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World's Largest Aircraft Crashes Its Second Flight (theverge.com)
Not too long after it completed its first test flight, the Airlander 10 -- the world's largest aircraft -- has crashed its second test flight. Since the 300-foot long aircraft contains 38,000 cubic meters of helium inside its hull, the crash was all but sudden. You can see in a video posted to YouTube from witnesses on the ground that the aircraft slowly descended to the ground, nose first. The BBC has published some close-up photos of the cockpit, which sustained damages. There were no injuries in the crash, according to a tweet from Hybrid Air Vehicles. The company did also deny eyewitness reports of the aircraft being damaged in a collision with a telegraph pole.
or did it?
It wasn't a crash, it was just a rough landing. They walked away. I've been in rougher landings in conventional commercial aircraft. "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."
the aircraft slowly descended to the ground, nose first.
It seems clear why this will leave less of an impact historically than the Hindenburg.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Every other blimp/helicopter hybrid crashed pretty early on, so this is hardly unexpected. The fundamental problem with all lighter than air craft has been landing, taking off, or being handled on or near the ground. It is an intrinsic weakness that cannot be overcome.
"Oh, the humanity!"
Have gnu, will travel.
It's russian.
Call that an airship, or something, please. Even though this picture reminds me of a very flexible girlfriend of mine.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Isn't helium that same stuff needed for MRI machines that I keep hearing is in short supply?
In a flying butt... heheh.. That's cool... heheh.
the real tragedy here is not the crash, but the fact that 38000 cubic meters of a very rare gas used for everything from advanced medical diagnostics to research into superconductors and even nuclear fusion is squandered into a single aircraft that cant be bothered to run through a computational fluid thermodynamics simulation before enjoying public humiliation.
im sure it sounds callous, but i hope this thing takes a life next time because clearly no ones thought through the ramifications of such a wasteful endeavour.
Good people go to bed earlier.
How does this thing qualify as an "aircraft" rather than "airship"?
Seriously.
Building these things that are at the mercy of the elements is a bad idea.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Blimps suck, actual news at 11.
What a horrible crash! Did anyone survive? Surely hundreds must have perished!
Seriously, slashdot, your headline whoring has sunk to this now?
...drums fingers ... ...checks watch ... ... ...ties shoelaces ... ... ...
*cough*
HUMANITY!
Titanic
the real tragedy here is not the crash, but the fact that 38000 cubic meters of a very rare gas used for everything from advanced medical diagnostics to research into superconductors and even nuclear fusion is squandered into a single aircraft that cant be bothered to run through a computational fluid thermodynamics simulation before enjoying public humiliation.
im sure it sounds callous, but i hope this thing takes a life next time because clearly no ones thought through the ramifications of such a wasteful endeavour.
Hypothetically speaking, suppose someone offered you a job at that company (and you lived near enough for an easy commute, and so on) for $100,00/yr. Would you take it?
Or would you refuse, knowing that the helium could be put to better use in other ways?
Now suppose you own an MRI company. Do you spend part of your profits purchasing stores of Helium for future use, or do you pocket the profits (or give it to shareholders) and hope that societal pressure will fix the problem sometime in the future?
Or that governments will step in and do something about the Helium supply?
Welcome to capitalism.
Self-retracting kevlar cable and a ground vehicle to winch it in. Basic pub napkin engineering, what's wrong with these people?
Really? They flew into a telegraph pole? When were they flying it, 1937?
Attention ladies and gentleman and all the ships at sea! The Hun is invading Europe, but airship travel is SAFE!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Ow, my butt!
How many MRI machines were not built and are not saving lives because some rich white asshole wanted to build a modern day version of the Hindenburg? Helium scarcity is causing critical shortages of medical care, especially in the developing world where the price of it has become utterly unobtanium and people (mostly darker-skinned minorities) die because they can't get care.
What year is this?
After watching the video, it reminded me of other things crashing very, very slowly. Though this one wasn't quite as entertaining.
...fucked their game well and truly!
Airships are marvellous, nearly perfect aircraft for applications where speed is not vital and severe weather is not an issue.
(a) They are EXTREMELY efficient - unlike airplanes, little or no energy is expended lifting the payload.
(b) They are extemely safe - even the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg which infamously burned resulted in two thirds of the passengers surviving. Name one incident of any other commercial aircraft that was fully-engulfed in flames while airborne and yet only killed 1/3 of the occupants. Even the USS Shenandoah, which broke apart at altitude in severe weather, had survivors because each section effectively became an airship which gradually fell to the ground at a very survivable rate. When USS Macon crashed into the sea off the coast of San Francisco (mechanical failure after being flown in bad weather with known pre-existing structural damage - something you would not try with a plane) she settled into to sea so slowly and gently that all but one survived.
