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Airship Company Gets First Civilian Customer
Zothecula writes "Hybrid Air Vehicles has recently achieved two massive commercial wins that seem to indicate that the airship has a very rosy future indeed. The aircraft's versatility plus an ability to stay airborne for 21 days enabled HAV to win a 517million contract (€370million) to supply a Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) to the U.S. Army for deployment in Afghanistan starting in 2012. Whilst the LEMV is a relatively small vehicle designed for surveillance, HAV has now announced a civil customer for their heavy-lift variant."
Can I get it with brass dials, tropical wood furnishings and a ballroom? Oh, and steam engines, of course!
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I can see a large commercial use for this as a replacement for the traditional cruise ship. Imagine being able to take an air cruise, a nice slow trip across the US at a medium altitude. I think it could be a lot of fun.
Would purchasing one with a printed skin texture based on the appearance of the burning, partially skeletonized, Hindenburg shortly before its fatal plunge be tasteless?
Because I am tempted...
I'd love to fly in one of these, and I'd love to see them being adopted massively. As far as I understand Zeppelins were abandoned because of the war and bad mojo after the Hindenburg, in any case they seem to make perfect sense nowadays.
Especially as we can now mount solar panels on the top of these things for a very cheap fuel source. Top up the power with the panels. It's been done, just on a one man airship.
In the 1980's I worked for a company that supplied the engines (Mercedes Benz motor car engines brought up to aviation standards) used in gondolas run under Airship Industries (maker of them) blimps. The gondolas ran as mobile generator sets and saw significant usage to power the lighting for the LA Olympic games. Other airships flew over the games sites so as to provide a high vantage point for security services to monitor the event. This led all involved into a false feeling of a new dawn for airships...fancy plans were drawn up for them to run tourist trips in and out of the Grand Canyon for instance and over Ayres Rock in Australia. Some even hoped for African wildlife tourism to be involved and for trips up the Amazon...then we came to our senses as the company (AI) went under. The cost of filling a large blimp with helium is immense and the wretched things leak! To make matters worse in order to move a blimp around a country one either has to wait ages while it covers any noteworthy distance under its own steam or deflate the thing (usually by venting all the helium) and transport the remaining items by more conventional means (road, rail, air or ship) then pay out for a new fill of helium. This made the costs look pretty awful pretty fast. High winds and airships aren't a good combination so should the prevailing conditions grow nasty the owners of the blimps were, again, forced into a deflate/re-inflate cycle so as to protect the structures. In short almost all the proposed uses of the blimps were unable to see a reasonable return on investment and those that had any chance of same were too few to keep the company making the blimps running. I very much doubt that an economic case that can be viable long-term really exists for all but a tiny number of large civilian use blimps in anything but an unrealistic pipe-dream. Small military use ones may be a niche product with a future and that's where money might be made off of these things.
I do like the idea of airships, but they have very few uses as far as I can tell, besides recon which is being considered. If you want to go somewhere, they wont take you anywhere fast, which is pretty much what everything else does.
I do think they would have a relatively strong role as a forward military base though. Being able to stay in the air for quite a long time as well as combining it with HTA technology could yield a very formidable forward base of operations. Especially if you consider that there are really no ultra long term aircraft besides UAVs. We have some that stay up in the air quite awhile, but nothing close to days without in air refueling. Maybe I've seen too many sci-fi shows? But honestly it seems like the perfect match.
Looks like he's fantasizing about the forceful invasion of the North Pole and looting of Santa Claus' workshops!
Hopefully Pia Zadora will put an end to his evil schemes!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Al-Qaeda begins issuing bows and arrows.
I find it kind of interesting that the first use of airborne(-ish) reconnaissance by the US military was by balloon back in the 1860s. Soldiers would use balloons tethered to the ground behind the front lines both to make battelfield maps and observe the action. Now, 150 years later, the US military is going back to using inflated ships because they are unmatched in terms of loiter time and stealth (no noise, can be made of signature-reducing material, can fly up out of naked eyesight). All the cutting-edge technology we've developed over the years, and yet we still go back to century-and a half year(or just century-year old if you go back to dirigibles) old technology and tactics.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
So, really, why haven't we done more of this?
The main problem isn't fire. It's that that they require large ground crews to manage and airplanes are much faster. When it comes to cargo, they're more efficient than airplanes but less efficient than trains or ships. There are niches where they could be useful, but they don't make sense as a general replacement for airplanes or railroads.
This isn't as big an issue as people make it out to be. One of the biggest users of helium is the scientific community. They are making strides to curb their use and create more. Despite the economy, it is funded: http://news.ufl.edu/2011/05/23/nsf-helium/
Get a web developer
Very interesting indeed, this could become a competitor to airlines, not only in price, but also in comfort (not in speed though).
I would love to take a ride in one of those. Even cooler would be to buy and own one, and just live in it!
What the hell, I would want to try it - live on an airship, spending most of my time in the air!
You can't handle the truth.
Maybe this will kill off all the 'Ice Road Truckers' tv shows. One can only hope.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
of baby eating nazi zombies invading england by airship may yet come true
Defeated by Dr. Who.
So, really, why haven't we done more of this?
... It's that that they require large ground crews to manage....
[Citation Needed]. Highly skilled or just somewhat trained? How many? I'd guess the head count could be managed. Specialised heavy tether vehicles or tethering installations, cable capture and spool down -- these could be engineered, and could bring the personnel cost down. And you could bloody well earth them against static.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Solar for supplemental power, fully weather simulated flight plan could save a ton of fuel by using every available wind along the way.
Heavy assistance from an autopilot could compensate for side winds long before a human pilot could notice.
GPS enhanced with ground based transponders could allow the tethering and other ground operations to be almost completely automated.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
It's a small group of misfits, consisting of:
1. A guy with spikey hair and red armor.
2. A guy wearing some sort of ninja-like outfit who can really kick.
3. A gal wearing white robes.
4. Somebody with a pointy yellow hat and blue robes. All you can see of the face is their eyes.
They keep on going on about reviving the power of the orbs or some-such, and are carrying a wide array of crazy-looking potions and a lot of gold that they use to pay for everything.
I am officially gone from
A personal Zeppelin? Want!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
.... they can convert their hangars into an tropical amusement park, like CargoLifter did.
According to the TV documentaries I've watched it wasn't the hydrogen that caught fire and caused the accident. The fire started when static electricity sparked across gaps in the outer covering which had been coated with a highly flammable substance. So, hydrogen actually has a rather good safety record.
yeah -- essentially it was thermite...
Because someone is going to walk on to it with a sweater just out of the dryer suffering with static cling and it's going to be all "OH THE HUMANITY." A terrorist doesn't need to plant a bomb on it, the whole thing is a bomb. And smokers, don't get me started.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
A friend of mine had a great idea for and airship: glass-bottom swimming pool!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC