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Zeppelins Over California
It seems that Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow may not have been completely off the mark. According to Venture Beat, Airship Ventures has raised capital sufficient to build their first Zeppelin NT (Microsoft Windows reference purely coincidental). The airship will offer rides for up to 12 passengers out of the old Navy Blimp hangars at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley. Airship Ventures notes that airships are already flying safely in Japan and Germany, so now the US will have its chance. Rides will cost from $250 to $500 per person. Esther Dyson is one of the investors.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Failed Australian Entrepreneur Alan Bond had blimps used for joy rides in the 80s in Sydney. They were pretty noisy and slow. I think they got taken to the US and had goodyear painted on the side and hung out around sporting events as they were worth more as event billboards than joyride vessels. I wonder how this is different, IF it is different...
They are rich, they are powerful, they are once again literally over us.
I for one welcome our new recreating/floating overlords
My other sig is just as lame
Where's the waste?
They take rich people's money, which would otherwise be locked down in someone's personal possession, i.e. not in the economy. That's what I'd call wasted.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
What? No jokes about crashing? (Apart from that one BSOD reference)
I would love to go on one of those flights with some nice photography equipment. You really couldn't ask for a better platform for aerial photography: slow, stable, and not too high. The fact that the city and the surrounding area are beautiful doesn't hurt either!
IF they actually build it (we've been hearing about the return of dirigibles to the US for years now) I would go for a ride next time I'm around San Fran.
why exactly is this limited to people with a house in Malibu? people routinely spend several hundred dollars on a special activity while on leave/holidays.
What is...?
The Zeppelin NT is purchased from "ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH" and the 4th they are building, see this link (german)
and want to flood the silicon valley to push the prices of computer chips.
it will crash and burn with a name like that
... it has been reported that a farmer has modified his cessna cropduster with machine guns. Something about "German Invasion"...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
250 USD is a lot of money? I have a few British pennies in my pocket that should about cover that fair.
so instead of the gangsters in oakland shooting their guns in the air for fun, they'll have a target. and fourth of july will come early if one of em hits it!
In which the boys investigates a series of murders at a new startup launching Lighter-than-air travel from New York. The company in that line however was seriously trying to recreate the commercial travel market that was destroyed by the Zeppelin disaster (unfairly I may add, if the Zeppelin had been running on Helium like it should have it would almost certainly have survived - greed is a terrible thing - quoth the book). :p
Anyway, I can't remember the specific title, but it was one of the better Hardy Boys books if I recall - man this takes me back many years. I remember the CEO of the startup in the booking quoting that lighter-than-air is safer, more comfortable and cheaper than airplanes could ever be - and were it not for the Zeppelin crash would almost certainly have ruled the market because even though it's slower, every working stiff could afford a ticket.
Far be it from me to question Franklin W. Dixon's research
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Remember this?:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/14/0219246
I hope they included the increasing price and decreasing availability of helium in their business plan. No wonder it's $250+ per flight.
But I agree, I don't object to money sinks for rich folks. People will be putting food on the table by providing this money waster, perhaps science or engineering will be advanced a little bit, and most importantly it's the rich people's own damn money. I prefer rich people spending cash on useless frippery, to taxing those people to death and spending the taxes on, say, putting little rainbow-colored stickers on every lamppost along a (shortish) stretch of highway to "give it an identity", for a cost of $200.000 (I kid you not).
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Zeppelins are great. We should really be using them for more than simple tourism. Their lifting capacity is much greater than an aeroplane and their cost much lower. Slower of course, but faster than a ship, I think. Next time I come to the US, I'd be more than happy to take two or three days on the journey in the comfortable, ship-like capacity of a zeppelin.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
If the rich spend their money on a blimp ride, the money goes from one rich person to the other.
I don't see the use of that. I'd rather taxe them (and my self), so there is an opportunity to build public schools or do something about crime.
Privacy is terrorism.
of a blimp over the Golden Gate bridge reminds me of "A View to Kill" James Bond 007 the last part of the movie...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
...Who knows if there's any significant air transport market for airships to fill in this day-and-age, but I thinks it's interesting to speculate whether fixed-wing aircraft would be the dominant air transport technology that it is today had the Hindenburg not gone down. OTOH maybe airships would have been killed of by fixed-wings regardless.
==C:\WINDOWS\system32\lusrmgr.exe==
Always knew Page and co. were "Going to California".
I still remember the dream of thousand tonne capacity cargo airships that would revolutionise the transport of anything big and delicate. The only purpose this sky yacht can serve that I care about is as a small scale proof of expertise in the field to attract more investment. Things probably won't work that way unfortunately. What would interest me far more would be an attempt to make hydrogen airships once more. It is like any technology involving large amounts of energy, there are dangers but they only apply if you don't design your machine properly.
" Esther Dyson is one of the investors. "
Is there anything she's invested in that's done well? AFAIK so far, no.
Need Mercedes parts ?
"Airship Ventures notes that airships are already flying safely in Japan and Germany"
;) ? I'd hate to think Hindenburg was their idea of flying safely!
I take it they're not taking history into account with this comment
The money goes from rich person R1 to rich person R2. Some of it goes to the state as taxes. R2 then has to spend some money on wages for workers W1 to Wn who operate and maintain the zeppelin (again, some of that money goes to the state via taxes at various points). He also has to spend money on material and parts required to maintain the zeppelin, which goes to suppliers S1 to Sn. Again, taxes apply and if the zeppelin business runs well enough the material suppliers might be able to expand their businesses, thus creating more jobs.
I don't know how much taxes this generates as opposed to taxes on money that lies around on the bank, but it does also generate jobs, which helps society because (at least in theory) it reduces welfare spending, among other things.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
You don't have to be a good investor to be rich and you don't have to be rich to be a good investor.
Privacy is terrorism.
"Fire's high and the airbag's tight, ...we're low on cash but see another target."
Food's low but the skies are bright.
Props spinning all through the night,
Seems like the Airship Pirates from Abney Park finally get their chance, at last.
There are a great many engineering problems that are associated with airships that have made it a technology that is difficult to work with compared to a wide-bodied fixed wing airplane like a 747 or A380.
Problems that need to be considered is having to fly in less than ideal weather, engines powerful enough to push through a strong headwind, and being able to handle the airship both at departure and at arrival. Airships simply can't even compete against large airplanes in terms of these basic handling requirements.
Consider that at least using 1930's technology, a typical airship required a terminal crew of hundreds of handlers just to get the vehicle into a hanger. A great many of these handlers often were injured when a sudden gust of wind lifted the airship up and caused it to go up 30 or more feet... picking up somebody holding onto the ropes that was trying to guide the ship into or out of the terminal.
Basically, the economic savings that came from slightly more efficient shipping costs were more than out weighed by the personnel costs including berthing suites (even for cargo haulers... you need multiple crews for longer flights), support personnel, and a much more elaborate terminal crew. Added on top of that the strong lack of reliability in terms of being able to use the vehicles in only nearly ideal weather conditions (meaning you can't trust when an airship is going to arrive with a cargo shipment) add up to the reason why they aren't used much at all.
This is a nice dream, and I'd love the chance to fly one of these gracious vehicles myself. But the challenges and obstacles necessary to make this something commercially viable are huge, and unless heavily subsidized by government I don't see that it would be viable as a business model. The government money IMHO would be a giant black hole of a concept too, and wouldn't maintain popular support for what would be openly a welfare program for elite rich folks.
Consider that at least using 1930's technology, a typical airship required a terminal crew of hundreds of handlers just to get the vehicle into a hanger. A great many of these handlers often were injured when a sudden gust of wind lifted the airship up and caused it to go up 30 or more feet... picking up somebody holding onto the ropes that was trying to guide the ship into or out of the terminal.
Well barring the introduction of automated mooring technology or something I see no problem with a job that requires human labor. Especially in an economy that is making it hard for people to find work.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
That's kind of the point... the rich person's money IS in the hands of a smallish company providing a service, which owes the bank, which owes the depositor. Money can be like electrical current, what's most important about it to the economy is not how much there is, but how quickly it cycles through different users.
Its and old and over used adage, but true, this is almost
verbatim of the decadence prior to the fall of Rome.
