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The Second Age of Airships
The Telegraph has a story about a new generation of airships. It says "It's a new vehicle. It's a hybrid because we're combining helium lift, aerodynamic lift, a hovercraft landing system, and vectored thrust... If you can get beyond the word airship — because that has a lot of history — people think about them differently."
we'll have peak helium.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/05/2159215/Price-Shocks-May-Be-Coming-For-Helium-Supply?from=rss
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I will forever associate the word "airship" with Final Fantasy VI. Damn you, early-mid 1980's birth!
Living With a Nerd
Is this really how we should be using the Helium we have left on Earth?
If you can get beyond the word airship — because that has a lot of history
Ya, "history", all the bad kind
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
"If you can get beyond the word airship..."
Why would you want to? Airship is an awesome word.
Wouldn't you like to own a private airship? Call up your buds "hey man, wanna come over and watch the Superbowl? Yeah, we'll be hanging out on the airship. I'm planning on floating in circles over the lake at a few hundred feet. I get a 60 inch flat screen, two kegs, and a party sub. Bring your sister."
Airships make more sense for transporting cargo than people. They let you bypass the bottleneck of a port and let you take the cargo directly to its destination.
Cool!! Airships! Does this mean we all get brass goggles and leather aprons and other Steampunk essentials?
We need way more retro-future stuff like this! That's freakin' awesome.
Next, zombies in London. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Every science magazine since the 1950s has felt obliged to talk about the "blimp renaissance" once a year, along with a "promising prototype".
I'm still waiting for the news of a prankster somewhere that flies a large RC blimp with a picture of Osama on it.
It's going to be a Glorious Ride!
Or maybe not
He picks a name that abbreviates to HAV. Hmmm Haich - Aiii - Veee... HIV!
Seriously...
So, it's like a cruise ship, but faster. And that's a bad thing? Obviously it doesn't compare favorably to a jet airliner if your only objective is to get from A to B, but if your objective is to enjoy the ride (kinda like on a cruise) then it seems pretty awesome.
Airships make more sense for transporting cargo than people. They let you bypass the bottleneck of a port and let you take the cargo directly to its destination.
Until we get lots of airships all contending for airspace directly at the destination...
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Monorail!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They are not the first trying to revive the airship. Several years ago, CargoLifter was developing a "second generation airship". Despide heavy subsidaries they've gone insolvent, because the engeneering required to create an actually useful airship is not exactly trivial, and the list of potential customers is astonishingly small. Well, at least they left a damn big hangar that now contains a nice amusement park.
Half as dense as helium (so twice the lifting power),
Uh, no? It's being lifted by air pressure caused by air density of about 1.2 g/L; helium has a density of 0.1786g/L, so a vacuum would at most supply 14% more lift. Hydrogen at .08988g/L supplies 7.5% more lift-- hardly twice the lifting power.
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The other problems with hydrogen are (a) that it leaks out of just about everything even faster than helium does and (b) your safety statement is utterly unproven - because nobody has recently built full size airships and compared the safety record to current winged aircraft, which are quite extraordinarily safe. Historically, airships in the 1930s might have been safer than airplanes - but since then airplanes have had over 70 years of technical advancement which have paid off massively.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Actually, Hydrogen only has 8% more lifting force than Helium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_gas#Hydrogen_and_helium
... I won't have to dodge chocobo droppings, I'm all for it.
Imagine all the people...
The only form of transportation I think could be better that trains is some combination of low-altitude flying pulled by engines on the ground. 100% electric, safety provided by ground, weight of engine, fuel, guidance, etc, supported by ground. Needs some kind of "rail", but fast-switching rails now can be as flexible as roads.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Sure, there is a place on this planet (or just above it) for airships. However, trans-atlantic passenger service isn't one of them.
‘You go to Richmond Park International. At 11 o’clock on Thursday you get on board the SkyCat200. There are hundreds of staterooms on it and you dinner dance your way across the Atlantic. At two o’clock on Friday afternoon you’re getting off at the East River in New York. You’ve travelled 3,000 miles overnight and there’s no jet lag.
Or, you could get on an airplane, be in New York in a fraction of the time, and spend the rest of the day recovering from jet lag.
Realistically, SkyCats would be most useful in the transport of heavy loads – the largest SkyCat can carry up to 200 tons – to harsh environments
That's more like it. If you attack problems like heavy lifting, surveillance, even tasks like fighting forest fires, you don't have to sell it by saying "it's a hybrid"
At that time they tested a full-sized airship against a range of artillery including a Russian mounted machine gun filled with .22 calibre armour-piercing incendiaries and a SAM-7 surface to air missile. What they learnt was this: the airship is almost invincible to attack. Helium is an inert gas, so it doesn’t explode.
Did the test include shooting at the crew? I'm sure they'll find that sitting nearly motionless over a well-armed enemy does not make airship pilots invincible.
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
Nope, still peak oil. The envelope of an airship can still be filled with hydrogen (made from fossil fuel) or with air (heated with fossil fuel). Some analysts claim that the problem with LZ 129 Hindenburg wasn't that it was filled with H2 as much as that it was painted with solid rocket fuel.
But is it actually cheaper than just using boats, trains and trucks? While using three different kinds of transportation may not sound as nice to you, those are the cheapest methods of transporting large amounts of stuff.
What, exactly, makes it a dumb idea?
I've been on 5hr flights -- they're no fun. I can only imagine some of the really long flights must be friggin' brutal. Give it hotel amenities, a bar, a dance floor -- whatever -- and send people on a more leisurely trip without jamming them in like cattle and shoving them through airports. I can see it being a popular mode of travel.
Heck, just the romantic notion of it is kind of cool. I'd *love* to go on an airship voyage. It would be just plain old cool.
For leisure travel, it would be absolutely awesome way to see the world. I can see people paying to travel on one, if nothing else, for the novelty of it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Hydrogen is the correct answer, but people don't want to hear it because of the images of the Hindenburg crash.
This is ridiculous. The Hindenburg crash isn't 9/11: it was nigh 80 years ago and I'm not even distantly related to anyone who died on it. I have no emotional connection to the disaster whatsodamnedever. I reject hydrogen in airships because it's dangerous as hell. There are just too many potential sources of ignition (sparks from machinery, static discharge) for it ever to be safe enough for flight, if we hold it to the same standards of safety that commercial jets are.
Gasoline burns hotter than hydrogen, but thanks to the Hindenburg crash video, we don't have hydrogen cars either.
