New Type of Hot Air Blimp

An anonymous reader writes to let un know about a story up on the Experimental Aircraft Association site about a new kind of blimp. From the article: "Alberto, whose name pays homage to Brazilian aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont, is 102 feet long with a 70-foot diameter and uses hot air rather than helium for lift. Its innovative foldable frame (much like an giant umbrella) creates structural support of its hot-air envelope, and it has a fly-by-wire vectored thrust steering system. Alberto is a hybrid; a hot-air balloon with aluminum ribs that looks more like a blimp, but with a tail propeller that gives it directional control." The home site of the blimp's developers has a timeline, photos, and a video of the blimp in flight.

Comments

well

[stoolpigeon]

you couldn't pay me to go up in one - irrational fear of heights - but it seems better than being in a balloon with no real control of your direction beyond finding some wind blowing the way you want to go.

Re:well

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Acrophobia here too. Although airplanes don't bother me at all. Maybe I'd go up in one of those things if they put fiberglass walls around the seats.

Re:well

[Nefarious Wheel]

...but it seems better than being in a balloon with no real control ...

A term of some use here is "dirigible", i.e. "something that can be directed". Term for lighter-than-air airships of the past was dirigible balloon, shortened to "dirigible" in common use.

As a young lad I read Doc Smith's stories (before learning that) and had this terrible image of his dirigible torpedoes being these explosive little balloons running around in outer space...

Oh, and the term "blimp", like "jeep", was a military term shortened in general use -- originally it was a "Type B-Limp Balloon"

There, I have just elocuted you.

Re:well

[Grey Dragon]

blimp: a term coined in 1915 as a friendly synonym for a pressure airship. The word is said to have mimicked the sound made when a man snapped his thumb on the airship's gas-filled envelope. It is not derived from the description of an apocryphal type of World War I British airship, the "Balloon, Type B, limp." There was never a "Type B" nor a designation "limp" applied to a British airship before, during or after WW I. The term most likely originated with Lieutenant (later Air Commodore) A. D. Cunningham of the Royal Naval Air Service, commanding officer of the British airship station at Capel in December 1915. During a weekly inspection, Lt. Cunningham visited an aircraft hangar to examine a "Submarine Scout" pressure airship, His Majesty's Airship SS-12. Cunningham broke the solemnity of the occasion by playfully flipping his thumb at the gasbag and was rewarded with an odd noise that echoed off the taut fabric. Cunningham imitated this sound by uttering: "Blimp!" A young midshipman, who later became known as Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard, repeated the tale of this humorous inspection to his fellow officers in the mess hall before lunch the same day. It is believed that by this route the word came into common usage.

clarification.

Re:well

[stoolpigeon]

i'm the same way, i need to be secured inside something. airplanes don't bother me, but i used to watch hot-air balloons from the ground all the time, and all i can think about is falling out of the basket. old roller-coasters with just a bar across the lap terrify me, the new ones where you have the bars over your shoulders and all that i really enjoy.

Re:well

[The_Wilschon]

Well, in response to both you and the poster who disagreed with your etymology of "blimp", I went out looking for more information, since nobody bothered to cite any sources. The Discouraging Word ran a bit on the etymology of "blimp" a while back, which can be found about halfway down the linked page (sorry, there's no anchor there), under the heading "Shortt, Cunningham, and the bothersome matter of blimp". This posting pulls together a number of sources: the New Yorker, the Oxford English Dictionary, "www.blimpinfo.com" (which seems to be where the other poster got his paragraph verbatim), "www.bartleby.com" (The American Heritage dictionary), "www.m-w.com" (Merriam-Webster), "www.wordorigins.com", and "http://www.worldwar1.com/sfzepp.htm" (a personal website).

The conclusion drawn by The Discouraging Word is that the etymology is very unclear, but that more sources tend to weigh in on the otomatopoeic origin side than anywhere else. It is worth mentioning that the OED, perhaps the most authoritative source cited, favors the B-limp origin, by itself citing a 1939 issue of the periodical War Illustrated.

The post ends with "Hmm. Such a complicated circle we can weave with on-line sources alone. We can't imagine what we might find were we to venture into a library...".

There is one more proposal for the origins of the word, put forth by none other than the celebrated philologist and author J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien suggests that "blimp" comes from a compounding of the words "blister" and "lump". However, nobody seems to give this theory much credence.

In place of a flying car, I'm having one of these.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an apartment dweller so about the parking situation...

Cool!

[zymurgyboy]

So RMS learned to fly?

Re:Cool!

[Tackhead]

> So RMS learned to fly?

"God as my witness, I honestly thought RMS could fly."
- Steve Ballmer

Re:Cool!

[spun]

Oh my God, the Stallmans are mounting a counter-attack!

Best. WKRP. ever.

