World's Largest Aircraft Completes Its First Flight (cnn.com)

The world's largest aircraft has finally completed its first flight after months of preparation and years of searching for funding. The Airlander 10 as it's called spent 20 minutes in the air on Wednesday, landing safely at Cardington Airfield north of London. CNNMoney reports: "Part airship, part helicopter, part plane, the 300-foot long aircraft is about 50 feet longer than the world's biggest passenger planes. The Airlander, made by British company Hybrid Air Vehicles, has four engines and no internal structure. It maintains its shape thanks to the pressure of the 38,000 cubic meters of helium inside its hull, which is made from ultralight carbon fiber. The aircraft was originally designed for U.S. military surveillance. But the project was grounded in 2013 because of defense spending cuts. [The team behind the giant blimp-like aircraft] said the aircraft could carry communications equipment or other cargo, undertake search and rescue operations, or do military and commercial survey work. The Airlander can stay airborne for up to five days at a time if manned, and for more than two weeks if unmanned. It can carry up to 10 tons of cargo at a maximum speed of 91 miles per hour. The aircraft doesn't need a runway to take off, meaning it can operate from land, snow, ice, desert and even open water." You can view the historic flight for yourself here (Warning: headphone users beware of loud sound).

Comments

Waste of helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Helium is a rare element on Earth, despite being common in space. We need to be conserving our helium supplies. Why are we wasting helium on stuff like this?

Re:Waste of helium

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is a waste, but party balloons ore ok? Because I guarantee a lot more He is wasted on party balloons than will ever be used on these aircraft, by many orders of magnitude.

Did anyone else look at this and think

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else look at the first picture of this thing on the Hyrbid air vehicles site and think "Yeah.. I'd hit that". Check the first link, first picture and see for yourself.

International Units please

[Anonymous Coward]

when will US posters finally stop using imperial manner and units when posting, translating foreign information into their own old-fashionned sick measurment units ? is it a flying ship or a myriapod ? (300 feets ... !! )

Re:Yes! Solid and lighter than air...

[Rei]

It's not exactly a cube/square scaling. Because the larger you make it, the larger the tensile loads per square meter, meaning the stronger the envelope needs to be. Without upgrading to a higher tensile envelope, this means increasing thickness.

If you want to view it from a cross-section perspective, tensile strength is measured in pascals - aka newtons per meter squared (cross section). If we're taking a 1-meter slice, it's newtons per ~meter thickness. Pressure is likewise pascals - newtons per meter squared (area). From the same a 2d slice perspective, that's newtons per ~meter (perimeter). The higher the perimter, the higher the number of newtons force. But the number of newtons the envelope can withstand doesn't have perimeter in its divisor, it has thickness in its divisor. So thickness and perimter cross section must increase in accordance.