Gasoline burns, hydrogen explodes. There's a difference. And the issues with hydrogen cars are a multi-paragraph post that I don't feel like writing right now, but (lousy energy density, present impossibility of storage, no infrastructure) are the main reasons, not lingering Hindenburg memories. Who on earth modded GP Insightful?
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You can call anything ecological now. BP successfully marketed themselves as an ecological energy company. They should stop calling these "airships" and call them "super-ecological-airplanes", quoting fuel usage compared to jets.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
> Half as dense as helium (so twice the lifting power)
Erm, which one did you flunk - math, chemistry or both?
Air has molecular weight of around 29. Helium (He) has 4, hydrogen (H2) has 2. Thus helium produces lift proportional to 29-4=25, and hydrogen - proportional to 29-2=27.
Not twice as much, but merely 8% higher.
Until we get lots of airships all contending for airspace directly at the destination
Then how about a compromise: You can keep building dedicated facilities where these airships land, but unlike with ships, you don't have to locate them all on the coast. I've got a name for them: "airports". Because airships can use shorter runways, an airport on a given amount of land can probably service much more traffic than an airport built for conventional jet airliners.
Now imagine the costs if the thing must always take off at constant load. It would be like old sailing ships that had to fill up with gravel ballast to make safe return trips (because if they returned empty the wind could simply push them over.) Currently an Airbus 380 can transport about 150t of freight one way, and if it makes the return journey empty, OK it is a wasted trip but it requires less fuel for takeoff, which is significant on short hauls.
If you try to solve the problem by having pumps to transfer gas from the envelope to storage tanks, to control the buoyancy, you have to factor in the cost of ferrying around the pumps and the tanks. It is not impossible, but it would be complicated and expensive and require extensive safety testing before it could be certified. Much of the simplicity relative to an airplane would be lost - and you still end up with something that requires as much or more room as a 380 - a helicopter replacement this is not.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
At 20,000 feet, what would an RPG fired by an insurgent do to the thing? That doesn't seem high enough to avoid ground-to-air fire, and without the maneuverability of a fighter jet, or even helicopter...
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+1 for referencing Archer. One of my favorite episodes so far.
Oh, jeez, the "rocket fuel" BS again. Might want to read this:
http://www.airships.net/hindenburg/disaster/myths#flammable-cover
rj
Don't forget the Shenandoah, R38, Roma, Akron and Macon. The Los Angeles was the only rigid US airship that didn't go crashing into the earth or sea and that is only because we the good sense to ground it before it had to chance to take out another crew. I can think of no other mode of transportation with such a failure rate and in the end it has only done Goodyear and Goodrich any good.
I hate to rain on this guy's parade, it is an awful neat one, but what advantage does it serve? In war it is the definition of slow moving target. For surveillance we already have satellites and they don't require a crew of airmen, massive hangers that rival the wonders of the ancient world and they run well under an airship's budget. Travel? For the speed and price why not take a cruise; the last time I check a lighter than air craft doesn't have room for a waterslide, chorus line or multiple all-you-can-eat buffets.
Don't get me wrong, it is terribly fascinating idea. If you said, 'Hey, you wanna take a ride on a airship, here are the tickets', I'd jump at it, but just because it is an interesting idea doesn't mean it was a good one.
It is not a blimp it is a rigid airship!
Hello Airplanes? It's blimps... congratulations you win.
-If you have not watched Archer, you have missed out.
would be cooler if it could also be a flarecraft in ground effect.
THL phish sticks
Not to mention the detail where the hydrogen: whether burning, exploding, or miraculously transforming into wine, is holding the damned airship up. Even if it were possible to safely redirect the force of the heat and explosive energy of the hydrogen going up, the airship would crash from lack of lift. The temperature it burns at or the force of its explosiveness is almost immaterial to whether it's a good idea to try to keep a machine in the air using highly flammable gas.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I think the acronym for Hybrid Air Vehicle has a lot of potential.
It is unwise to ascribe motive
Dammit, it said "IN-flammable" - how was I to know?
Did the test include shooting at the crew? I'm sure they'll find that sitting nearly motionless over a well-armed enemy does not make airship pilots invincible.
WTF?!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why would I want to? It's a wonderful word.
> because that has a lot of history
Yes. A fine one.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Gasoline burns hotter than hydrogen, but thanks to the Hindenburg crash video, we don't have hydrogen cars either.
Actually, no. Storing hydrogen at the 10ksi needed to make it volumetrically competitive with modern battery technology makes it very dangerous.
vacuum would at most supply 14% more lift
OK, so let's fill our airships with vacuum. More lift and absolutely no danger of it going up in flames! Well, there's the problem of how to get the pressure with vacuum. But that's easy to solve: Just put enough dark energy in. If it can inflate the complete universe, it surely can also inflate a little balloon.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Reconcile this.
If it's dangerous and it explodes, then how does it have lousy energy density compared to gasoline, when your argument apparently is that gasoline doesn't do these things?
Also,
Explain this. The outside of the Hindenburg was coated with what basically amounts to thermite. The frame of the airship was grounded because of the fear that the hydrogen might burn. The panels (painted in thermite, tethered to the frame with non-conductive rope) were not, because it wasn't known that they would burn.
The Hindenburg's hydrogen escaped above the flames much quicker than it could ignite. Some of it burned, but most of it simply escaped. This is due to H2's lightness. This prevents the "OMG hydrogen burnsssss ussss" theory from being of any worth.
You win.
– Archer
Seriously - no Archer fans here? My god this so the Skytanic!
Danger zone anyone? Anyone?
-CF
Maybe it's dumb for transporting people, but it may prove to be perfect for holding cameras over Afghanistan for 21 days at a time. Time will tell, but it's an interesting idea and something different. Let's see how it plays out. Lots of people take cruises, it's not too far fetched to see people paying to float around, say, the Grand Canyon area for a few days.
Lockheed's P-791 airship has been flying around Palmdale for several years now. This is a product of Lockheed's Skunk Works. It is slightly heavier than air, and those four "feet" are lift fans. This has advantages and disadvantages. It takes fuel to stay up, for one. On the other hand, takeoff and landing are easier; the craft can land on a runway and taxi as a hovercraft. No mooring mast required.