Re:Big Deal

[Jarjarthejedi]

Just because you don't want to fly slowly at treetop level doesn't mean others don't want to, there's more to life than blasting from city to city always rushing...

Just because something is enormous unfolded doesn't mean it will be when it is folded...oh you have an umbrella? Where are you going to store that!? It would take up your whole closet!

Their patent is for hot-air ballons with internal frames which is much more new and innovative than 90% of patents out there (I'm looking at the company who's suing Nintendo for the trigger on the wii)

Stop being a hater for a single second and think about this, this thing is completely new. It's simple to fly, easier than hot-air balloons or blimps. Just think of the uses, replace a couple tour buses with this thing and you get the same maneuverability, better views, and little to no traffic on your tour. What other vehicle can do that?

To the Hindenpeter!

[everphilski]

joe: Where do you keep getting this stuff!!!

Re:To the Hindenpeter!

[celardore]

joe: Where do you keep getting this stuff!!! The line is closer to "How can you afford these things?"

Another piece in the puzzle

[Ingolfke]

This blimp isn't just a step forward for aviation, it's a major step forward in the development and construction of a viable space elevator. One of the primary problems that has plagued the space elevator proponents is the identification of a cost effective means of transporting the carbon nanotube teather from the Earth's surface to a proper orbit. This blimp and advances in carbon nanotubes could signal the beginning of cheap space transport for all mankind.

Mark this day on your calendar folks.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[truthsearch]

How can a blimp with a propeller ever leave the atmosphere?

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[tonycheese]

I thought we agreed a space elevator wouldn't work because of the radiation we'd be exposed to on it.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[stoolpigeon]

i thought that it worked the other way around, dropping the tether from the top. (don't know a lot about space elevators)

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[NUBlackshirts]

Yeah something about the Van Allen belt will cook us like a convenience store burrito. See the following... http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/1 3/1920222

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Ingolfke]

Carbon nanotubes combined with a nanobot skin could protect mere mortals from the radiation.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Ingolfke]

Well, we had to get up to the top to drop that carbon nanotube teather... so this blimp can do it.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[SevenHands]

Depending on the r-value of the insulating outer layer, this could be a pig when it comes to fuel consumption. Because after all, you have to keep the contained air hot enough to overcome effects of gravity. Also, the added weight of the fuel will be detrimental to maximum distance travelled.

Helium, on the other hand, once contained within a sealed bladder type system will not require any active means of interaction to achieve bouyancy. Height would most likely be regulated by pressure of the helium within the enclosed bladder.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[silentounce]

No, we agreed that you encase the personnel car with water to shield from the radiation. And you fill the water with sharks with laser beams as an extra defense mechanism. That was the consensus that was reached.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[shawn(at)fsu]

But as another post has already pointed out this blimp wont get you out of the atmosphere. So where is the top of the space elevator going to be? I don't think this thing will get you very high at all. Weather balloons will only get you to 40km or so (according to wikipedia). I can't even imagine all the things that would prevent getting this craft that high, It's not a sealed envelope so the air inside the envelope will thin as the craft rises I imagine this would decrease your lifting potential. To continue even though I know nothing and I'm just using conjecture wouldn't you have to heat the air ever hotter to continue to rise? If so then the fuel cost would make it prohibitive.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Ingolfke]

Aggghhhhh... that's the sound of my space elevator dream crashing to the ground in a massive carbon nanotube wreck.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Rakishi]

Just to add to that, the center of a space elevator would be at over 40000km (Geosynchronous orbit). So even 40km is a few orders of magnitude off.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Dunbal]

And you fill the water with sharks with laser beams as an extra defense mechanism.

      But won't all that radiation cause the sharks to mutate, so then we'll end up with the entire crew of the elevator devoured by mutant air breathing laser sharks?

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Nefarious Wheel]

Blimps can carry huge loads if you make them large enough. A large unmanned blimp could be used as a high-efficiency first stage -- just fire the Saturn rocket up through it after the blimp reaches max altitude, saving that first few vertical miles worth of rocket fuel.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Hektor_Troy]

It runs on humour.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Calinous]

You would lose the blimp - there aren't many materials to survive the heat from the launch of a rocket, and none of them in the form of a thin enough film to be used for balloons.
      Anyway, let's assume a Saturn V rocket - with a mass of 3,000,000kg. As each cubic meter of air has about 1kg of weight, you need a balloon at least 3,000,000 cubic meters for buoyancy at sea level.
      Let;s say you want to launch the rocket at 8,000m (some 25,000 feet). Air there has a density around 0,5kg/m^3, so you need at least double the volume just for payload - let's add some more volume for balloon mass, and you end up with 8 million cubic meters of gas, or a cube 200m long.
      How much helium is worth? $37.50/1000 ft^3 (28 m^3), by the U.S. Bureau of Mines.
      To fill the balloon, you need 10 million dollars worth of helium (which will be lost, as the balloon envelope will be destroyed at rocket launch). How much energy you save using this?
      Well, the first stage on Saturn V rockets will fly up to 110km (using some 2 millions kg of fuel). As such, a ballpark estimate would be a tenth of the energy would not be needed if launch was 8km higher - saving you 200,000kg of liquid hydrogen and oxygen (in a proportion about 8:1 for oxygen, mass). Cost? $3.6/kg hydrogen, $0.1/kg oxygen - $100,000 at 1980 prices.