But they didn't listen then, and I am very sure they
won't listen now.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I'm not talking cheap unskilled human labor here. This is hiring hundreds of highly skilled and professionally trained aircraft handling personnel, that you have to figure at the cost of about $50-$100 per hour (including overhead, supervisors, and benefits packages). This is also putting these highly skilled people into very dangerous situations when problems start to occur. Frankly, all things considered, I would consider this to be more dangerous profession than a fireman or even a combat infantry soldier during wartime.
Also.... how do you pay for all of these "people" to get the job done? My point here is that labor costs alone are something that makes the technology useless and uneconomical. Smaller airships can be more easily handled with a smaller crew, but then again they carry much less and don't get the job that is done by fixed winged aircraft either.
My hat is off to this venture company trying to make a go of this technology, but I'm suggesting that would-be investors hold onto their money and put it into businesses much more likely to return their investment... like buggy whip manufacturers.
And you don't think it's better for the smallish company to have taken this money directly from the rich person, as opposed to from the bank, where there'd be interest and another layer of dependencies involved?
Which way is better for the economy at large, I cannot say. I'd just rather trust the company, and would want them to have as much control over their resources as possible.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Besides... most of the ones you call "rich people" keep other people employed.
Money in a bank also creates jobs; interest doesn't appear by magic. It is earned when the bank gives out loans as investments which could be used for anything from a start-up loan, a mortgage or a loan for an expanding company, all of which directly or indirectly create jobs.
Article on industrial helium. Abundant in the universe, but only a few practical supply points on the globe. http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/10754.html
Okay...
1) No technology is "proven" out of the box.
2) All technology that is being given attention in any form improves over time.
3) Payroll initially comes from the investors then from customers just like any other business.
4) The money spent on hiring all those people GOES BACK INTO THE ECONOMY.
So what you end up with is what is basically a young technology that will improve over time and stimulates the economy.
You gotta start somewhere my friend...
"Bah!" - Dogbert
So is this a rigid dirigible? or just another blimp.
The Original Zeppelins, right up to the Hindenburg, all had w rigid structure, not just pressurized with air and gas.
Another use for these airships is advertising, like the Goodyear blimps, only they could use modern Light Emitting Diode signs instead of incandescents. If I had one of those LED Zeppelins, I'd name it Stairway To Heaven.
House in Malibu? $250 for an afternoon's enjoyment? I've seen that much spent by people whose house had a refrigerator out front.
rj
Hydrogen is probably a net safety gain.
Rigid airships had a terrible safety record. They were large fragile ships, and even moderately bad weather could rip them apart, and did. Sometimes their massive cross sections caught the wind and tore them loose from their moorings.
Traveling on a 20th century zeppelin was like trusting your life to a soap bubble on a breezy day. Fire was a concern, but not the greatest danger.
Think of all the houses that are heated by gas; every year a house or two blows up -- usually empty houses where nobody was home to smell the gas. Gas leaks are much, much more common than house explosions. "Explosion" is just a term that means supersonic burning. In order to get a big gas explosion, you have to have a large cloud within which the gas and oxygen are mixed in the proper stoichiometric ratio. That's hard to do because natural gas is lighter than air, and diffuses rapidly. You need special conditions, and really bad luck to get a good sized explosion.
The same applies even more so to hydrogen. Considering that hydrogen allows you to have a ship that is smaller, stronger, or both, and both of these help avoid the most common failure mode of rigid airships, I'd speculate that hydrogen is a net win.
I think the most interesting designs being talked about are hybrid airships that are heavier than air -- but still gain a large fraction of lift from gas. With a combination of modern materials and weather forecasting, these vehicles might operate much like zeppelins in flight, but with far greater reliability.
Couldn't the cost of riding on these zeppelins be subsidized by selling 'airvertising' space on them? Also, they could be used as wi-fi stations which could help to get rural areas online.
We need more ways to get the wealthy to spend money, because that money supports jobs for us peons.
We need them to buy as many (domestically produced) toys and services as possible and should encourage them instead of envying their good fortune.
If every wealthy person that could afford a Biltmore would buy one, it would feed, cloth, and house thousands of workers.