The P-791 looks far more controllable than any previous airship. Rudders and elevators are ineffective at low speed. The P-791 has four propellers, each fully and independently steerable in two axes, plus speed, and maybe blade pitch. Plus the four lift fans. So it is controllable in all six degrees of freedom, even at zero speed. With classic airships, having twenty controls to manage by hand would be hopeless. With flight control computers, it's possible, once the airship has been characterized. That's really what flight tests of the P-791 are for - figuring out the control strategies. In the video,it's clear that the propellers are all being steered independently, which indicates computers and sensors are busily working to stabilize the beast. This is probably an easier job for the Skunk Works controls team than any of the stealth fighters they've done, all of which are unstable in all three axes.
The Zeppelin NT has a similar, but less flexible system, with three steerable fans plus a lateral tail rotor, all controlled by a fly-by-wire system. I suspect that the Skunk Works put more degrees of freedom into their prototype than are really needed, so that they could experiment with different control strategies and find the best way to control their unusual craft.
The Zeppelin NT has a compressor system, so they can reduce lift by compressing some helium into a high pressure tank and letting some of the ballonets deflate a little. This is preferable to dumping ballast or helium.
Cheaper than trucks? Yes. Trains / Boats, not so sure. If you want raw cargo per driver (or the likelihood that you can fly it entirely "by wire" or autonomously), fuel per km, or even probable average speeds, trucks will loose in many cases.
Also, if you think of less developed areas, these should be highly attractive. The hydrogen or whatever you want to employ for lift -other than helium, of course- can be cheap and mostly or entirely home-produced. There's maybe a need for high-quality materials initially, but wear and need for service can be very low... the propellers can even realistically be solar-powered if you don't need much more than that it gets to its destination eventually.
Even if it runs on renewable energy, isnt there a Heluim shortage that will make it dependent on a scarce non renewable "propulsion" source?
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Not to mention the detail where jet fuel, whether burning, exploding, or miraculously transforming into wine, is stored in the airplane's wings which are holding the damned airplane up. If the jet fuel catches fire, the plane's going down. Period.
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Gasoline burns, hydrogen explodes
No, both burn and either will explode if ignited in an encloded space, just like gunpowder. Take a firecracker and empty the powder out and light it it will simply burn.
Hell, I made the "scientific discovery" that hydrogen burns and not explodes in the seventh grade.[journal] Where did you get the idea that hydrogen explodes? Mythbusters tanked that one, too.
Free Martian Whores!
Nope! We should ban this right now!!!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
If Helium rises because it is less dense, would it be possible to force a balloon open, using some sort of supports, and end up with essentially a balloon filled with nothing, and thus able to rise? Or is this beyond current material science?
For clarification, current energy density storage limitations are due to hydrogen's low density: liquid (20K, or REALLY F***ING COLD), it's 70.99g/L (Wikipedia). Gaseous storage at room temperature gives 0.09g/L. Attempts to improve storage density and reduce the associated hazards (e.g. explosive, via combustion with air or BLEVE) use nanocrystalline palladium, but the storage medium is unstable and loses capacity with multiple adsorb/release cycles. It's also extremely expensive to make in the quantities you would need to power a car.
Parent is right - little research is being done on hydrogen as a fuel for cars because it's infeasible. GP's opinion reflects the general association people have with hydrogen - "Isn't that explosive?" - but few actually oppose hydrogen for that reason. It's all about cost effectiveness (or lack thereof).
Not Quite
Using the lift tables here
http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/lift.html
Gas Dia. Ft. Vol. l Lift gr. Lift Lbs.
Helium 24 204976.41 210369 463.79
Hydrogen 24 204976.4 228550.5 503.87
503.87/463.79 = ~1.09
so using Hydrogen over Helium is a net gain of ~9% lift.. don't get be wrong but 9% is a lot of extra it isn't nearly 2x aka 100%. I think the added safety of having a Non reactive gas over the most reactive - is worth the loss of extra lift..
Part of the reason Hydrogen doesn't provide the extra lift people think it should is because while in Gas form Helium is just He, Hydrogen is H2 which is still smaller (almost 1/2) in volume than He
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
The incendiary paint theory is hardly that dead. It's not the most likely possibility, but the descriptions of the witnesses hardly suggest that it wasn't involved. If you've ever watched the video of it actually burning up, it's really clear that with a different material on the outside and a separation of compartments that things would likely have ended differently. Additionally, there's a lot of equipment and tech out there now for dealing with and managing static electricity that wasn't there at the time.
There's also a lot of experience in the lineman trade for how to deal with large voltage differentials without frying one side or the other. The guys that search for and eliminate hot spots in the transmission lines do so pretty much every day.
That would be something I would be interested in.
There's a couple of folks who make nice livings taking folks on their sailing ships around during the vacation season and off season, they just do there thing. Work 4 months off 8.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Instead of running from it, they should embrace the "airship" designation and use a steampunk motif for all styling, both interior and exterior. I'd be more likely to buy a ticket.
I'm sorry, I should've been more clear. 100% hydrogen does not explode, but it explodes at a wide range of concentrations in air under ordinary atmospheric pressure (see here), which is quite dangerous enough to bar its use in an airship- a burn starts, leaking hydrogen into the air, which can explode when enough has escaped. Gasoline can explode too but has a much narrower range of concentrations when mixed with air (something like 7% as opposed to 70% for hydrogen). That's what I meant by my above statement.
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Having seen a few episodes of "Ice Road Truckers", I think there'd be a market for reliable all season heavy cargo delivery like this. After all trucks and trains only work where there's road and rails.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Nearly. Neither gasoline or hydrogen burn on their own - they need to be mixed with oxygen before they can burn. And then, when mixed, they burn. When they burn, they both explode. That's how cars work, after all.
The failure of the "flammable paint" theory distracts from a related and more general issue. If you can keep the hydrogen in, keep oxygen out, with a sturdy and light container, you can use it fearlessly. This is an engineering challenge which may be intractable though. You don't just have to consider reliably isolating the gas during flight, but also during collision, crashes, impacts, etc. etc.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
So if I understand it, the thing does not have enough buoyancy to stay aloft without its engines, or enough engine power / the right shape to stay aloft without the helium. So what we have here is a disaster that can happen if either component fails.
Nullius in verba
I'm sorry, but I have to point out something.
I've flown in a DC-3 flightseeing tour in Alaska, with seats rigged the same way they would have been "back then". The seats are very roomy, mimosas are served, there are huge picture windows, and the whole thing is comfortable and enjoyable. That was how flying in airplanes used to be, back when it was the exclusive domain of the rich and famous. And it's as grand as your picture paints.
Then there's mean old Mr. Fiscal Responsibility.
