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The Age of the Airship Returns?
Popular in Victorian and Steampunk fantasies, airships and zeppelins evoke a certain elegance that most modern travelers don't associate with the airplane. Some companies are capitalizing on that idea, and a need to move cargo by air in an era of ever-increasing fuel costs, to re-re-introduce commercial zeppelins. Popular Mechanics notes four notable airship designs, all with specific design purposes. One craft in particular, the Aeroscraft ML866, is being funded by the US government's DARPA group. It looks to combine the best elements of the helicopter and the zeppelin. "The Aeroscraft ML866's potentially revolutionary Control of Static Heaviness system compresses and decompresses helium in the 210-ft.-long envelope, changing this proposed sky yacht's buoyancy during takeoff and landings, Aeros says. It hopes to end the program with a test flight demonstrating the system. "
Airships have their issues, but I recall reading somewhere that a blimp large enough to carry massive amounts of cargo can do so for the fraction of the fuel spent on ship-based transportation. Ships have to keep expending energy to push through water, but an airship needs far less power to keep a course through the air.
I see a couple hurdles though.
The first is designable around -- damage to the hot air or helium part due to lightning, or tears due to other factors. Having multiple "balloons" might help this situation, so if one is ruptured, the airship still can stay up, or descend in a fairly graceful fashion.
The second is a bit harder, but sort of related to #1. There are people out there (in most areas of the globe) who wouldn't mind taking potshots at an airship. It could be a drunk hillbilly who is playing with his new 30/06, or someone who has a RPG and is hoping to knock the thing out of the air completely. Oddly enough (and I have little or no aerospace expertise), I wonder if, even with major damage from a missile hit, a well engineered airship still can land gracefully (assuming the gondola isn't what is damaged.) Could an airship fly high enough so the chance of getting hit by ground fire be minimized?
Lastly there is a third problem. There is a ton of air traffic already. I wonder how hard it would be to factor in large, slow vehicles into the aviation corridors without impacting takeoffs and landings of jets and prop based traffic.
The trouble with blimps is that they don't compete with aircraft, since they are too slow. They compete with trains and trucks, but don't have the carrying capacity to do that, while they do have the maintenance cost of aircraft. So altogether they don't make economic sense and they likely never will.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I've driven past Moffet Field, in California, which NASA uses part of, and seen several airship hangers. The ships I saw were not advertising or such, but appeared to be actual "workhorse" ships, whether for cargo or research, I don't know, but it seems airships have been around and doing useful work with almost no attention, so it is hardly surprising to me that more uses are being considered.
A very interesting use is being worked on by a company called JP Aerospace (http://jpaerospace.com/). Their idea is to build an airship-to-orbit system. Not in one go. It would involve transferring from a ground capable airship to an extreme high altitude airship.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
Funny I was thinking the same thing. Cargo zeppelins was actually a very promising area. My brother's company that makes custom machinery wanted to use Cargo zeppelins to move their heavy machinery. Right now their machines are assembled, taken apart, and then driven piece by piece via road. The zeppelins were supposed to make this moot by being able to ship the entire machine.
From the article it looks like they want to use those machines to survey... Hmmm... Big brother?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"