      Launching rockets from balloons sounds reasonable?

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[somersault]

If you just pumped the earth full of helium then you could probably make the distance a little shorter.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Ash Vince]

If we were bothered about a tiny thing like radiation we would not into space at all.
We also would not build nuclear reactors that produce vast amounts of radioactive waste that will be toxic for 1000s of years.

But as we do all these things we are just going to allow oursleves to mutate into genetic supermen and women who are 12 feet tall. Then when we do make it into space we can conquer the galaxy with ease.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[gurps_npc]

The particular device being discussed by this thread/article uses hot air, not helium or hydrogen.

The hot air can be generated using a solar power generator, one such device for hot air balloons already exists.

For this reason, your cost caluclation is entirely not relevant to using the method proposed in this thread.

Re:Another piece in the puzzle

[Calinous]

I took the example of the helium balloon wrongly. I should remake the computations:
  Hot air has about 1kg buoyancy for 3 cubic meters of volume, at 120C. As the envelope is destroyed at launch, one could use higher temperatures - so, one could get (at sea level) some 1kg of buoyancy from 2 cubic meters of volume.
      At altitude, this is reduced by the air density (at 30 000 feet, density is 0.4 the density at sea level - but it is colder, so you get maybe half the buoyancy at sea level) - you need 4 cubic meters of volume for each kg of mass.

      Now, you need some energy to keep the hot air in the balloon hot - one could maybe use the liquid oxygen and hydrogen that evaporates from the launch vehicle during the ascent (the balloon won't rocket in the skies, but will fly with some 10 m/s - ascent will take 20 minutes at least).
      Now, you only need an envelope that will withstand the mass of 3,000 tons (equivalent with 100 and some SUVs), all stretched in a sphere maybe 1000 feet across.

I've seen more practical aircraft

[fullphaser]

The fact is the booger is huge, there is no excusing this fact. Add this to the whole who the hell has that much space to store a blimp factor and the next who the hell will police the skies (as tickets get much harder to hand over when being able to pull over becomes a non option. The entire article is filled with it issues (namely size and practicality) that would make a helicopter although more expensive millions of times more practical. This is something like why drive your car to work when you can use this perfectly awesome toy wagon with new wheel design.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Ingolfke]

First off, before you dismiss blimps you should be informed that in the 4th century the Koreans used blimps to successfully invade and conquer Japan. The technology may be old but it's very effective.

The tickets would be easy to hand out if you equipped all of the blimps with an IR device like you find on most cell phones and laptops these days. Just beam the ticket over.

Although the size is certainly a problem today, advances in carbon nanotubes, nanobots, and organic construction materials could mean smaller blimps, faster blimps, and blimps that are shaped like animals, cool objects, and possibly even celebs.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[magarity]

The fact is the booger is huge, there is no excusing this fact.
 
Are you kidding? It's only 100 feet long. The Hindenburg was over 800. You, and everyone else complaining about 'practicality' have missed the point of these craft in the modern age: they're cruise ships in the sky. They are leisurely travel for people on leisure time. Just like people take cruise ships on vacation instead of jets to get from one island to another, except these things are cruise ships that can go from London to New York to Las Vegas. Hopefully the 100 foot toy size is a proof of concept. You need an 800 foot job to economically carry enough passengers and have nice enough accomodations.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[nschubach]

Yeah, but would I get an IR-Ticket for my giant penis shaped balloon?

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Ingolfke]

Yeah, but would I get an IR-Ticket for my giant penis shaped balloon?

I hope not... but if you did it could be an article on Your Rights Online. Everyone should have the freedom to own a big penis shaped blimp.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[2short]

"you should be informed that in the 4th century the Koreans used blimps to successfully invade and conquer Japan."

You should be informed that you are making shit up.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Ingolfke]

Look man... you stick to your books and I'll stick with my gut and we'll see who comes out on top :)

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Otto]

First off, before you dismiss blimps you should be informed that in the 4th century the Koreans used blimps to successfully invade and conquer Japan. WHAT? Sorry, but you're going to have to back up that one with a reference or something.