I got from New England to Alaska in a series of big-ass jets on a handful of painful multiple-hour flights with my 6' 4" frame crammed into a seat that only a midget with his legs cut off could love. I was served artificial fruit juice and stale peanuts, with a generous side helping of surly from the understaffed cabin crew. And that was the way it had to be, because otherwise I could never have afforded to fly to Alaska for a 2-week adventure. If I could have sacrificed another half inch of seating space or allowed one of the cabin crew to actually slap me to work off some frustration to save another $50 on my flights, I would have, because I was paying to get to Alaska, not to enjoy the journey. My goal was to spend as little as possible to get there, and to get there in the minimum time, because I was by no means rich and I only had two weeks of vacation to see as much of Alaska as I could.
If airships are to become commercially viable, they'll have to compete. Companies will have to quickly converge to the lowest common denominator to compete - there will be a First Class you can't afford that has a few of the things you are talking about, a Business Class you probably can't afford that may have a little extra legroom, then there will be Steerage Class where the majority of us jamokes fly. That will be tuned to fit as many people as possible in as little space as possible, because whatever the lowest-cost airship operator manages to eke out of his airship will be the new standard for what travel costs.
If dirigibles are a lot cheaper per-seat than jets, then we'll start talking about Greyhound Airships, and faster-than-bus travel will become more financially accessible to a lot of folks. If they aren't, then we'll stick with jets because at least it's 5 hours of insane discomfort and not 10, and all the dirigibles will be rigged to be the equivalent of cruise ships - the journey IS the destination, because once you get there it's taken too long and you can't afford to do anything once you arrive. Which is fine - lots of people have fun in cruise ships. But it won't be an alternate form of transportation, it'll be more people traveling, just in a different way.
If they are cheaper to operate or can even begin to compete with over-the-road trucking, I see a big market for them in cargo, for sure. People? We'll have to see. They'll be a lot slower than jets, and they'll either need to be roomy or very affordable to make them worth the extra time spent traveling. And I don't see the "roomy" happening for the reasons I mentioned above.
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WTF is a hovercraft landing system?
Do you throw out the eels to slow down your descent?
Hydrogen explodes only after it has been well mixed with oxygen.
The fire triangle; fuel, oxidizer, and ignition source. You need all three.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Here is some source material for you. CITATION
To be nit-picky, there is no difference between burning and exploding in this context - they're both just rapid oxidation in an exothermic reaction.
And it is important to note that neither of them will do anything unless there is an oxidizer present. An airship filled with hydrogen is fine unless oxygen gets into it.
That's not even close to a valid comparison. For one thing, the plane can fly, or at least glide, without fuel. It won't be smooth, but you can get a plane down (at least a lot them), with no fuel at all. For another, there's nearly always more than one fuel tank in a plane, so in the event one is ruptured there's still enough power to fly the plane. For yet another, the fuel is kept in a hardened, insulted tank, not a thin rubber material. Also, the fuel is not nearly as easy to incinerate are hydrogen. I could keep this up for quite a while.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The same is true about Holocaust stories -- many have been proven false and they are still repeated today.
[Citation Required]
To get nit-picky: there is no difference in this context. One just happens to release its energy a bit faster.
It is also important to note that neither substance will burn unless there is an oxidizer present. An airship filled with hydrogen isn't going to spontaneously blow up unless significant quantities of oxygen somehow infiltrate in. Making oxygen-impermeable membranes is easy. If you're airship punctures, it is much more likely that you'll have hydrogen leaking out than oxygen leaking in, so you'll have other problems to worry about.
Low speed. Less maneuverability than an airplane. Lame.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
The LEMV will hover above Afghanistan at 20,000ft, equipped with the sort of super-powerful cameras that can read a signature on a letter from four miles away. It will be, Taylor says, ‘an unblinking eye’, recording every move made on the ground. In theory, no one will be able to plant a roadside bomb – a device which has claimed the lives of so many British soldiers – without the cameras seeing who did it and, more importantly, where they came from. And, if the LEMV is a success, it could prove to be a tipping point, ushering in a new age of airships.
Talk about big brother... Still, I suppose nobody has considered the possibility that it may just get shot out of the sky by those with a grudge?
This is obviously nonviable airship. Just looking at it shows the problems. It should look like a wooden British Warship (cannons included) with numerous propellers sticking out the top. And the designers name must be Cid.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Especially the part where you get to toss a Nazi out the window for not having a ticket and escape in a bi-plane.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
most planes can glid reasonably gracefully back to earth, even if the landing itself is pretty rough. An airship without it's lift bag would fall to earth in the same way that the Vogon Constructor Fleet didn't. The gondola could have parachutes, though, I suppose.
FGD 135
Let's see... this is about the fifth "Second Age" of the airship, isn't it?
Let me guess. They'll be fusion powered and piloted by AI? Oh, and don't forget the emergency jetpacks!
Plus I would imagine that depending on the complexity of the design that service and repair would be fairly simple. Certainly nowhere near as complex as cargo aircraft. Probably more on the order of an automobile. Really the big things you would need to do in the field is maintaining the integrity of the gasbag and keep a fairly simple prop motor running. In the event of a catastrophic failure of the vehicle, the operating company could just send another one out a pick it up and carry it to a service center.
Yeah, I think this would be attractive for developing areas.
The Secret Nose Blimps are a myth. Where did you get such a silly idea. You probably believe in yeti, black helicopters, the Face on Mars, Art Bell, and Stan Lee.
Just to be clear, the agents knocking on your door having nothing to do with your mention of Secret Nose Blimps.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
OK, so let's fill our airships with vacuum
Dear armchair-scientists of Slashdot. can somebody tell me why this is a bad idea? I would guess that the airship structure would need to be built differently (pressure pushing in rather than out), and we'd never get 100% volume so it'd never be 100% efficient; are those real show-stoppers, or is there more to it?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
however there not practical for common use. It's like having the speed of a train, and all the disadvantages of a ship.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Oh teh humaniteez!
Have gnu, will travel.
They wont be able to bypass ports. First of all, any possible recipient of cargo would have to have a docking bay for these massive airships and people capable of handling them. And more importantly, they're always going to have to deal with customs. No nation will feel comfortable about having a giant airship floating over their airspace carrying unknown cargo. And ultimately, how much can these things carry anyway? Their cargo carrying abilities must be minuscule compared to any ocean-going cargo ship; miniscule to the point of uselessness.
