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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."
Wow, it seems we're coming full circle with air travel..
"I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 autogiro?"
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
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!
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.
I'm disabling ads until because I choose not to reward redesigns that are less usable than "view source".
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.
Well, duh. Don't fly them in a storm them. Geez, do these guys need to have everything explained to them?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
-b.
Unless we run out of helium.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/helium.html
"At our current rate of consumption, Cliffside will likely be empty in 10 to 25 years, and the Earth will be virtually helium-free by the end of the 21st century."
You mis-understand me. "people are trying to build an airship" is news-worthy even if they were built every day. But that's not this article's focus. This article focuses on how some other people (not the airship builders) mention problems with airship design. This article is about raining on someone else's parade.
What makes it particularly stupid is that these people who are predicting the builders' failure are doing so in an industry where virtually nothing has been done for decades. So essentially they are using antiquated data to argue against current endeavours. That's not only mean, it's retarded -- in the correct sense of the word.
pffftt. Helium is for wimps. Have some balls and use hydrogen.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Did you post a Hindenburg link expressly with the intention of garnering a "Flamebait" mod?
Genius!
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Nice comment. Except for the part where you make the assumption that the ship is neutral with it's cargo. The article is talking about a ship that is neutral without it's cargo. Then it as rotors, just like an helicopter, for lifting the cargo. The rotors are compensating for the weight of the cargo. To go down, just slow the rotors. When you unload, the ship just stay there.
Try to read the article next time ;-)
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.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Those who would sacrifice cargo space for a little extended range deserve neither cargo space nor range... wait, sorry.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers