New Details On Sergey Brin's Plan For The World's Largest Aircraft (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader shares The Guardian's report on plans for a new aircraft that's two-and-a-half times the size of a 747. Google co-founder Sergey Brin is building a hi-tech airship in Silicon Valley destined to be the largest aircraft in the world, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the project. "It's going to be massive on a grand scale," said one, adding that the airship is likely to be nearly 200 meters [656 feet] long... Brin wants the gargantuan airship, funded personally by the billionaire, to be able to deliver supplies and food on humanitarian missions to remote locations. However, it will also serve as a luxurious intercontinental "air yacht" for Brin's friends and family.

One source put the project's price tag at $100m to $150m. Igor Pasternak, an airship designer who was involved in the early stages of the project, believes airships could be as revolutionary for the trillion-dollar global cargo market as the internet was for communications. "Sergey is pretty innovative and forward looking," he said. "Trucks are only as good as your roads, trains can only go where you have rails, and planes need airports. Airships can deliver from point A to point Z without stopping anywhere in between."
The Guardian quips that while Brin's plans may stay secret for a while, "the good news is that the first flight test of such an enormous aircraft will be impossible to hide."

Comments

Storm

[religionofpeas]

Airships can deliver from point A to point Z without stopping anywhere in between.

Except when there's a storm in A or Z.

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Airships can deliver from point A to point Z without stopping anywhere in between.

Or a hostile force. They're big, ultra-fragile, slow-moving targets....basically every fighter pilot's wet dream.

Re:Storm

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually airships are not fragile at all but super resilient.
However against a modern missile they probably stand no big chance either.

Re:Storm

[phantomfive]

What game is it? Looks kind of cool.

Re:Storm

[MangoCats]

But, we live in sunshine and rainbows land. If anyone dares put a scratch on Sergei's US flagged airship, they risk the wrath of the US military - outspending the rest of the world for decades now, these are the kinds of values it delivers.

Re:Storm

[MangoCats]

Depends on what you fill them with...

Re:Storm

[phantomfive]

Nice, thx

Re:Storm

[ShanghaiBill]

Depends on what you fill them with...

Even when filled with hydrogen, airships are not particularly flammable. With proper compartmentalization, they can take some hits and keep flying. Germany conducted many Zeppelin bombing raids on Britain during WW1. They were mostly successful, although they had to switch from daylight to nighttime raids in 1917 because of improved defenses.

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Actually airships are not fragile at all but super resilient.

Perhaps for very small values of "resilient". An A-10 would take any airship out with a 0.5 second burst, more than that would just be overkill. In fact, any modern fighter jet would shred an airship before it even knew it was under attack. Guns, missiles, they'd all make quick work of a reinforced balloon.

However against a modern missile they probably stand no big chance either.

"Probably"? Show me an airship that will withstand even the smallest current-issue missile. I'll wait.

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Depends on what you fill them with...

Well I suppose if they were filled with concrete they'd have a fighting chance, but getting them into the air would be a challenge, no?

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

With proper compartmentalization, they can take some hits and keep flying.

Hits from what? The weapons on any modern air-combat platform will quickly turn an airship into a ground-level memorial site.

A-10 versus an airship? Airship loses.
F-15, F-16, F-18, F-22 against an airship? Airship loses.
Apache against an airship? Airship loses.

Actually I'm not sure what you could attack an airship with that wouldn't succeed. BB gun, maybe?

Re: Storm

[ArmoredDragon]

I really don't think anybody would plan on attacking this thing other than maybe a muslim terrorist, and at best they'd be carrying an rpg.

Either way, just stay out of the regions that they have any political influence in and you'll be fine.

Re:Storm

[swillden]

Actually airships are not fragile at all but super resilient.

Perhaps for very small values of "resilient". An A-10 would take any airship out with a 0.5 second burst

That would poke a line of holes through one set of ballonets. Depending on the design of the ballonets, it may or or may not destroy the ones it hits. They may just start leaking, perhaps even fairly slowly for their size. A modern airship designed for combat (assuming such a thing made sense, in a world of missile combat) could even have automatic self-patching features to stop the leaks, and would definitely carry supplies of compressed gas to replace losses.

Show me an airship that will withstand even the smallest current-issue missile.

Yeah, 1000 pounds of high explosive will do a number on pretty much anything short of a reinforced bunker.

However, most of our transport and cargo vehicles would be quickly destroyed in combat, so I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

Re: Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I really don't think anybody would plan on attacking this thing

That's kind of shortsighted. No one thought anybody would plan on attacking the World Trade Centers, or crowds in France, or nightclubs, etc.

-

other than maybe a muslim terrorist, and at best they'd be carrying an rpg.

Really? Have you seen the shit these fuckers are carrying these days? Perhaps you should brush on current events. They're well beyond the "RPG" stage.

-

Either way, just stay out of the regions that they have any political influence in and you'll be fine.

Wow, that's a brilliant fucking plan. Do you know more than all the generals too, or did you get this bit of wisdom from the Discovery Channel?

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

That would poke a line of holes through one set of ballonets. Depending on the design of the ballonets, it may or or may not destroy the ones it hits.

Dude, an A-10 gun run on an airship would practically turn it into confetti. It's extreme overkill and it would do more than just cause "leaks".

-

Yeah, 1000 pounds of high explosive will do a number on pretty much anything short of a reinforced bunker.

50 pounds of explosives would do the trick, and probably a lot less. I honestly can't think of a current issue missile that could be fired at an airship that wouldn't result in an instant kill shot.

I think airships are cool, but there's no denying that they're big, fat targets lumbering their way around in the sky. Shit, you could probably bring one down with a mortar round if it was low enough.

Re: Storm

[ArmoredDragon]

That's kind of shortsighted. No one thought anybody would plan on attacking the World Trade Centers, or crowds in France, or nightclubs, etc.

The night club attacks were certainly predictable. WTC had already been attacked prior to 9/11, and another attack was predictable. The problem with 9/11 was that nobody figured aircraft hijackers would not only take control of the aircraft (as opposed to simply coercing the pilot) but also go on a suicide mission.

And at the end of the day, anything can happen, but what's the likelihood? If you're really that paranoid, then go out in the woods, live in a tree, and wipe your ass with leaves.

Really? Have you seen the shit these fuckers are carrying these days? Perhaps you should brush on current events. They're well beyond the "RPG" stage.

You mean like a 50cal or a mk19? Both could be avoided by a craft like this by going to around 3000ft altitude. Yes, the maximum effective range of both of these weapons is about 2km, but not if they have to go upwards. Stinger missile might do some damage, but still survivable.

Wow, that's a brilliant fucking plan. Do you know more than all the generals too, or did you get this bit of wisdom from the Discovery Channel?

Seriously? This isn't a military aircraft you idiot. Why would any generals give a shit about it? If a general had any sense at all he'd easily find more strategic targets than some rich dude's toy.

Re:Storm

[angel'o'sphere]

Dude, an A-10 gun run on an airship would practically turn it into confetti. It's extreme overkill and it would do more than just cause "leaks".

Unless it hits a huge amount of vital parts of the frame: no.
An Airship consists mostly out of air. Figuratively speaking. As long as you don't hit the main beams it flights just fine. And even if you break it into two parts the teo parts likely would gracefully slow down to earth.
You seem not to have a clue what an Airship is versus a Blimb ....

If you really are talking about war fare, then I suggest to imagine a Airship that has weapons to fire back, or like in WWI is actually an air craft carrier.
Then your single A10 has to fight 3 or 4 drones or manned aircrafts while you poke tiny holes into the helium baloons with you gatling cannon ... gooooood luck!

An air to air missile has an astonishing small amount of explosives, most of the time a modern fighter survives the hit and is only in about half the time disabled to need an emegency landing and explosions are even rarer. That is a little bit diferent for SAMs. Except for the Phienix missiles I doubt an ordinary missile, lets say Sidewinder class, will do more than make a hole in the hull and kill a few helium baloons behind it.

F15s, F14s and especially A10s are prime examples for fighters that routiniously survive AAMs and SAMs, and can still hopple home on one leg.

In relation to an Airbuss where you need two missiles to kill the two engines, or need big luck that one of them lets a tank explode, an airship would need dozens of the same missile to poke enough holes into its baloons.

Then again, an Airship would fly to high to be reached ba an A10 anyway ...

Re: Storm

[RuffMasterD]

Good point. Henceforth, by decree of JustAnotherOldGuy, all civilian aircraft must have full armour hulls capable of withstanding direct impact from ground-to-air and air-to-air weapon systems, and pilots must be able to out-manoeuvre combat aircraft in a dog fight. Also, all civilian buildings must be defended by anti-aircraft guns installed on every corner of the roof, bullet-proof glass on all windows, anti-artillery armour on all walls, and must have underground bomb-proof bunkers large enough to house all building inhabitants, with sufficient supplies to last at least a year. It's the only way to be safe.

Re:Storm

[angel'o'sphere]

Most of the planes you mention can not even fly high enough to tough an Airship, most noteable the Apache.
I suggest to google what an Airship actually is and how they are build up from the inside, then come again.

The other planes are completely meaningless, as they carry the same weaponary anway.

And a gattling gun of the A10 (or the machine gubs of the Fxx) nearly does not harm an Airship at all, unless it hits a beam, it only hits thin air, what is so hard to grasp in that?