Conceptually, I think airships are cool. But their time has come and gone. As surveillance platforms they're likely too easy to spot in the daytime and existing UAVs and satellites already perform the same role with more flexibility and speed. They don't work for cargo and are far too slow as transportation. And that's not to mention they're slow moving obstacles for all other, much faster-moving aircraft. Perhaps they might work as floating solar-power generation platforms except that then you're still dealing with maintenance, power transmission, protection from storms and keeping them stationary. I suppose if we start suffering from serious fuel shortages they may provide an alternative form of fuel efficient air travel.
Quite possibly. Hard to say for sure without knowing more of course, but it seems to me that this could be a very economical method of transportation. The helium is doing a lot of the work, and it seems to me that at least a percentage of the power needs could be provided by solar. The thing will spend a lot of it's time above the clouds. Air produces much less friction that water, so you can probably move a lot faster with less energy that a ship, and since the lift is provided by the helium you don't have the massive acceleration requirements of a conventional fixed wing plane. Planes waste a lot of energy just keeping aloft, which wouldn't be a problem here. I doubt you could carry as much as a container ship or train, but you could almost certainly carry a LOT more than a cargo plane.
Seems to me that while this would probably not replace conventional shipping, it could fill a niche between conventional ground/water transport shipping and current air shipping. A cheap, reliable way to ship faster than ground, but not as fast as conventional air. It'd be great for agricultural products, get stuff to the market fresher but at a similar cost?
I think the big questions here are what the power requirements are and what the maximum realistic cargo capacity is. It seems to me (I'm not a expert of course) that the helium is probably a contained system barring problems. You shouldn't really have to add helium unless there is a leak (and there a appear to be systems that can regulate those to some extent). The electrical power could be provided by solar (the whole top of the thing could be a flexible solar panel of some sort), so that could run the pumps that keep the helium equalized and keep instrumentation and crew power live. You'd want batteries and a generator system in case of solar failure of course. The main power requirement would be locomotion. This is where I break down. I have no idea what the locomotive system is, or how much power it uses to achieve what kind of speed.
I'm not saying that this *would* be an efficient, cheap, way to transport cargo... just that I can't see any really good reason it wouldn't be. Not to mention, as TFA points out, that these could go places that currently are very hard to get cargo to, probably a lot cheaper and maybe safer than current methods. A couple of these would be great from making deliveries to that lab down in Antarctica I'm thinking. It's currently a major project to get people and supplies down there because of the ice.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I realize that everyone is different, but I've been on 18 hour flights and I've managed just fine. Now with the vast array of portable devices, noise cancellation headphones and being able to choose from a wider selection of videos it's really that bad. I'm not going to say it's a wonderful experience, but it's gotten a lot easier to tune out such long trips. It's a hell of a lot better than being stuck on a passenger ship for a month.
That said, I'll take speed over amenities any time. I'd much rather have a supersonic transport that would cut a flight to Asia down to even 10 hours as opposed to being stuck on some airship for 2 or 3 days as it plods across the sky. How much can an airship realistically carry anyway?
I can tolerate an 18 hour flight because I'm traveling to the other side of the world. I would never tolerate an 18 hour flight across the US.
Well, they already tried that with CargoLifter.
All that came out of that is the Tropical Island in the ex-hangar.
I forget the super famous author, but in the book Diamond Age this very thing is done to help hold up large buildings. The enabling technology is nanotech capable of manufacturing large diamond bladders (both strong and airtight) then using pumps, then nano-pumps, to vacate the volume enclosed in the very rigid shapes before the pump aperture itself is sealed with diamond by the nanobot construction methods.
The only practical reason that this is impractical today is the lack of that nano-deoposition in real space. To date we cannot create a structure that is strong enough to remain voluminous but empty under 14.5lbs per square inch large enough to provide nontrivial lift without using materials heavier than the volume of air displaced.
But someday... yes... with the right materials a "simply empty" or "nearly empty" rigid sphere/elipse/etc could be used as a lifting device.
Actually, at much larger scales, one could make a "giant greenhouse" that could lift itself based on air temperature differences with no vacuum or specialized lifting gas at all. But these things would be "small city" sized. (See R. Buckminster Fuller for details of this sort of floating city.)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
They got a new nanotech hydrogen fuel tank based on the principle
of carbonized chicken feathers of all things now.
http://www.energyboom.com/emerging/lofty-use-chicken-feathers-power-hydrogen-economy
With biological hydrogen production we can grow hydrogen now
by depriving some algae of oxygen and feeding it a little sulfur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_hydrogen_production
The best way to use this would be via a fuel cell
in an all electric vehicle.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
After a visit to the Holocaust Museum in New York, there were many admitted adjustments. No evidence for the making of shrunken heads for souvenirs was ever produced. No evidence of human skin lamp shades were ever produced. No evidence of making mattresses and pillows of human hair were ever produced and none of these claims are asserted at the museum as they are from other sources and they will tell you so when asked.
No one says the holocaust "never happened." It happened. What is being said is that it didn't happen as fantastically as many exaggerated stories had claimed... stories reported and repeated by frightened, angry, starved, possibly tortured peoples that survived the ordeal.
I have nothing to cite beyond my own visit to the museum in new york. I would invite you to go there yourself and ask questions. They will be happy to provide answers... many parking garages in the area even offer discounts on parking if you can show your ticket to the museum.
would you trade the 5 hour flight for a 2 day trip and at more money?
Having an airship would be very expensive. Maybe it would have a big enough market,. In my experience the people who would pay 3 times the price of a first class ticket are the same type of people who value their time.
Think about it this way:
Why didn't you go first class when you flew?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
TSA and DHS would screw it up. Now if they went for the billionaire's sky-yacht (or, as I'll trademark/copyright/whatever, skyacht) angle, I think they'd be more successful.
Airships in the sky seem to be the hallmark of alternate realities. Having lots of them in our sky could confuse things.
(1) one only needs the "modern" technology of the "compressor" to re-compress the gas into dense storage cylinders. They _used_ to vent the gas because the compressors and storage were more expensive and heavy than the cheap replacement gas. Modern technology can solve this really easy. You can fit 80 cubic feet of air (so probably like 100 cubic feet of helium) into a scuba tank, and it would be quite heavy thereafter. Intelligently done, a large number of flexible ballon-like bladders and one or two semi-rigid (pressurized) bladders would be easily sufficient to change the overall displacement of an airship by up to 50 percent without even getting into "high" pressures (e.g. more than three atmospheres or so in the pressurized fixed-size bladders). It's not rocket science, its basic pressure mechanics and displacement.