The first airships are still credited to the Montgolfier brothers, 14 centuries later, AFAIK. Fully steerable airships didn't even appear until the mid-1800's.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Dunbal]

in the 4th century the Koreans used blimps to successfully invade and conquer Japan

      Yeah, and the vikings flew across to the Americas in blimps in the year 200 AC, oh and forget about crossing the Bering strait on winter - the indigenous peoples of the Americas came from China in, you guessed it - blimps of course... Oh and remember, the great pyramids were actually docking towers for the blimps - there was a lot of transatlantic blimp traffic 5000 years ago. This explains the similarity in pyramid cultures, and of course Nazca... /sarcasm

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Deadstick]

who the hell has that much space to store a blimp

You do, if you have a two-car garage and one car. It's collapsible, and the lifting gas is expendable (as opposed to helium which is very expensive: helium ballons have to be kept full or emptied with expensive compressors).

who the hell will police the skies

The FAA. It's an aircraft, and they know precisely how to give you a ticket, thank you.

rj

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[5ynic]

I admit it - that was just far enough out in the leftfield that for a moment I thought "no-one could make that up..." I wish the Koreans HAD conquered japan using hot air balloons in the 4th century... IRL, pre-Montgolfier, the only use of flying machines to my knowledge was the Chinese strapping unfortunate observers to enormous kites prior to battle, to get a good view of enemy troop movements.... Which is cool, but not nearly as cool as the vision you gave me of thousands of spit-and-paper balloons with wild-eyed bamboo-armour-wearing nutters clinging to them, borne across the sea of Japan by the high tornados...... Damn!

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>who the hell will police the skies (as tickets get much harder to hand over when being able to pull over becomes a non option.

It's not the first personal aircraft ever invented. There's a well-proven system of requiring large identifying numbers to be visible on the outside of the aircraft.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[styrotech]

Why do I sense the creation of a new slashdot meme.... sigh

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Ingolfke]

Whoa... so you've studied blimp lore as well.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[evilviper]

The entire article is filled with it issues (namely size and practicality) that would make a helicopter although more expensive millions of times more practical.

If you wanted to gather high altitude weather information, a helicopter would be much better than a balloon... </SARCASM>

Somehow, I must have missed the part of the article that said this is designed to be used by individuals who want to commute to work and back.

This is something like why drive your car to work when you can use this perfectly awesome toy wagon with new wheel design.

No, it's more like: "why drive your car around the yard..."

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[TheSharpCrayon]

I was wondering what that was? Sarcasm, I'll be darned what they won't think of next.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[Calinous]

Your blimps could be made only so much smaller - you must provide enough buoyancy for your load. The weight of your balloon just adds to that.
      True, with new construction materials you could make a blimp half as big (volume of gas) as one of the old - but this only saves you about 30% of linear size.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[E 99]

the vikings flew across to the Americas in blimps in the year 200 AC

I happen to know that's total crap, because AC didn't exist until Nikola Tesla invented it in 1492.

Re:I've seen more practical aircraft

[greginnj]

You're right, it has to be true; I read it in Wikipedia!

Re:Big Deal

[Ingolfke]

Stop being a hater for a single second and think about this,

Word up playa. Representin' hot air baloons with internal frames against these clowns tha' be fruntin. Fa real.

PBS Nova episode on Alberto Santos-Dumont

[musicon]

FYI, there was a recent episode of Nova on PBS all about Alberto Santos-Dumont.

Interesting source of lift

[markov_chain]

Seeing how helium is actually quite expensive (paid $70 for 300 cu ft. at a local welding supply if memory serves) it's interesting that this contraption uses hot air. I wonder what the economics of hot air look like; i.e. cost of fuel to maintain lift, etc.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[inKubus]

The first thing I thought was to use hot HELIUM. I mean, why not? Surely hot Helium will have even more lifting power than regular helium.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Hot hydrogen will send you sky high.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[pcraven]

I've got a hot air balloon, and spend about $10-$20/hr in propane. Factors such as weight, outside temperature, and condition of the fabric make a big different in fuel consumption. Airships will run a bit higher in cost than balloons because of the added weight, added cooling by passing through the air rather than moving with it, and the non-optimal shape of the blimp compared to a balloon.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[Deadstick]

Surely hot Helium will have even more lifting power than regular helium.

Not bloody much. The lifting power of a balloon/blimp depends on the difference in density between the gas inside and the air outside. At standard sea-level temperature and pressure:

One liter of air weighs 1.3 grams.

One liter of helium weighs 0.18 grams.

Therefore, by Archimedes's Principle, a one-liter helium balloon will lift 1.3 - 0.18=1.12 grams.

One liter of helium at 200 degrees C (392 F) would weigh 0.11 grams, and it would lift 1.3 - 0.11=1.19 grams. So by heating the helium almost hot enough to melt nylon or burn paper, you'd get about a six percent improvement.

rj

Re:Interesting source of lift

[magarity]

Surely hot Helium will have even more lifting power than regular helium.

