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Dirigible Airship Prototype Approaches Completion
cylonlover writes "The dirigible airship, the oddball aircraft of another era, is making a comeback. California-based Aeros Corporation has created a prototype of its new breed of variable buoyancy aircraft and expects the vehicle to be finished before the end of 2012. With its new cargo handling technology, minimum fuel consumption, vertical take-off and landing features and point to point delivery, the Aeroscraft platform promises to revolutionize airship technology. The Aeroscraft ship uses a suite of new mechanical and aerospace technologies. It operates off a buoyancy management system which controls and adjusts the buoyancy of the vehicle, making it light or heavy for any stages of ground and flight operation. Automatic flight control systems give it equilibrium in all flight modes and allow it to adjust helium pressurized envelopes depending on the buoyancy requirements. It just needs one pilot and has an internal ballast control system, which allows it to offload cargo, without using ballast. Built with a rigid structure, the Aeroscraft can control lift at all stages with its Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capabilities and carry maximum payload while in hover. What makes it different from other cargo vehicles is that it does not need a runway or ground infrastructure."
Will the pilot be able to say:
"Farshein mein herr" with a German accent?
And it's going downmodded...Oh the humanity!
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Seems this comes up every decade or so. There are some advantages in niches. But in the end, the large volume craft, at relatively slow speeds, and relatively less useful when winds are up seem to doom it from becoming a highly useful aircraft.
For some reason, it reminds me of something
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Given all the articles I've read about helium shortages et al., I'm not sure I'd invest in a company that claims He based dirigibles are about to make a comeback.
Every year, without fail, there is an article about the blimp renaissance. Been that way since the 1930s. Akron calls itself the blimp capital of the world. I remember a college job fair where there was some kooky company from Quebec that made hydrogen-filled blimps, and they insisted that hydrogen is not flammable.
For niche markets, that is. Such as point-to-point delivery of oversized and/or very heavy loads that are simply not transportable by road. A rugged and dependable vehicle of this kind could probably sell some dozen copies across the U.S., and even more world-wide. If these guys are sensible about their corporate cost structure, and do not base their expenditure on expectations of selling thousands of the things, they could be just fine, and be in this for the long run.
If their basic airship design is sound, of course. But it probably is - getting that sort of thing right is not *that* hard. They could do fairly nicely working examples in the 1920ies (provided they did not fill them with Hydrogen, but fire protection should be a no-brainer these days).
And the worst enemy of airships, the weather, is now firmly under control from an operational viewpoint - something it was absolutely not back then. Weather forecasts are so accurate nowadays that such vehicles can just reliably avoid those areas where they could get into trouble. One would not be operating scheduled services that have to be at some point at a given time with them anyway. With these specialised heavy lifters, you would rather be delivering oversized pieces of machinery and such in a one-off fashion. And if one of these things arrives two days late because of a thunderstorm front, it is usually not that much of a problem.
Revolutionary?
Nope ... just the Segway of the Dirigible world ...
but if you don't have a ticket he will punch you out of the window. And that is how you say good by in German.
for every airship that was going to be built and operated commercially in the last 20 years, I would have had a lot of cents. If I had a cent for every time one of these efforts have been sold as a bright new idea, as though nobody else has thought about doing it since the Germans decided to coat an airship in rocket fuel and then acted all surprised when it caught fire, I would have even more cents.
If there is one thing I've learned from all these efforts, it is that for some weird reason, the NEVER work. Ever. Not one of them has gone anywhere commercially, physically and financially. And what makes it really weird is that there is no reason it shouldn't work commercially.
"So no, airships will always be tourist attractions. No one wants to pay more money to transport things less quickly."
If it's faster than a container, slower than air freight, and has a price to match, there will be a market for it.
Realistically speaking, though, they don't seem to lift very well. I'm looking at the O-1 airship: 177 feet long, cargo weight of 3290 lbs. That's pretty lame. The soviet V6 was 344ft and could to 20k lbs...which is less than 1/3 the maximum weight of a 20-foot container.