The waste of helium is stupid though:
http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/10754.html [wustl.edu]
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
That's a great idea. Let's have you be in charge of what's useful and what's a waste, and tax people at extremely high rates so that money doesn't go into what's a waste. Rich people like the Wright Brothers should have been taxed into being "mddle class" with a respectable job too. What silliness to waste their time on a machine only rich people can afford. Wait a second. Maybe an even better alternative is to just tax you (and other volunteers) at a higher rate, since that's what you've chosen. Then nobody loses.
I am a HUGE zeppelin enthusiast. I plan on building zeppelins myself eventually, or now if you have a venture capitalist with some vision.
Let's be clear: Zeppelins are MUCH safer than airplanes. They float, and are inherently safer by design. Even in the Hindenburg, arguably one of the worst zeppelin disasters in history, over 50% of the people on board survived. Hydrogen is safe, too, the only reason the Hindenburg went down is because it had been damaged by a Nazi party show boat, and was painted in (I'm not making this up) Aluminum, gunpowder, and rocket fuel, all of which are more than just a little bit flammable.
Zeppelins are much CHEAPER than airplanes. You only need to blow a fan for propulsion, and can do so at slower (safer) speeds, as the lift is all provided by helium or hydrogen. In fact, the typical zeppelin has a LOT of surface area, and with the new cheap CIGS solar panels, even propulsion could be largely free. Done properly, zeppelins could be cheaper to travel in than ANY OTHER VEHICLE.
Zeppelins can be spacious, comfortable, and luxurious. They offer spectacular views, speedy (as the bird flies) routes, and stunning panache.
With the technology we have now, you could have a GPS-guided, radar-auto-avoiding, wifi-other-zeppelin-communicating, self-propelled zeppelin made of carbon fiber, kevlar, and CIGS solar panels which is also a luxurious home complete with hot tub, shower, bed, kitchen, sun deck, and movie theater, able to travel essentially for free, after initial purchase price.
In fact, with mass production, there is no part of this design that is expensive AT ALL, and they could eventually be much cheaper than houses and change the way we live altogether.
You can laugh if you want, but we had designs vastly superior to any of our current vehicles in the TWENTIES!!!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The super-rich are tremendously important to the economy, so long as they come by it honestly. They are the only ones who can invest the resources necessary for inventing cutting-edge, unusual, expensive, and risky technologies.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
I didn't think I could shoot down a German plane, but last year I proved myself wrong!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Yes...but what color is the word "orange"?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
What really killed the airships wasn't the Hindenburg, though that certainly didn't help. It was the weather.
Airships have a HUGE sail (amount of surface the wind can push against) compared to their weight, and that puts them at the mercy of any sort of significant convective weather. Couple that with the pathetic state of weather forecasting during that period, and you have disasters like those that occurred to the U.S.S. Macon and the U.S.S. Akron. So, launching one of these ships in anything but ridiculously mild weather was out of the question. Couple that with the state of weather forecasting, and you had a business model that would make any sane businessman run for his life.
I'm still not sure that forecasting has matured to the point that you can take a significant number of these ships on, say, transcontinental or transatlantic runs, but perhaps the safety of shorter routes may have improved to the point that a banker won't laugh you out of his office. The majority of passenger traffic would be out, however; people want to get there NOW, not a week from now.
What may, however, bring at least a limited number of these lumbering beasts back is their cargo-carrying capacity. That, and their ability to hold said cargo motionless over a point (think bridge assembly, etc) makes for some interesting possibilities. I'd like to see what the station-holding technology that mobile oil-drilling platforms use could do when applied to this scenario.
Regards;
Whether parent post a troll be, matters not. Reply I shall</yodavoice>, as these points have yet to be addressed:
Dirigibles made with today's technology are an interesting concept, and could become an important part of the infrastructure in a few short years.
Dirigibles could provide manned, stratospheric bases that could replace cell phone towers and fiber optic cables (think point to point laser links operating above cloud cover over hundreds of miles). Such bases would be excellent command/control posts for forest fire management, local weather reports (including tracking individual tornadoes), crop assessments, border management, and so on. These bases are likely to evolve beyond the design limits of the dirigible fairly quickly, but dirigibles make sense as an interim stage, and probably as the escape vehicles and supply ships that these high outposts would always need.