Not bloody much...you'd get about a six percent improvement
 
The Akron, the largest helium filled dirigible, had a lift capacity of 182,000 pounds. Plus or minus six percent is a whopping 11,000 lb variance depending on whether the sun was shining on it. Hot helium DOES make a difference.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[pcraven]

A balloon does not need to be aero-dynamic as it moves with the wind. So in a proper 'Smalley' designed balloon, the balloon is designed only around efficient containment of the hot-air. By adding a front/back nose code and rigid supports, you add weight beyond what is required to produce lift just by holding hot wir. You add weight to support moving through the air rather than with it.

So I would expect the blimp to require more propane because of that.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[Moofie]

How much do you suppose the gear (and fuel!) that keeps the helium at 200C weighs? And the heat shielding to keep everybody near the thing from burning to a crisp?

Does it make a theoretical difference? Absolutely. Does it make a substantial, practical difference? Probably not.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[Deadstick]

Not to mention four or five acres of high-temperature bag material...

rj

Re:Interesting source of lift

[inKubus]

Interesting. Obviously you probably wouldn't want to raise that all up to 200 degrees C but you could get some extra lift by heating it above ambient temps. And with a radiation barrier, you could keep most of the heat inside permanently. I was under the assumption that a helium-based ship is probably weighted to neutral weight in the air and uses air thrusters to move it up and down. As it gets higher you drop ballast (water, probably) to maintain the balance and to land you dump a little helium/hot helium.

I'm thinking that because the improvement in density would be relatively smaller for helium than it is for air, it probably would take much less energy to raise the helium's tempurature. I'm also guessing that there's quite a bit of air that ends up in the bag with the helium and that would benefit from the added heat also. I mean, I don't see what the big deal is considering complete amateurs float hot air balloons all the time. You'd think it would be possible to do this safely with helium..

Re:Interesting source of lift

[Calinous]

Even better - the biggest buoyancy force you could get would be having a balloon filled with void. With this, your buoyancy would be almost 20% better than for a helium balloon, and almost 10% better than the hot helium balloon.

Re:Interesting source of lift

[Deadstick]

Right -- but be sure to use compressed void to keep the bag inflated...;-)

rj

Re:Interesting source of lift

[Calinous]

One could use a submarine body - if it can resist deep underwater, a bit of void inside its shell should be easy

vehicles from another age...

[Tumbleweed]

"Calling Sky Captain. Come in, Sky Captain."

Can't wait. This kind of reminds me of that Dr. Who epside with the alternate universe with lots of blimps & dirigibles.

That thing needs a better colour scheme, though. It's not dark and moody enough.

I wonder it they'll ever reenable the docking tower at the top of the Empire State Building?

Re:vehicles from another age...

[smooth wombat]

I wonder it they'll ever reenable the docking tower at the top of the Empire State Building?

Having just taken my parents to the Empire State Building in late September, I can tell you that whomever thought of the idea of offloading people across a small platform, at that height, in the wind that was there on the day I went, really, really, REALLY, needs to get themselves on some meds.

Fortunately, the idea was scrapped (second paragraph) long ago for the very reasons I just mentioned.

Re:vehicles from another age...

[peragrin]

No the docking ring at the empire state building is just a bad idea. The up current of wind that goes along the building is enough to make docking harder and actually holding a blimp their dangerous. Tower's like that get things like snow or rain "falling" up.

In order to get it to work one would need some sort of deflector dish's to block the up flow. They will need more power too.

note: some sarcasm may be present in the above statement.

Re:vehicles from another age...

[Chyeld]

Heck to that if we are calling in the Sky Captian, I want Sportacus and the Iron Vulture!!

Re:vehicles from another age...

[Dunbal]

whomever thought of the idea of offloading people across a small platform, at that height, in the wind

      Hey, that's peanuts compared to crossing the Atlantic under a balloon full of explosive hydrogen gas...

Re:vehicles from another age...

[drinkypoo]

Hydrogen gas is not explosive. It is flammable. You need to mix it liberally with air (not sure of the ratio) in order to get an explosion. This is why almost everyone on the Hindenburg survived in spite of their aircraft being on fire.

Re:vehicles from another age...

[RxScram]

Hydrogen gas is not explosive. It is flammable. You need to mix it liberally with air (not sure of the ratio) in order to get an explosion. This is why almost everyone on the Hindenburg survived in spite of their aircraft being on fire.

According to wikipedia, out of 36 passengers and 61 crew, 13 passengers and 22 crew died. That doesn't seem like almost everyone to me. It is interesting, however, that the people who survived the crash were the ones who rode the ship to the ground... only the people who jumped out were killed. (And some poor sod on the ground who wasn't a passenger or part of the crew)

Re:vehicles from another age...