(2) many of the craft being discussed are only "mostly buoyant", with vectored thrust and lifting bodies etc, so that the static weight of the craft is neutrally boyant, then only the thrust to lift or fly the cargo is spent. E.g. the goal is to make the weight of the _vehicle_ free. Think of the helicopter. Right now we have to maintain thrust to lift the copter and the people, which uses far more fuel than just lifting the people.
(2a) once you are lifting only the cargo weight, crashes are lots safter as something with the weight of the cargo but the drag profile of the whole vehicle will have a much lower in-atmosphere terminal velocity, unless of course someone decided to shape it like a giant dart pointing straight down. 8-)
So, Good Sir Nay-Sayer, yes, if nobody actually thinks about the problem, then ballast becomes a hassle. But then again, if nobody thinks about breaks, a speeding car is quite a problem as well.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Maybe not the 5 hour trip -- but, what about a 4-day airship journey that ends where it began? I've definitely pondered taking a multi-day train journey and then flying back home. How is this any different?
At a certain point, it might be an alternative to the cruise ship where you're not "going" somewhere. You're on-board, and going past places. But, there's a bar and a bedroom and a nice chair to read your book. You're seeing new things at a leisurely pace.
I'm not saying this is going to replace all forms of air travel for all purposes. Especially if the travel is specifically to get you to a certain place at a certain time.
But, I can absolutely see taking a multi-day trip on an airship where it's more about the experience than where I actually go.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Ok, fine - skip the airships and let's start building Cloud Nines.
It's not exactly a bad idea. The problem is that we don't have materials which on one hand are strong enough to withstand an external pressure of 1 bar without the whole structure collapsing, while on the other hand being light enough that, for reasonably-sized objects, the hull would not weight more than the air in the enclosed volume would.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
That's funny. You obviously don't understand how the airline industry works.
You'll start with hotel amenities. You'll end with shoving them in like cattle and charging to ship their baggage.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Airships are slow; there is no way around it. They have huge cross sections and drag is a big factor. If your airspeed is 30knots going into a 30knot headwind your ground speed is 0knots. Even a moderate wind of 10knots will decrease your speed by 33%. Crosswinds are a similar issue. An airship can spend much of its forward speed compensating for winds.
Mass is also an issue. Large airships are docked to towers to keep them on one place for loading and unloading. This docking process is very precise. It is somewhat like porcupines kissing; too fast and the tower gets knocked over and/or the airship damaged, too slow and you never get there. Winds complicate the matter. Many accidents have happened due to strong gusts or wind dieing at inopportune times.
Then there is landing area. Each airship needs a circle at least the radius equal to the length of the airship as it needs to be able to swivel into the wind. You could put the airship inside a hanger but that maneuver it tricky (can not be done in windy conditions) and the hangers are huge/expensive.
Depending on the winds, the airship may note get out of the hanger, get loaded, get launched, reach the destination, get tethered and or get unloaded. This makes flights very unreliable in even moderate weather.
I just love how the article says that airships will save lives in Nunavut. I am sure that sending 200 tons of stuff that the locals can not afford to buy will really help the situation. Throwing stuff at people is not the solution to social issues.
Sadly, I know all too well how it works. My work caused me to be immersed in it for several years, so I pretty much got to peek behind the curtains and get a lot of insight from insiders.
Yeah. I know. But, I can dream of a civilized form of travel without dealing with airports and cattle class.
Just because air-travel is currently the most aggravating form of travel I can imagine doesn't mean that I can't dream of a new golden age of air travel which has some dignity and tablecloths in it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You know, it may sound like blasphemy, but there are other credible metrics other than the all mighty dollar.
People routinely get on big-ass vehicles that go nowhere to have a good time, have a few drinks, and generally enjoy the novelty of not slaving away 24x365.
bizarre, ain't it?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This is true. A person can only carry maybe a dozen kg of cargo over long distances. You know how much airships can carry? Hundreds. Literally hundreds.
The main determinants of fuel consumption are: 1) speed; and 2) the surface area of the front of the vehicle (since that determines how much air must be pushed out of the way). Since airships are very large, they will never be fuel efficient unless they travel very slowly. If they travel very slowly, then we must ask: why not use a train or a ship? Trains and ships will always have vastly greater carrying capacity, because they don't require helium to lift their cargo which has modest lift for a given volume.
In short: if speed is not important, then trains and ships will always be far cheaper and carry far more; and if speed is important, then airplanes will always be faster and more fuel-efficient at high speeds.
Airships are neglected because they suffer from fundamental limitations and therefore have few uses.
Granted, airships may find niche uses. Airships do have several advantages: first, they can hover for long periods; and second, they require little infrastructure (like long landing strips, ports, or train tracks). Since they can hover for long periods, they have found a use as floating advertisements, and they may find a use as floating observation vehicles for the military. Since they don't require infrastructure, they may find a use in transporting cargo to areas which lack airports, train tracks, or ports. But they will never take over the bulk of transport between major areas, because of fundamental limitations of the technology.
Every few years, someone starts a company to revive the airship. The venture always fails, because o
f fundamental limitations of airships that will always prevent widespread adoption. Perhaps some com
pany will eventually succeed, but they will succeed in a niche market, not widely.
The parent of my parent post brings up putting rocks in sailing vessels as argumentative support, he is wrong for at least two reasons.
(1) Many modern non-sailing vessels still use ballast. The problem isn't old-timey nor is it "solved", nor is it _really_ the same issue as buoyancy with respect to airships. In a seagoing vessel the problem is that a non-trivial amount of the vessel must remain "above" the water over which the vessel must remain buoyant. As such, to remain upright, as cargo is loaded above the waterline, one must add weight below the water line to keep the ship upright. In an airship the entire ship is "submerged" in the air, so the issues are much simpler. That is, an airship and a submarine are in the same domain, but an airship and a sailing ship are not.
[ASIDE: One of the things the boat commander of a submarine must watch for is rolling over during initial dive. In surface operation, the sub is a surface ship, and its center of gravity is below its center of buoyancy just like any other ship. In underwater operation the center of gravity must be above the center of buoyancy or it won't sink below the surface. That moment when the two must cross is tricky, as they must "cross", not "pass each other". That is, if say the port side takes on ballast faster, the center of gravity would pass to the port of the center of buoyancy and the ship would roll. The normal way to make this happen most safely is to be under-way at the time of submersion or surfacing so that the wing-like bow planes and rudder etc. can be used to counter any small tendency to roll. The single most dangerous submarine maneuver is the static (non-moving) submerge. It is virtually never done as messing it up is expensive in both lives and equipment. Surfacing is safer than submerging as "blowing" the ballast tanks can right the ship very quickly if it starts to roll, and can be done before reaching the surface. That leads to that really dramatic "breaching" thing where a significant fraction of the sub leaves the water entirely before crashing back to the surface. Dramatic, "safe", but again, hard on the men and gear. (I hear it's fun though... 8-)]
(2) Ballast was much more spoken of, and "tricker" in the age of sail as the power source (the wind) wanted to push the ship over anyway. Additionally, _letting_ or even encouraging the wind to push the ship over a little (e.g. heeling) could lead to increased speeds and efficiencies.