Dirigibles make more economic sense than trucks in moving cargo from railway terminals and sea ports to destinations on the far side of difficult terrain (mountains, wetlands). Building fleets of dirigibles could easily be more sound fiscally and environmentally than continued maintenance of some existing rail lines and trucking routes.
But these are long term goals. Something is needed to fund the immediate R&D work. Giving joy rides to rich bas^H^H^H people is the kind of low hanging fruit that is worth pursuing.
Most of the historic problems with dirigibles concerned their bouyancy when on the ground. We now have heat pump technology that could be used to change the bouyancy of the lifting gas on a minute by minute basis. We can also manage mixtures of hydrogen and helium that would give better lift at lower cost than pure helium while avoiding any real and many of the irrational concerns over using pure hydrogen. Combined with lighter, stronger, and less porous gas bags and lighter and stronger frames, a modern dirigible would compare to the old Zeppelins like a racing yacht compares to kid's raft with a bedsheet sail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b7J5k3BNtc A Tokyo Flight By Zeppelin NT
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Zeppelin NTs have been flying for ages now over various bits of Europe. Saw one over Frankfurt about eight years ago, they were running short sightseeing flights (sorry linked article is in German) from a field just outside a nearby town (which had historically been used as a Zeppelin airfield). There are some videos if you are interested in seeing more. One should be flying in the Munich area in 2009 (there was some hope to get it for Oktoberfest this year, but it didn't work out).
The article isn't quite accurate, Airship Ventures is only ordering. Construction is taking place down at Friedrichshafen where the original Zeppelins were built.
See my journal, I write things there
Oh yeah. Those rich person clubs are just full of people smart enough to make a ton of money but somehow stupid enough to just shove it in their mattresses.
In reality if the rich person wasn't spending money on this sort of thing he'd be investing it elsewhere, and possibly with even better results for the economy. Throw a little cash at a joyride and you may provide daily wages for a crew of ten. Invest the money in a business and the business might provide stable employment for a thousand.
No, it's not certain. It's a risk, and that's why it's nice to have rich people with money available to invest around.
Anyway, the point is, you're completely off in your attitude that the rich participate in the economy only through their rich person flings, and while it doesn't matter in this case it's possible that this misconception could lead to some wrong conclusions that do.
I bought one of her garish bagless vacuum cleaners and it totally sucked.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Therefore, your comparison is a total bag of rats' knackers. Get someone to show you how to use google and search for "apples and oranges".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The "Gwyneth Paltrow is hot" demographic, I believe.
it's been what- 60+ years?
take a look at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_800 from 1996
now read this from 1998
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29630
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
It figures - we get a thread about airships, it gets a good 150 replies, and not one of them even make a reference to breeding giant riding chickens that can be armored for conflicts.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
A 747 does have a 1930's comparator: The DC-3
That was the "state of the art" at the time for heavier than air vehicle. And a pretty good design all things considered (I've even flown in one on a regular commercial passenger flight).
The point I was trying to make, however, was that bringing this into the 21st century that perhaps some refinements could be made to the handling system that wouldn't necessarily require so many people... especially if you could build some automated systems that would adjust based on wind currents on different portions of the airship and some advanced avionic sensors that simply weren't possible in the 1930's.
Still, I don't see how you can get rid of more than about half or so of the handlers there were for a comparably sized airship with modern technology. Perhaps a few more than that, but even now the Goodyear company has dozens of handlers even for their smaller blimps... and that is current technology that is compared to current 747s.
Furthermore, I'm trying to compare a major airship like the Hindenburg or USS Akron (google that one, if you would) to the 747.... which IMHO is a proper comparison if you want to compare carrying capacity for major kinds of air transport.
That is where the "apples to apples" comparison is at... as the 747 and its general class of airplanes is performing the task that the airships of the 1930's were originally designed to fill. It is also the supposed claim that airships are oh so much more efficient and should replace these monster airplanes for bulk air cargo shipments that I'm trying to refute and point out that the 747 exists precisely because the airships simply couldn't do the job in the first place.
Not really. They both stand for "New Technology", although for the airship that's "Neue Technologie" and for Windows it's a bit of a bacronym.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_NT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT
Wikipedia - Now everyone can be Cliff Clavin!
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Everybody needs to get a blimp,
Cause blimps are pretty pimp,
You can fill it up with air,
But that wont get you anywhere,
Advertise upon the side,
Take your girlfriend for a ride,
Just fill up the ballon with the very best gas in Toon.
HELIUM!
you need helium to fill that bitch up,
its the second symbol on the periodic table,
oxygen and nitrogen are way behind it,
as chemicals go they're both pretty stupid,
HELIUM! HELIUM! HELIUMM!
*dinosour high voice* Don't breathe it in though!
/appologies to Weebl.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine. Made up my mind to make a new start, Going To California with an aching in my heart.
Your sig scares me a little
Which means that we're comparing something that generates jobs and taxes to something that generates money and taxes. Keeping the money on the bank as opposed to starting up a company is at best just as good for the people as the alternative. My argument against the GGP still holds - this is by far not just rich people giving each other money.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Not after you factor in the post-orwellian guide-wires that will blanket our cities by 2020. These wires will make the layer between the flying car ways and the UV dome, which will be too large to minimize inevitable pressure differentials caused from the solar harvesting steam generators. The subway tunnels? They converted them to prison cells after the revolution.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Robert Plant has a project with Allison Kraus going on.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The other problem is the airship launch conditions. I was involved with a project where we were testing some equipment on an airship. We had a lot of launch scrubs because of ground winds that were pretty modest.
I think the airship as freight mover idea would only be practical for the types of cargo that can sit at a facility for quite a while until it can finally be moved when conditions suffice.
if they want to fly zeppelins over california, all they have to do is get Pamela Anderson airborne. i'm not sure how many passengers she can accomodate.
Yep. The problem is that, these days (but also in days past), many super-rich people come by their money dishonestly, which hurts the economy. Bill Gates is a great example of this; software technology would be far more advanced now if he hadn't been able to build a monopoly.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
That goes back to my economics argument again.
If you have airship pilots who have to sit around a hanger all day waiting for ideal conditions to fly their vehicle, that is a fixed facility cost of both the hanger, the labor costs that you would have to pay for the crews (both ground support and air crews), and the amortization cost of the airship as well.
In the time that you could get a single shipment of goods delivered from London to Sydney via airship, you could have a 747 crew do that dozens or even close to a hundred times. So about the only real "savings" that the airship would provide is for raw fuel costs. Same or smaller crews for the 747, and similar or slightly more expensive vehicle costs for the 747.... but used so often that in terms of a per-trip cost would actually be less than the airship by a huge margin.
Add on top of that the concept of being able to fly in substantially harsher conditions (aka "more reliable" in terms of getting to the destination when you want it to get there) and much more rapid delivery.... meaning the ability to ship high value goods (and therefore higher profits for the goods shipped), and it goes to show you why airships aren't being used.
BTW, thank you for your remark about airship launching conditions. There are practical applications of airship technology, and perhaps they may be used more extensively some day. But I believe it will be more of a novelty application in the future if it ever is used for passenger air travel. Research projects seem to be one of those niche applications that might make such a technology useful, although UAV's (unmanned flying vehicles) are taking over even some of those applications that once strongly suggested a lighter-than-air vehicle.
Not after you factor in the post-orwellian guide-wires that will blanket our cities by 2020. These wires will make the layer between the flying car ways and the UV dome, which will be too large to minimize inevitable pressure differentials caused from the solar harvesting steam generators. The subway tunnels? They converted them to prison cells after the revolution.
What fantasy is this? 2020 is only 12 years away, and I certainly don't see any of this in any realistic urban planning concepts.Go back to the 1960's with this sort of SciFi nonsense and get a grip with what the reality of the future will be.
I don't see why so many handlers are needed. Build two big arches and stretch a net between them. Pilot the zepp between the arches. Pad the arches in case of crosswinds. When the zepp is pretty well between the arches, start retracting the net towards the ground. Bob's your uncle.
For ground winds, what's wrong with using air bags to keep the zepp from being damaged by being slammed into the ground? Or, maybe the zepp can be tethered to an extending gantry or an elevator on a crane, to get it clear of ground winds before being launched. Or, better, maybe a tetherd sail can be used to stabilize the zepp, like they've developed for cargo ships.
Point is, with computers and all, we can work smarter and safer, instead of throwing bodies at the problem.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]