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, that's what I said! The people who jumped off weren't ON the thing, now were they? :)

Re:Big Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

>Stop being a hater for a single second and think about this, this thing is completely new.

Completly new? Are you serious?

Next thing you know, you'll be excited about someone using hydrogen.

There's little to this device except curiosity, mainly because hot air isn't very efficient to generate lift. Helium, or better yet hydrogen, is a better choice.

Inflating and deflating gas bladders within a rigid frame sounds more practical than this.

Just a toy, not even a new one

[banerjek]

Even according to the FAQ for the blimp, there are other hot air blimps available. This thing is not available for sale, they "predict that, with the current engine in place, we'll go about 12 miles per hour" (i.e. they haven't even measured it from the ground which is easy enough to do), and they say they don't really want to fly much above treetop level though they have reached "hundreds of feet".

In other words, someone has built themselves a clever gadget, but it's barely been used at all, and is basically a cool plaything that for those with a spare hundred or two hundred grand, plenty of spare time, and open fields. This is any more newsworthy than my personal vehicle I use for getting around town is even though that is very different from anything you'll see on the street in terms of weight, design, engine, etc. View it at http://alptown.com/temp/Oregon.2006.VelokitAtNight .jpg if you like

Re:Just a toy, not even a new one

[Bucc5062]

I'm not sure I get your point. The Wright brother's built a kite with an engine that on first flight stayed in the air less then the wingspan of A 747. Today Air France is in final testing for a Air Ship (it is hard to call it a plane) that comes close to 1M lbs and can cross the Atlantic with 500 people on board.

The first boats ever created to carry man must have been nothing much more then a log and today we have ships the size of a small island that are self sustaining.

Shall we take a look at the first car, train engine, etc etc etc.

Progress is started with the first step and these fellows have taken that first step. it is possible to see down the road that this small step will be improved, enhanced, and grown into a viable option for transportation. maybe the first model is lacking in features, but it is more than a "clever gadget". Your clever little gad-about-town was also once just a gleam in a designer's eye, a rough working proto-type that improved over time. Perhaps a more supportive, positive eye towards new inventions would be helpful, but then this is /., a somewhat rare commodity in this rather cynical room.

Zeppelins are better

[bar-agent]

I always zeppelins to make a come-back. It looks like they are currently used only for sightseeing and surveying, though.

I don't suppose this new hot-air balloon can compete. It really does look like a cross between a blimp and balloon, though.

Re:Zeppelins are better

[alexhard]

I always zeppelins to make a come-back. In the meantime, you may want to consider some English classes.

Re:Zeppelins are better

[bar-agent]

Me not speaking English good? That's unpossible!

Re:Zeppelins are better

[Erasmus]

The difference between a zeppelin and a blimp is that a zeppelin has a rigid structure while a blimp is just a large powered balloon. Since this has a aluminum skeleton holding the hot air envelope in shape then it is indeed a zeppelin, I guess.

Re:Zeppelins are better

[tsotha]

No. Zeppelin is not a generic term - it's a company originally founded by Count Zeppelin. The term you're looking for is "rigid airship".

Re:In place of a flying car, I'm having one of the

[WormholeFiend]

I'm an apartment dweller so about the parking situation...

If you live in a penthouse, then this blimp would clearly be useful

PING Led Zeppelin

[Rob T Firefly]

This would make the perfect album cover! Someone resurrect John Bonham and get the band back together.

If they use black fabric they may not require fuel

[Colin Smith]

There are solar heated hot air balloons...

e.g.
http://perso.orange.fr/ballonsolaire/en-index.htm

Brazilian aviation pioneer?

[Weaselmancer]

Man! That's a lot of blimps!

Cheap Fuel

[cdr_data]

This will be the ultimate way to get around Washington DC. Plenty of free fuel....

Commuter blimps...

[__aaclcg7560]

Whatever happened to commuter blimps? IIRC, There was a proposal 20 years ago to have commuter blimps travel between San Jose and San Francisco (50 miles) that would take an hour each way. I guess the air went out of the proposal since it wasn't any faster or cost effective than taking the train or car.

Not a Blimp

[AKAJack]

Airship nomenclature defined these:

Type A - Rigid
Type B - Limp (hence the nickname "blimp")

This has a rigid frame inside so it cannot be a blimp.

Re:Not a Blimp

[LunaticTippy]

You're wrong. Blimp was probably named for the noise it makes when you strike it. Take a look here

Re:Big Deal

[spun]

Herbert Kornfeld? I didn't know you posted to /.

In other news....

[r_jensen11]

Richard Branson is attempting to circumvent the world for the e^(pi*i)th time.... Only this time, running off of a hybrid fuel of hot air and smug

Yes, they do have a use!

[Socguy]

Seems a lot of people out there can't see a use for airships and frankly I'm surprised, Slashdotters have tremendous imaginations! Coming from Alberta, Canada I know there is a huge market for transportation of goods, especially moving big things to hard-to-get-to places. Right now there are startup blimp companies offering their services to haul huge vessels up to the tar sands. Advantages: you don't tear up highways with hundreds of wheels. You don't have to get travel permits for roads. You don't have to raise very power line and remove and then subsequently replace light standards. You don't have to install bridges, build one use roads etc. the list goes on. In the logging industry they use heavy lift helicopters to log impossible to access mountain sides. A ligher than air ship with fantastic manuverability would be perfect. Farther north, many communities can currently only be accessed via ice road in the winter (a time window that is shrinking thanks to GW). Point is, there are markets. Will it take over the entire transportation market; No way. S.

Re:Yes, they do have a use!

[battjt]

What if instead of being highly maneuverable, the load was suspended on a maneuverable crane, so the load could be held still relative to the ground, while the ship bobbed in the wind? Use the air ship more like a tractor, than a truck.

Joe

Mod Parent Up!

[Erasmus]

Good reply!

There's nothing more annoying than a smug post containing a wrong answer - especially when it involves propagating an urban legend.

You would think in the post-Wikipedia world a person would at least try to check their facts before they make an ass of themselves.

Re:Mod Parent Up!

[The_Wilschon]

Perhaps you had better read my post before asserting that the GP made a "good reply" with all facts checked and no wrong answers propagating urban legends. After all,

You would think in the post-Wikipedia world a person would at least try to check their facts before they make an ass of themselves.

non-optimal?

[fantomas]

naive outside question (excuse my ignorance) - you say "the non-optimal shape of the blimp compared to a balloon" - to my eyes it looks like blimps are more aerodynamic so I would have thought more efficient at moving through the air. Could you expand on what you mean by non optimal? cheers!

Re:non-optimal?

[LWATCDR]

A sphere will give you the greatest ratio of volume to surface area. A balloons tend to be much closer to a sphere than a blimp would.
So a balloon of a given volume would have less surface are for heat to escape than a blimp. Not to mention that weight of the material to enclose the volume.
A blimp is more aerodynamic but would tend to weigh more and loose more heat than a balloon would.
Your thinking of drag while the grandparent was thinking more about lift at zero airspeed.

Re:Big Deal

[Volante3192]

Forgetting for a moment that it has only ever carried one single person into the air and is equipped to carry only two, what happens if it is windy on the day of the tour?

Good thing the Wright Brothers never ran across you. The Flyer was only equipped to carry one person; and on one of their first passenger flights (possibly the first, I only skimmed the Wiki), the passenger was killed in the crash.

Designs improve and compensate.

Hot air will never be lighter than air

[everphilski]

end of comment.

Re:Hot air will never be lighter than air

[Ingolfke]

I think it all really depends on how much bullshit your burn... no?

Re:Hot air will never be lighter than air

[HiThere]

On the contrary, hot air is always lighter than air unless you pressurize it.

The problem is that the vehicle weighs something, and as the air gets thinner the relative displacement achieved by heating air internal to the surface decreases. I.e., the air inside has to weight enough less than an equal volume of the air outside to support the weight of the casing + any desired cargo. As the air outside gets thinner, any particular volume of it gets lighter, until, at the end, a good vacuum wouldn't be light enough to counterbalance the weight of the casing+cargo. (Of course, expecting a balloon to be blown up using a good vacuum is a trifle silly, but even if you could it wouldn't work.)

OTOH, balloons have gotten up into the stratosphere, and that would be beyond most of the air friction, so it might make an interesting disposable launch pad. But you'd either need a very light rocket, or a truly enormous balloon.

Re:Big Deal

[daeg]

Helium is extracted from natural gas. As Natural Gas is a limited resource, relying on Helium is not wise. The only other reliable source of helium is from alpha particles in radioactive decay. Unfortunately, it just doesn't produce enough to be very viable.

Hot air, on the other hand, could be produced easily through future portable renewable sources (batteries, solar cells, etc).

While a hot air craft may not be viable now, that doesn't mean it won't become viable in the next decade or two.

Re:If they use black fabric they may not require f

[markov_chain]

Wow, that is a cool idea... that should be the main story instead of the blimp!

New blimp?

[Aardvark99]

Oh, the humanity!

looks like a great UAV/UAS platform

[blackcoot]

these look like they could make pretty kick ass communications relays / air based controllers for uav/uas applications. seems like they can carry a pretty decent payload, but there's still the question of fuel efficiency.