However, as a large semi-stationary platform it would be ideal. I'm not sure how happy I'd be having an airship permanently anchored over my city, though from what I understand you get used to it.
I don't understand why our government subsidizes consumption of a finite resource only generated by radioactive decay. I don't know if this would be practical if the cost of helium actually reflected its scarcity.
As you can see on their web site, Airship Ventures is out of business and there's a campaign to save the airship from being scrapped.
Bruce Perens.
Helium is a non-renewable resource, even more so than liquid hydrocarbon fuels. At least with jet fuel you could synthesize it if you really wanted to and had a large enough energy input, but the only way to synthesize helium is to fuse hydrogen in large quantities and if we knew how to do that in a controllable fashion we probably wouldn't need to mess around with dirigibles. Once you extract helium from the ground it eventually ends up in the atmosphere and then escapes to space, so once it's gone it's gone for good.
Or for scientific observations which benefit from an up-close bird's eye view. Hard to come up with a better way to get mobile observers able to camp out all night in one spot at an arbitrary distance over the treetops. Throw the anchor over and grab your binoculars, Mrs. Goodall, we're gonna observe some rainforest/ocean wild life that foot-traffic / boats will never get us close enough to see!
All that treacherous, melting Arctic ice? Mountain goats and edelweiss? Forget clomping around on/near fragile (deadly!!) lava floes, we're gonna sit here with some long sticks and have a cookout while watching the cauldron!
For some other reason, it reminds me of something else.
Sent from my ENIAC
Hello, airplanes? It's blimps. You win.
bwahahahaha I'd mod you up Funny but i'd be showing my age.
This comes around every 20 years. But remember the 2 purposes for dirigibles were war and leisure cruises. In warfare they have been surpassed by the jet engine. And the 'Hindenburg' disaster reminds everyone they were not safe for leisure. Those reasons are gone but such large blimps cannot handle inclement weather. Lastly, the carrying capacity of a cargo ship will beat any airship. They may have a niche role traversing mountainous terrain but that is it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter - made it about as far as building a small blimp-size prototype and a nice large assembly hangar for "the real thing" ... which is now used as a large indoor beach resort instead
And even back then it was pretty clear that their planned fleet size whould totally exhaust available Helium supplies ...
This would require a smaller volume balloon than the equivalent helium balloon. There is the small technological breakthrough that needs to be made for the containment vessel. At the moment the only thing that can contain a vaccuum is something very thick and heavy like steel which would ruin the whole project.
...If it means I don't have to deal with the TSA!
from TFA:
Editor's note: this article was amended on 6/12/2012 on receiving updated information from the company stating that the prototype Aersocraft is not designed to carry a payload.
How does it adjust its weight mid-air?!?
I like the Austrian way better.
I should point out that aside from the Hindenberg, the only time airships ever went down in flames was during World War 1, when they were being shot at. Even then, German Zepplins could take a lot of damage, and it was only when British aircraft started carrying a mixture of explosive and incendiary rounds (called Buckingham and Pomeroy mixture, after the inventors of the two bullet types) that they could feasably destroy a Zeppelin. Even then, aircraft attacking Zeppelins sometimes found themselves firing hundreds of rounds, at a range too close to miss, and having no. Remember, today we don't doubt the safety of 747s, simply because World War 2, B-17 bombers used to come apart when they were shot at enough.
Also during World War 1, the British operated hundreds of SS Class, Coastal Class and NS Class, non-rigid blimps. Not a single one was lost to fire during 10's of thousands of flying hours. Admittedly, several WW1 British airships were destroyed in a catastrophic fire in a hanger, but that was because one Darwin Award nominee decided to get busy with testing a radio, while he was standing in a puddle of petrol that was leaking from a broken fuel tank.
So I'm inclined to write off the Hindenberg as a on-off, at a time when aircraft routinely dropped out of the sky. I might even go so far as to give a tiniest whisker of credence to the conspiracy theory, that it was down to an anti-Nazi saboteur.
