very pale blue. Much like putting sodium chloride on a platinum wire in a flame, and you'll understand my point on the color of the resulting flame.
Air and Space magazine did an article on airships a long time ago. They had an ancedote about a goodyear blimp being shot with a rifle while it was flying. They said that atmospheric air would actually flow into the blimp because it is less dense. While I'm sure it depends on the geometry of the specific situation, I would not want atmospheric air to enter my hydrogen lifted airship/blimp. The bullet holes were small enough that it didn't affect the flight of the blimp.
That said, The US still had a strangle hold on helium at the time. The only way that helium is produced on earth is through radioactive decay. It is recovered from natural gas that is under Texas. I'm sure it occurs elsewhere in the same way, but the US has a lot of it.
Well, I can think of a few.
As a passenger transport taking a dirigible would be awesome, since you could dock it in a city center instead of having to land in the great back of beyond Long Island and deal with either cabs or the silly AirTrain, or (shudder) Newark. You don't have to fly as high as a 747 so you might actually get to see what you're flying over. Sure it takes longer, and if you're a business traveller you'd probably always opt for the 747. But (and I don't know what the economics of what a ticket would work out to be) maybe the fact that you're using gas instead of thrust to produce lift might translate into cheaper tickets, which would work pretty well in places where people can't afford regular airfare.
You might also arguably create an air cruise line that takes you around to various ports of call. that would be pretty cool too.
Then there are law-enforcement/utility uses too, like hovering in the sky to watch traffic or something. Bet that's much cheaper to do than run a chopper.
Then there are the industrial uses of cargo transport. Yes, a supertanker can carry more, but they can only go seaport to seaport. Then you have to unload/transfer to rolling stock or semis. What about places that are landlocked and/or have poor roads? Central Asia leaps to mind. Dirigibles might make yurts cheaper and more available than ever before.
There's probably many more applications for blimps, but those are just a few off the top of my head.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.