(c) Even in the worst cases, they can be operated safely. Long before the airplane was safe, Germany was operating a safe commercial airline in Europe called DELAG using hydrogen(gasp!) filled Zeppelins. The Germans flew over a hundred hydrogen-filled Zeppelins in nearly all weather conditions, and literally all around the world (google: "Graf Zeppelin") with many flying in combat under enemy fire. This requires a constant attentiveness by the operators (particularly when flying airships filled with hydrogen and coated with volatile chemicals and aluminum powder as the Zeps were) but it can be done very safely.
Oh yeah: "blimps" are NOT the same as rigid airships (like Zeppelins) or semi-rigid airships (like modern Zeppelins or the Norge, or even the Airlander)
When a fully inflated lighter than air-ship crashes, does it bounce?
This is what used to be LEMV (long endurance multi-intelligence vehicle). Very expensive attempt at long-loiter reconnaissance. Cost the US tax payer many many millions, and was cancelled and the thing was sold back the original builder for $301k. https://www.flightglobal.com/n.... Reminds me of the telcom bubble back in the early 2000's except this was a bubble of helium.
Oh, and the helium thing - possibly overrated - more found: http://www.wired.com/2016/06/d.... Also it can be a by-product of natural gas production, just a low percentages.
Ryanair is going to order fifty of them.
Yes but still a step below the semi-rigid airships like the Italians had in the 1920s (Norge, Italia) or the rigid airships, both of which have smaller relative cross section again.
The bit about fans doesn't sound like anything new to be honest the engines are less powerful there are less of them so don't add up to the same thrust as was seen in airships which had engines that could pivot in a similar way to this. One airship of the 1920s had five engines - each 410 kW (550 hp). Airlander 10 apparently has four x 350 hp.
A quick wikipedia search show that the USS Akron had eight Maybach VL-II 560 hp (420 kW) engines while the Airlander 10 has four x 350 hp engines.
It's a step in front of some other current small blimps but has less ability to thrust itself down than airships of the past.
It could just be me but before the craft took a dive it looks like the forward engine nacelles might be pointed down. And it isn't until after its already hit the ground when the nacelles are finally in a "climb" position and you hear the engines revved up. I wonder if the pilot made the mistake of assuming his elevators (the fins at the back of the craft, which are obviously in the "oh shit" position the moment the craft begins to dive) would significantly effect the course of a low speed craft when he should probably have been focusing on his forward engines, as in putting them in the climb position and giving them full throttle.
and this is why /. is now a joke
Hindenbutt: Oh the huge-fannity!
Table-ized A.I.
but an airship. Please /. don't mess it up..
It's a bit hard to do a comparison on anything other than raw thrust especially since the weight is going to be around the same once the things are full of gas.
On a still day the Akron or any of the others would have far "more ability to anchor itself down with its fans" than the Airlander even if they would perform differently in other ways.
That's kind of one of my points about the hype. Good on them for doing this but all the hype about it being an amazing new thing that Grandad would goggle at is a bit much.
I'll add that calling this a "crash", like the journalists have been, is a bit like calling a ship that hits a dock hard and does some damage a "sinking".
Also it's going to be the profile exposed to wind and not volume that would matter and while that would be larger it's going to be closer to two times than five times - similar to cross sectional area from the direction of wind instead of volume. If the thing is going forward it could be much less since than the current blimp since the Akron etc were much more streamlined and is around the same maximum diameter. Almost pencil versus grid-iron football profile, just a really big pencil as thick as a football.
On a still day moving down slowly it's not going to be much so is ignorable when there is a very large difference in thrust.
The most amazing part about that video: they recorded it in Landscape mode!!!
did it have airbags?
The company did also deny eyewitness reports of the aircraft being damaged in a collision with a telegraph pole.
A driver of a horseless carriage in the vicinity reported two velocipede riders and a steam locomotive nearly collided, momentarily distracting him from the accident, but he was sure the many telegraph poles in the area remained untouched.
They barely had time to polish up all the brightwork, update the log books, phone their friends and family, post about it on facebook, take a leisurely walk around the control cabin, watch some TV and then strap in to wait for the end.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Not to mention these airships are in even shorter supply.
Which will make the one liner jokes that much more funny.
...the crash was all but sudden.
Am I the only one who finds this worse than using a double negative?
"all but sudden"? So every other possibility but sudden? Does that include immediate or instantaneous? Am I the only one here who wasn't sure on first reading whether the crash was quick or slow?
Is this an americanism? i.e. the use of 'did' to clumsily change a present-tense verb into past-tense, instead of just using the past-tense form of the verb (e.g. 'denied' rather than 'did deny' or 'also denied' rather than 'did also deny').
At first i thought it was just bad writing, but I've been seeing it a lot lately.
-> crashed *on* its second test flight. Shit.
-> The company *also denied* Shit.
The Internet is full of bullshit clickbait headlines that do NOT match the facts of the story very well.
This is one of them. The headline screams out "WOW huge airplane crashes, probably flame and explosion and wreckage and deaths, oh noes!" The short little youtube video in the linked article shows "big blimp lands and boops its nose against the ground on the way down, needs minor repairs".
Slashdot should endeavor to be better than average regarding "Internet Bullshit Headline Syndrome". But apparently it doesn't.