(3) Ballast in seagoing vessels is more important and variable because you want enough to stay upright, but each little bit more than that sinks the ship a little more, causing more of it to interface with the viscous watter instead of the less-viscous air.
(4) Water can not be meaningfully compressed. Things "denser than" water also cannot be meaningfully compressed. (e.g. compressed enough to substantially effect displacement.) Air and lifting gas is eminently compressible. Consequently airships, in issues of both displacement and buoyancy, are completely dissimilar to anything seagoing (except a scuba diver in a wetsuit 8-) so none of the natures and limits you (grandparent poster) mention really apply as such.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
When the hydrogen is *burning* out thorough a hole, you don't get any hydrogen building up, because its well--burning.
About half the people in the Hindenburg survived because it *didn't* explode. Compare that to the average airline crash, that also doesn't explode, but survival rates are pretty low in comparison. You know about 100 tons of jet fuel is not exactly any different from relatively low pressure hydrogen... in fact its probably worse.
Hydrogen filled airship could easily be as safe and probably safer than modern airliners.
But could you sell a ticket?
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
By definition, a vacuum can't fill anything. But semantics aside, to build a hollow, vacuum-filled structure that would be strong enough not to be crushed by air pressure, the skin would have to be so heavy that it wouldn't fly.
See for yourself, and keep in mind that the can in the video does not have a true vacuum inside it, just lower air pressure than the surrounding atmosphere.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Planes can't glide when the exploding/burning fuel in the wings removes/melts the wings.
I want to shoot the messenger!
You only _really_ need the compressors and at the cargo terminals anyway.
Land ship. Hook up hose. Re-compress the gas with a target displacement smaller than that needed to lift the empty ship. Take off cargo. Load on cargo. Vent gas to desired buoyancy. Fly away.
Keep the gas on the ship. Keep small compressors on the ship for in-flight tweaking. Use shore power and shore compressors for the big changes.
Heck, "vent" the gas to an empty (e.g. partial vacuum) ground-station holding tank and you can probably offload the gas faster than you can get the cargo unstrapped.
These are not hard issues at all, and involve less "dangerous or difficult logistics" than refueling.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
You can also put some pure hydrogen in a more solid container with not chance of a leak introducing oxygen, rig up a spark plug or something, and nomatter how hard you try, it won't go off unless there is a leak for air to get in.
Same thing goes for gasoline. Put some in a bowl and light it on fire and you get a nice slow flame. Get some gasoline vapors and mix them with stoicheometric amounts of oxygen and you will get an explosion.
There's more to combustion than just thermodynamics, kinetics matters too.
I agree with you about the hydrogen powered car having lots of issues though.
is my suggestion for a new term that avoids the Hindenburg stigma. Imagine having an Air Yacht that you kick around the world in. Plenty of room for friends, complete freedom to come and go as you please. Saw a story about a guy who did that in Paris at the turn of the century, travelling from his rooftop to friends' rooftops in his private dirigible.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
But is it actually cheaper than just using boats, trains and trucks? While using three different kinds of transportation may not sound as nice to you, those are the cheapest methods of transporting large amounts of stuff.
Today that might be true, but the military is funding a prototype for loitering over an area for long periods of time. Research on the military's bill. The commercial sector may get trickle down from their successes (IF they are successful) and it may well be a cheaper and more effective solution. The HAV has such a large "roof", I'd imagine they might be able to put solar panels on top of it and power the thrusters, onboard computers, etc without fuel. Upfront costs would be large, but maintenance and fuel costs could be significantly reduced.
Don't forget, the thing can also be flipped over and used as a hovercraft!
Yes, British people speak like that. It's fairly typical for a British newspaper aimed at British people to use British terminology. We even speak with British accents don'cha know. It's not just something we do for the tourists.
The age of the airship was pretty much over by the time the Jet engine was developed. Seems like most of the modern airships eschew jet engines. High speed, high altitude air ships that never have to come down into the more turbulent layers of the atmosphere. I'm smoking crack.
Years ago I did a public radio piece on this ... here was my conclusion:
"Is this new Zeppelin a true revival? Most likely its just a symptom of what's called "helium head" disease. To be a "helium head" means you've fallen in love with lighter-than-air travel - airships, blimps, dirigibles, or zeppelins. And in them you see an instant and easy solution to nearly all the world's transportation problems. This disease of helium-headiness has afflicted humankind for over a hundred years -- and likely will continue for as long as humans move about the globe."
The complete piece is at: http://www.engineerguy.com/comm/4477.htm
That's not even close to a valid comparison. For one thing, the plane can fly, or at least glide, without fuel.
If the fuel catches fire the wings aren't going to stay on long. In fact, that caused a crash over the Atlantic a few years ago; at first they thought it was terrorism, because the plane blew up because of a spark in the fuel tank. Losing the fuel isn't the problem, having the aiplane explode is.
Free Martian Whores!
So what happens if a terrorist gets a hold of one and runs it into the freedom tower (aside from USA invading another OPEC country)?
Do they just bounce off or actually cause any damage?
Here's a cunning plan: Suppose you made a sealed balloon out of something insulating and containing no air. Now suppose you charged the inside and outside electrically. If you could get it charged sufficiently, wouldn't the electrostatic repulsion internally be enough to push the envelope apart, leaving a vacuum inside?
Stick Men
They'll all be designed with Linux on the desktop. And the best bit is, we'll have plenty of helium from all the fusion power plants!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's the same situation with commercial jets versus trains, yet here in the US, Amtrak needs to be heavily subsidized to continue to operate. Not to mention the old ocean liners (ala. Titanic).
There apparently aren't enough people who care enough about their own comfort and dignity to be willing to have their trip take 4X longer.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Actually, there are other options besides liquid or gaseous storage. See what these guys are doing for a practical example.
They could be used as a cheap air bridge in war-time (at least cheaper than conventional freight airplanes). Just imagine airships in WW2 flying between the US and the UK
Democracy: Crowdsourcing a country near you
Just because air-travel is currently the most aggravating form of travel I can imagine doesn't mean that I can't dream of a new golden age of air travel which has some dignity and tablecloths in it.