Re:looks like a great UAV/UAS platform

[Calinous]

They are perfect to "hover" over an area - as they are lighter than air, they use almost no energy to just stay over a place (high winds notwithstanding). They can't be refueled in flight though (maybe by using the new light, flexible solar panels stretched on their balloon)
      The sad thing is that they are extremely visible at day - even if they can't be targeted by rockets (no heat exhaust, no radar reflections).

Re:Big Deal

[inviolet]

Hot air, on the other hand, could be produced easily through future portable renewable sources (batteries, solar cells, etc).While a hot air craft may not be viable now, that doesn't mean it won't become viable in the next decade or two.

Yes, and hot air is amazingly easy to produce in commercial quantities. For example, you could post an article titled "Ask Slashdot: Should I upgrade my Sony laptop to Windows Vista?". Or just set up a wide collector over any major city during the first week of November during an election year.

Just a hot-air balloon with a powered fan?

[walterbyrd]

Hook up some sort of powered fan to any hot-air balloon, and you would have the same thing.

Wouldn't you?

Re:Just a hot-air balloon with a powered fan?

[tsotha]

Not really, although the very first airships were just that. The problem is you can only go fast enough such that the pressure on the leading, er, edge matches the pressure on the inside of the envelop. What that means is for a fabric balloon you'll get a flat spot at the "bow". Probably squeeze out some of the hot air and cost you lift. At any rate, the instability will make it very difficult to keep the fan pointed in the right direction.

Blimps get around the problem by having a sealed envelope and using overpressure such that the internal pressure at the bow is more than the pressure exerted by the surrounding air. They maintain the helium pressure using small balloons inside the blimp called "ballutes". The ballute pressure is usually maintained by redirecting some of the engine thrust. At any rate, the amount of overpressure limits a blimp's maximum speed, since the nose will collapse if your airspeed is too high. A higher internal pressure means a shorter envelop life as well as a sturdier (and thus heavier) envelope. Also, a blimp doesn't handle inclement weather very well, since it causes deformations in the envelope shape.

Rigid airships (like the one in the article) get around the pressure problem by having an external frame to take the load of pushing ambient air out of the way. The frame will also resist distortions caused by stray gusts of wind. In theory a rigid airship can go much faster than a blimp, both because the frame prevents distortion and also because the frame can be made in a much more aerodynamic shape. Although I doubt the one in the article is in any sort of contention for a speed record. If memory serves, the Hindenbury had a maximum speed of about 84 MPH, which was pretty good for 1937.

Surely its a dirigible not a blimp

[Tired and Emotional]

If it has a rigid frame, its a dirigible. A blimp is non-rigid. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigible

Efficiency

[sbben]

They should really fill these things with hot hydrogen. You get the best of both worlds

Re:Efficiency

[Doppler00]

I agree. We could be cheaply moving massive amounts of cargo right now with hydrogen blimps if there wasn't a stupid fear against it. Helium won't be cheap forever since there really isn't much of it in earth (it tends to escape into outerspace).

Re:Efficiency

[sbben]

Hindenburg? Never heard of.

A joke on the other hand, that I'm quite familiar with.

Hmph.....

[IHC Navistar]

Darn.....

I was expecting an article on Ted Kennedy.

Had to be said

[macdaddy357]

Oh the humanity!

How about a Vacuum Blimp<tm> Patent Pending!

[The_Dougster]

Instead of filling the blimp with hot air . . .

Just make the frame out of carbon nano-tubes, with um spectra fiber cloth for the baloon, then pump the air out of that baby and up you go!

Yeah! Thats the ticket! They probably tried this in Soviet Russia years ago, but failed because they didn't have carbon nano-tubes, so now all this profit are belong to me!

thought process

[zobier]

I quite appreciate the summary of the thought process that led to this design.

Re:Big Deal

[wolja]

Great, lets celebrate that. You guys patented blimps with internal frames so you can keep anyone who doesn't pay you from doing that same thing.

It's called making a return on investment. If you look at piracy (Movie and software etc), over-estimated to be sure, the taking of others efforts is not uncommon.

Not everyone can live for free.

Big disappointment

[aggressor-on]

I thought for sure they found a way to use my.. erm... natural gas a cheap form of transportation!

Re:Big Deal

[Abcd1234]

just how are you planning to heat up the air?

Well, there *is* this giant fusion reactor a few tens of million of miles from here that is, apparently, very good at generating heat. If you spent some energy getting the dirigible initially inflated and then ascended over the cloudline, I suspect you might be able to leverage that thing somehow...

Re:Big Deal

[Reziac]

My first thought was, I WANT ONE!!! This is like climbing the tallest tree just for the view, only YOU CAN MOVE THE TREE!!

Kindof like doing Google Earth in the flesh.

Oh, wait... Most of the folks here have never done anything in the flesh. ;)