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World's Largest Aircraft Seeks Investors To Begin Operation
An anonymous reader writes: The Airlander 10 is significantly larger than a 747. It's an airship that incorporates elements of blimps, planes, and hovercraft. Buoyed by a vast volume of helium, it's capable of cruising at a speed of 80 knots. It was built as a military venture, intended to be used for surveillance tasks. But as the war in Afghanistan wound down, government officials found they had no use for the airship. They ended up selling it back to the company who made it for $300,000 — after paying them $90 million to build it. Now, a small group of investors are trying to get it operational, in part to show people how safe the technology can be, and to hopefully spur construction of more airships. They say the Airlander 10 is capable of surviving a missile strike, but visions of the Hindenburg still loom large in our cultural memory.
The Hindenburg always gets brought up here - I'm sure it was a big thing half a century ago. Now, much of the general public probably doesn't know what "Hindenburg" is, and the ones who are scared of airships are the same group who are scared of normal aircraft. I think the bigger thing here, in terms of travel, is that it only goes 80 knots. You can do 80 knots easily in an economy car. Legally too, in many places. 747s cruise at several hundred knots, around 250 IIRC. There's no reason to take this airship for long distance travel unless your goal is chillin' on the ship and looking out the window.
The Hindenburg and other airships were filled with volatile hydrogen, modern airships use inert helium. The problem is, helium is quite expensive in that volume. The fear at hydrogen airships was well founded, the Hindenburg wasn't even the worst airship disaster, that only killed 36, the worst disaster was the R101 which killed 48. Airships were not only vulnerable to explosion, they were unstable in high winds and storms. After the Hindenburg airships by and large stopped using hydrogen but there were still a lot of crashes due to weather.
The design in the article uses helium which isn't unstable like hydrogen but the problem of weather still remains. But that isn't what will kill it, it's economics as helium is going to be expensive in the quantities they need and who is going to pay for an airship to freight something at 80 knots when if it isn't time critical, a bulk carrier will do it for less.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I think the bigger thing here, in terms of travel, is that it only goes 80 knots.
It is not intended for passenger transportation. It is for things like cargo to remote areas, or reconnaissance. If it can be automated, with no crew, then it can use hydrogen rather than helium, since there will be no risk to human life.
Again, there are cheaper alternatives.
Also, a lot of remote areas are remote because of weather, not terrain. If you cant get a helicopter in there, a blimp is just asking to crash.
In order for this to be true, it would need to be loaded, unloaded and operated away from populated areas. This gives it a very erratic (ergo, longer) flight path as you cant fly it over cities and a huge logistic cost to get the goods to a remote location for loading and unloading (and these facilities do not already exist). The extra cost does not make sense.
Beyond this, it's daft. The airship cost $90,000,000 (90 million) to build. You dont want it exploding before it returns that 90 mil.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I am really excited about the possibility of a week long cruise over Europe or a 5 day low altitude cruise across an African savanna or game park aboard a cruise liner such as the Airlander. However, when reading articles about the Airliner, it is always about the technical gobbledegook that engineers and airship geeks get off on... never does it cover the things that matter to the potential investor or future passenger.
At some point there was a view that future airships would be able to gently cruise the skies for days on end much like ocean liners of yesteryear. Future airships were said to be able to carry and support 200-300 passengers and crew over a few days or up to 1000 passengers and crew on a single transatlantic voyage. These were the promises (or dreams) being made a few years ago.
Now, with the Airlander, we have an opportunity to evaluate those promises and see how close to the dream of luxury airship liners, reminiscent of old school luxury ocean liners, we can get. And suddenly everyone appears to be silent about those prospects... nothing to fire up the imagination of a dreamy eyed 12 year old except for the fact that the Airlander's "unusual shape emulates a wing, giving it lift as it is propelled forward by its four engines, as well as from the 38,000m3 of helium that fills its hull."
Yawn!
The fear at hydrogen airships was well founded, the Hindenburg wasn't even the worst airship disaster, that only killed 36, the worst disaster was the R101 which killed 48.
I think this statement is taking things very far out of context: in the context of modern or even vaguely recent air travel, that was not a good thing. In the context of 1936, it was barely a blip. Air travel in 1936 was primitive and dangerous: the classic planes like the DC3 were just introduced contemporarily with the Hindenburg. What was common at the time was things like th Ford Trimotor. Long range planes had many engines partly because the engines simply lacked the reliability due to pushing the technology so far: it was routine to lose one engine in a long flight and mechanical problems frequently caused planes to land early. It wasn't long since planes were designed to allow in-flight engine maintainance.
Additionally, crack porpagation and metal fatigue were very poorly understood and as planes transitioned from wood and linen to aluminium in the 30s, this was the cause of some parts flat-out falling off in flight (things like wings).
The main problem with the hindenburg was that it was large and grand and a film crew witnessed it's demise.
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