You can dream, but train travel is more likely to make a comeback than airships are, and even that is nearly beyond hope.
While airships would be interesting for scenic flights, I doubt many would take one to get from point A to point B. People will bitch and moan about being treated like cattle and then select the cheapest option nearly every time.
Train travel, in America at least, insists on using 100 year old rolling stock and wonders why it can't turn a profit. No new coaches made of lightweight composites to lower fuel costs. If a return to dignified traveling was possible we'd see trains consisting of Harry Potter like staterooms with a common lounge on an upper deck. And then some executive would say "install coach seats on the upper deck, double the price of the staterooms, and give me a big bonus." and we'd be right back where we started. But of course, we'd blame the failed experiment on people being too attached to traveling in cars.
Another day, another update to a Google android app.
Not sure about pillows or mattresses but they made cloth out of human hair. There is plenty of documentation for that.
I stand corrected. Impressive list of tech in the first link; the second one sounds like a Pinto waiting to happen. If solid state storage could be made to release sufficient hydrogen on demand, I'd feel much better about driving around with an H2 car. Driving with a bomb in the backseat seems unsafe.
What you are thinking about is available on most jet flights and is called "First Class". Well, you do have to go through airports, but at least they let you out of the plane while the others are required to "please stay seated".
Nevertheless, you can still build airships without helium. See http://www.flyingkettle.com/outline.htm [flyingkettle.com] . Steam airships have some potential advantages such as being able to make more lift gas on their own, and can reduce lift by venting without losing a huge amount of valuable gas. The envelope can also act as the condenser for steam engines, thus making such engines light enough for use in the air.
The lifting body and wings allow the craft to operate under a much wider envelope of loads and buoyant lifts. A huge problem with airships is maintaining desired buoyancy despite variations in temperature, altitude, barometric pressure, fuel expenditure, and condensation or icing loading - helium is too expensive to vent when the airship is light and cannot be generated in filght as can hydrogen, hot air or steam*. Being able to descend or ascend without losing ballast or lift gas and to operate without massive ground crews and facilities should significantly reduce the operating expense associated with helium airships.
*Steam is potentially the most economical lift gas since it gives 60% of helium lift or 200% of hot air lift, is essentially free if generated as a by-product of a steam engine, and the airship envelope acts as a condenser for the engine, reducing weight. This makes both the lift gas and propulsion much more efficiently produced than helium bags or IC engines See www.flyingkettle.com for more details.
[Pasted together from my responses the last two times "new" airships were on Slashdot]
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
I think they can still glide, but the glide angle changes pretty drastically.
There are lots of places where boats, trains and trucks can't go. Places that are becoming more and more interesting. For example, a lot of the northern oil exploration has to be done in a hurry, in the least desirable season (winter) so that trucks can bring the equipment in on ice roads. In other cases flying everything in using giant Russian helicopters is the only option. And pretty much anything is cheaper than that.
Personally I don't think "all the comforts of a cruise ship with a slightly faster method of travel" sounds that bad anyway. Particularly as air travel gets more expensive due to fuel costs and environmental concerns, and more restricted due to paranoia.
CNG and propane powered vehicles are not uncommon, both in forklift-type applications and on the road. I have driven a converted-to-CNG cargo van myself. These types of vehicles have a decent safety record. In principle, there is no reason at all why hydrides ought to be any less safe than gasoline, propane, or CNG. Engineering errors in fuel storage design obviously occur, as in the case of the Pinto, or the Crown Victoria. But, as you correctly point out, that is a risk with existing gasoline technology as well.
Personally, from a safety standpoint, I'd be more concerned driving around with a huge Li-ion battery pack, as in a hybrid, but that's just me.
The real problem with the Hindenberg fire was the painted cloth outsides catching fire. The Hydrogen made a nice POOF and losing it helped the ship fall, but if you had a fire like that in a helium-filled Zep, it'd fail just about as fast.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Ah, fair enough. I actually (having had some relatives who survived it) hadn't heard of most of the above. "skin lampshades" I heard of through school, but nothing more direct (and at the time, I recall thinking that it wouldn't make sense - we don't see many animal skin lampshades either ;)
They are also incredible fragile in anything apart from perfect weather. That's not just my opinion, it was the opinion of a man that flew WW1 aircraft and was a journalist on the Graf Zepellin circumnavigation of the world.
It's worth reading about that trip to get an idea of the challenges airships face travelling long distances.
The electric charge would need enough power to beat atmospheric pressure which would require a lot of continues power.
Filling the inside with a lighter than air substance at slightly higher pressure than outside makes a very efficient lift.
So your evidence of how fragile they are comes from about 70-80 years ago? Of course, nothing could have possibly changed since then.
Also, RTFA, they address the question of vulnerability of their military observation blimp (hint, it's like trying to shoot down a plastic bag flapping in the breeze. Even with a hole, gas seeps out very slowly.
If airship security were to become nothing like airplane security I'd be more than happy to pay a premium on that basis alone.
While you may be right that hydrogen is inferior to gasoline in some ways, I think "impossible" might be too strong a word
Lotus builds hydrogen fuel cell taxi for London 2012
Yes it does come from comments from so long ago and it still matters. The inherent problem is a large lightweight structure getting blown around in high winds. Nothing HAS changed to remove that problem, not even knowing where the bad weather is going to be is enough to avoid it completely. Even in Siberia the Graf Zepplin had access to ground based weather information on it's flight path.
Also note that Wilkes who made those comments not only anticipated the global weather monitoring systems of today but also did a lot to make them possible.
Don't fly them over the ocean, they look particularly vulnerable to sharks.
Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
> > "Gasoline burns, hydrogen explodes.
And yet Hydrogen can support combustion in a gas-jet nozzle while gasoline, in the form of a Fuel-Air explosive device can (guess what?) be exploded:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmRASCHJe2Q
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
> > "There are just too many potential sources of ignition (sparks from machinery, static discharge) for it ever to be safe enough for flight, if we hold it to the same standards of safety that commercial jets are.
Then I guess that Boeing holds to different standards than do you!
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3675188.ece
'"John Tracy, Boeing's chief technology officer, said: “For the first time in the history of aviation, we have flown a manned airplane that was powered by a hydrogen battery.
Boeing said that hydrogen fuel cells were unlikely to power the engines of large passenger jets but could be used as backup or auxiliary power units onboard."'
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"