Boeing-Skyhook Airship Faces Technical Challenges

waderoush writes "Since the Hindenburg disaster, dreams of giant airships capable of lifting heavy cargo have been restricted mainly to Popular Science covers (with the notable exception of the Cargolifter AG failure) — until Boeing and a Canadian company called Skyhook announced on July 8 that they're building a 300-foot-long, helium-filled craft that will lift loads of up to 40 tons and carry them 200 miles. But an aeronautical engineer at the University of Washington cautions that there are still some big problems to be worked out with mega-airships, including their stability in turbulent weather."

Comments

Again, I read the article

[holophrastic]

This is, once again, a stupid and worthless article. Allow me to summarize again.
1. Someone's trying to build something
2. Someone else says it was hard a few decades ago

That's it. Gee, thanks for the news. Once again, "Someone is going to try to do something" is not a headline!

Where's the beef?

[BrotherBeal]

There's got to be more to this analysis than TFA leads on. I mean, identifying turbulence as a problem is hardly a feat of aeronautical engineering. We've been flying aircraft of many varieties for a long time, and it's not as if we don't have strategies in place to deal with turbulence or any of the other weather conditions that exist (which TFA seems to confuse with turbulence). Problems with aerodynamic control are hardly showstoppers either. If worse comes to worse, put a tail-rotor on the thing just like a helicopter, or use counter-rotating props. As for the third problem (the high price of helium) - that's hardly a "technical challenge". If companies feel this new design opens some profitable avenues, they'll find a way to fund it - otherwise, it will remain a prototype. I'd like to hear what this engineer ACTUALLY had to say, since the folks at xconomy.com seem to have left nearly all the meat out of his critique.

Oh, its a headline alright, to many people.

[deft]

"Once again, "Someone is going to try to do something" is not a headline!"

Sure its a headline.

But, for you, when people are doing something huge, you apparently dont want to know till its done. Many news stories are worthy just that someone i undertaking the challenge, usually because of the scope of the challenge and implications. Some things take longer. Like USA decides to go to the moon was pretty big back in the day. That certainly is/was news to even try the feat. You seriously wouldn't be interested to know Iran is trying to build a nuke? Or do you just say "yawn, let me know when they have a nuke... its not news they are trying...".

Your ideal newspaper would read "2020: The USA successfully set up their base mars yesterday after 12 years of work on the project"?

Re:Oh, its a headline alright, to many people.

[holophrastic]

I mis-spoke. It's not that you misunderstood me, it's that you misunderstand challenges. In any venture, of any kind, "challenges remain". That's not critiquing someone else's plans.

If I were to critique an airship builder's plans, I might say something to the effect of: "they've decided to use an elongated shape, which is unlikely to succeed because an elongated shape would make the ship more susceptable to wind turbulence.".

That's a critique. But that's not what these guys said. They say the equivalent of: "airships have to deal with wind turbulence, so these guys shouldn't try.".

Listing problems doesn't contribute anything to the builders, and it doesn't contribute anything to the reader. It's the F.U.D. of the engineering world, and it's literally retarding.

Speaking in generalities about someone else's endeavour is not only easy, it's pointless.

200 miles?

[greyhueofdoubt]

It can carry 40 tons of cargo but only enough fuel to travel 200 miles? I can see this being useful for heavy construction, but c'mon- it can't be too hard to sacrifice a little bit of cargo space in order to extend the range dramatically. What am I missing?

-b

Interesting a sky truck

[Anonymous Coward]

The target carrying weight of 40 tons appears to be the normal maximum carrying weight for trucks.

Heavy lift aircraft can carry an order of magnitude more weight.

Helicopters appear more limited (but I couldn't find references). So it looks like the idea is to build a flying semi truck for use in remote areas where roads don't go.

Interesting.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[b0s0z0ku]

Ironically, when the Hindenburg (which was among a tiny minority of airships that actually crashed) wrecked, a scant few people were killed, a couple injured, and the rest survived. When an airliner crashes... well, survival chances are... not quite as good.

This was a crash upon landing -- i.e. the airship caught fire at an altitude of about 100 ft when approaching its docking tower. Your chances of surviving an airliner wreck from 35,000 feet are quite small -- your chances of surviving a crash or fire upon a (somewhat controlled) landing are much greater.

-b.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[magarity]

but they actually were safer than airplanes (and significantly more economic)
 
Not if you factor in that time = money. Then they aren't so economically competitive with jet aircraft because of how slow they are. Now maybe compared to a cruise liner...

Mods on crack?

[spectrokid]

Let me summarize responses which for some weird reason have been modded down:
+ 200 miles in a blimp = 8 hours You fly around with a refinery cracking tower for 8 hours you gonna want to take a leak.
+ Any long distance you do by ship or train. Pick up your oversized baggage directly from the ship, and fly it to its final destination.
+ If I can add my own: the weather can change a lot in 8 hours. Flying into a storm with a 50 ton windmill hanging from your butt is bad news.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[Original Replica]

Not if you factor in that time = money. Then they aren't so economically competitive with jet aircraft because of how slow they are.

For business trips, I agree with your point. For vacation travel I might disagree, depending on the cost and luxury of airship travel. A airship ticket from NYC to London that costs the same as the airplane ticket might be a good deal if I have a decent sized seat and can walk to a dining area and eat real food on my 24 hr trip as opposed to being cramped in an economy seat with a microwave meal for 7 hrs. If the trip is actually part of the vacation it could be worth it.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[Zemran]

Hindenburg was hydrogen filled with hydrogen. Although there are lots of ideas about the cause of the accident, the effect would have been much less fatal in a modern, helium filled airship.

So a modern version of this would have had near to 100% survival as is would have just settled to the ground and collapsed.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[moosesocks]

Jet-A also more closely resembles kerosene than it does Gasoline.

It burns rather slowly, and generally not explosively. Granted, if a tank full of jet fuel ignites, it's definitely a very bad thing, but it'll take more than a few minutes to burn.

An airship full of Hydrogen gas will combust almost instantaneously.

You also have the issue of public perception. The Hindenberg disaster was a fairly horrific spectacle (big explosion, people running around on fire, etc....). This is why we've spent billions (trillions?) fighting a war on "terror," despite the fact that the odds of being killed by a terrorist in America in the past 10 years is about the same as being struck by lightning. 9/11 was very.....graphic.