Now, I fully appreciate hydrogen dirigibles will absolutely never, ever, ever, fly again simply because of PR and (well justified) safety fears. But I guess my point is that they could be made safe, or at least, safe enough if there was a need.
Are you aware of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_NT ?
Yes - this is made by THE Zeppelin company in Friedrichshafen/Germany. They are moderately successful in selling their ships as tourist attractions or as science platforms.
For widespread cargo use you have to-
switch to H2 because there simply isn't enough He
mechanical instead human pilot to save weight, safety compliance costs and allow long flights
put solar cells on the top to drive engines
[advanced version] use H2 fuel cells and water electrolysis so the lifting gas is also the fuel and both can be replenished in flight.
This technology would be great for development- you no longer need roads/railways/ports for places which want to join the global economy. Also emergency relief.
Gaseous hydrogen leaks a great deal, no matter how it's stored. That's a cost that will strongly affect the economy of such aircraft. One could theoretically use the hydrogen for fuel for the propellers or electronic systems safely, so I wouldn't anticipate large problems with carrying enough fuel, but hydrogen molecules are very small and tend to leak right through pressure containers. And as the hydrogen leaks, it will tend to collect in any physical reservoirs around the gas bag. That could make preventing flammable buildups, especially near modern electrical systems, quite awkward.
Hydrogen is also quite reactive. (This is partly why it burns so well.) So I'd expect corrosive surprises with materials used in such an unusual environment, especially if low-cost bidders substitute cheap components that haven't been tested properly in the infrastructure exposed to the hydrogen. This isn't to say it can't be done economically, but the first few such ships are going to be prone to some unexpected failures due to interaction with an unusual environment.
We like the moon!
"With its new cargo handling technology, ... and point to point delivery,..."
I can see merchants adding a "Dirigible P2P shipping (45 days)" radio button to their websites. Obviously it would be listed AFTER 5-day ground or freight.
Just sayin.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
There are rumors of a mach 10 stealth airship that may account for some of the ufo sightings.
This is what I thought of, those Zeppelin NTs are pretty sophisticated, crew of two, &c. Goodyear is replacing their fleet with them, I think.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
So do I.
WTB [sig], PST!!!
Estimates are about 4x less fuel efficient than trucks when roads exist.
Another several times less fuel efficient than trains when rails exist.
"Hello planes? This is blimps, you win".
Estimates are about 4x less fuel efficient than trucks when roads exist.
Good to know.
But fuel expense is just one of the costs of running a fleet of trucks. If one airship could deliver the same goods as ten big trucks, the total cost of goods shipped might be less (factoring in employee expenses-- drivers, mechanics, dispatchers, etc-- licensing, insurance, taxes, and so on).
But just looking at fuel efficiency, I am guessing that there are routes over mountains where airships would be more efficient than trucks on steep, winding roads. I drove across the northern tier of USA states the spring before last, and there were an awful lot of miles one had to go just to get around this or that obstacle, or line up with some mountain pass.
Another several times less fuel efficient than trains when rails exist.
Oh, yeah. Hard to beat rail once the tracks are laid down and paid for.
Will
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety
Flammability limits are from 4% to 75%. This means you only need a tiny leak of hydrogen into air + a little static electricity and the outside shell of the airship will be subject to a very hot hydrogen flame, likely causing it to fail.
Air is mostly nitrogen; mixing nitrogen with H would not significantly alter its flammability and would require that the airship be bigger due to not having as much lifting gas per unit volume. Surrounding the hydrogen gas bags with a nitrogen barrier might work though, as is alluded to above.
It's the storms, not the flames, that are the demise of lighter-than-air craft. Solve that problem, and they will be more practical.
Bruce Perens.
sorry dude, your math is off by nearly a factor of two. It's 2999.1 nm from JFK to LHR. At 120kn that's 25 hours.
Heavy load at lower cost. See concordlift.com. Presented at the recent AIAA ATIO conference. The paper, presentation and animation are on the web site. There are "issues". Every issue identified as a known possible solution