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If you really are talking about war fare, then I suggest to imagine a Airship that has weapons to fire back, or like in WWI is actually an air craft carrier.

Well, if armed airships are such a practical idea, why isn't anyone in the world using them? Why doesn't every country have a fleet of armed airships?

The answer is because airships are little more than big, slow, vulnerable targets compared to any other modern air combat platform.

Re: Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

This isn't a military aircraft

Exactly. I rest my case.

Re:Storm

[angel'o'sphere]

Like a fleet of on the water ships are? Which are even slower ...

The point we made about your posts was that you have absurd ideas how an airship works and what its vulnerabilities are.

It is most certainly not vulnerable to an A10 gattling gun ...

I suggest to read up how a gattlin gun works, what kind of ammunition it uses, why that ammunition is deadly for a simple tank, and why that amunition makes nearly no damage to an Airship, unless you hit a beam inside of its frame.

To break the ship appart you need to hit by luck lots of those frames ... and to kill it by putting enough holes into its gas ballons an A10 does not carry enough ammunition.

WW1 has enough stories about brittish air craft carrying Airships attacking german Zeppelines. There are even movies about it. Bottom line the difference, if we talk about Airships, between the machine guns of a biplane and a gattling gun of an A10 is not that high.

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And a gattling gun of the A10 (or the machine gubs of the Fxx) nearly does not harm an Airship at all, unless it hits a beam

Oh well then I guess there's nothing to worry about. As long as nothing shoots at it then there's no problem!

But what if they aim for the gondola or the engines? Uh-oh.

Seriously, do you really think an F-15/F-16/F-18 couldn't shoot one of these things down?

And if they're so great, why isn't every air force fielding them?

Re: Storm

[Gavagai80]

That's kind of shortsighted. No one thought anybody would plan on attacking the World Trade Centers, or crowds in France, or nightclubs, etc.

Great point: that's why we need to stop making tall buildings and nightclubs, and quickly retire all current ones from service. Then we can stop making airships too and be totally safe in our mud huts.

Re:Storm

[swillden]

Dude, an A-10 gun run on an airship would practically turn it into confetti

A couple dozen one-inch holes does not make "confetti" of a 500-foot airship.

Re: Storm

[c6gunner]

Yes, the maximum effective range of both of these weapons is about 2km, but not if they have to go upwards. Stinger missile might do some damage, but still survivable.

You're confused. In military parlance "maximum effective range" means the distance at which you can't use the weapon effectively. For a .50 cal that means your bullets are going to be spread out too far apart to be useful against a truck or a few soldiers. It does not mean that the bullet can't go any further, or do any damage to a soft target.

The actual maximum range for a .50 is more like 10km. And given that this airship is significantly larger than a truck, hitting it wouldn't exactly require great marksmanship, even if it were up at 3km like you suggest. Snipers have hit man-sized targets at 2.4 km with a .50; a massive blimp at that range is a sitting duck.

Re: Storm

[david_thornley]

Bullets also don't go as far up as they do laterally, and they hit with greatly reduced force. I don't know how much force would be needed to get to and penetrate a gas cell.

Re:Storm

[david_thornley]

The US Navy used blimps in WWII as convoy escorts, apparently with some success. They aren't real useful for most typical Air Force roles.

Re:Storm

[david_thornley]

The only airships to actually serve as flying aircraft carriers were the US Akron and Macon. There's no way a modern airship would carry something useful in modern air-to-air warfare, and I'm not sure how useful the F9C parasite fighters would have been in a fight.

Service ceiling on an A-10 would be about 45,000 feet, and that sounds rather high to send an airship.

Re:Storm

[angel'o'sphere]

Do you yerk off when you write insulting posts like this?
No worries, if it givrs you relive, I have no objections.

Re:Storm

[angel'o'sphere]

Acording to Wikipedia an A10 reaches less than 30,000 feet.
An Airship is only limited by the pressure of its cabines.
In WWI the british had biplane carrying Airships. Long befor the two American ones you mention.

Re:Storm

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

They aren't real useful for most typical Air Force roles.

Exactly.

And they're probably a lot less useful today than they were 50 years ago, given the advances in weapons technology. Otherwise, they'd be using them, as would every other military force.

Re: Storm

[c6gunner]

Air resistance slows a bullet significantly more than gravity does. Actual ballistics vary greatly, but we can say as a broad generalization that a bullet loses about 1/3rd of it's speed in the first half second of flight. For a muzzle velocity of 2700 fps, that's 900 fps lost in half a second. In metric that's a deceleration of about 550 m/s^2. Firing it straight up would add another 10 m/s^2 to that loss.

To put it another way, fired in a vacuum straight up, the bullet would travel more than 35 km before gravity finally stopped it. Air resistance does the same job in about 10 km.

Obviously during latter stages of flight gravity is a larger component of deceleration, so It's true that a bullet won't "go as far up as [it does] laterally", but the difference isn't as large as you think it is.

Re:Storm

[david_thornley]

According to Wikipedia, the A-10 service ceiling is about 45,000 feet. I'm not sure where you're getting your cite from.

Airships are limited in altitude by the expansion ability of their gasbags, since as the air gets thinner the cells give less lift if they can't expand. Late WWI German Zeppelins could get up to about 20,0000 feet. Presumably we could do better today, but there's going to be limits.

Got a reference to Zeppelins with biplanes? I didn't find one in a quick look.

Re:Storm

[angel'o'sphere]

Ah, I thought I had seen the A!0 is flying about 33k feet hight, I was actually also checking wikipedia ... but perhaps looked wrong or the german and english do not agree.

Regarding the Airships I'm a bit wondering, it is hard to find stuff. But I saw around age of 14 a movie happening during WWI and the enemy side had Airships with planes. I assumed that would be historically accurate. A huge deal was about the problem that the german Airships flew about 1000m higher and the enemy (I believe british) Airships and the planes could not really reach that altitude so they fired from like 500m below the Airship while in climbing flight.

Anyway, one link is a german Zeppelin, build for America after WWI as kind of reparation payment. LZ 126, later ZR-3 âzUSS Los Angelesâoe. It made capture and release experiments with biplanes at 3rd of June 1929.

The german Wikipedia article claims that british and german Airships did the same during WWI. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Later they carried a glider and deployed it successfully. unfortunately the english article does not mention anything of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So, now I have to search for that old movie, rofl.

Interesting topic, strange that the german wiki article has no references to back ground information either.

Re: Storm

[ArmoredDragon]

The actual maximum range for a .50 is more like 10km.

When its fired straight upwards? I really doubt that.

Wasting scarce resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Helium is scarce and wasting more of it on a billionaire's hobby won't help future generations who will need it more.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[Joe_Dragon]

How much hydrogen do we have?

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[fustakrakich]

For what? Their party balloons? Please. We've haven't gone five miles beneath the surface. We got another 3995 to go to see what's in there. Otherwise we'll just have to learn how to fuse hydrogen and collect the residue.

Re: Wasting scarce resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Sergey 'Howard Hughes' Brin

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[John Jorsett]

Perhaps he can develop super-strong materials and fill it with ... wait for it ... vacuum! The lightest airship filler available.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[religionofpeas]

We can make as much hydrogen as he needs. And it's lighter than helium too.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Brilliant!

I'd sell him the vacuum at a big discount because I know he'll need a lot of it.

Re: Wasting scarce resources

[93 Escort Wagon]

The rich are very different from you and me.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[Kohath]

If you read the article, you'll see where they wanted to use Hydrogen but the government said No.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[Plus1Entropy]

Yeah, who needs MRIs?

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[Plus1Entropy]

Someone probably Googled "helium" and read that it's the second most abundant element, not realizing that it's all trapped inside the Sun.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[Plus1Entropy]

Not only that, I'd be surprised if an airship could match even 1% of the carrying capacity of a modern container ship.

Re: Wasting scarce resources

[firewrought]

Silly, Congress swore am oath to protect the rich, and they take that oath seriously.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[religionofpeas]

He has a secret plan to collect it at night.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[jimtheowl]

Fear not; the two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity ;)

Hydrogen combines well with Oxygen, so you end up H20 (two Hydrogen atoms with one Oxygen = water).

All you need to break the hydrogen free is electricity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[Plus1Entropy]

Damn. I guess that's the kind of genius it takes to become a billionaire.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[nukenerd]

We can make as much hydrogen as he needs.

Sure and it's inflammable as hell too.

Perfect for Brins then.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[MangoCats]

Modern container ships still can only deliver to industrial scale ports and places well connected to said ports.

Sergei's airship can deliver to Manaus or even Urucu if he really wants to.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[MangoCats]

Good idea, let him know - I bet they haven't considered it yet.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[Plus1Entropy]

Yes, it's difficult for container ships to deliver to places that are landlocked, what's your point exactly? The OP was talking about boats and the ocean.

Anyway, an airship is likely still not the most efficient or cost effective way of delivering to either of those places. The link to Manaus centers on Eduardo Gomes International Airport, so... why not just use a plane?

Re: Wasting scarce resources

[Type44Q]

If you have to ask...

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[drinkypoo]

Sure and it's inflammable as hell too. There is a reason airships went the way of the dodo for commercial airflight and it had nothing to do primarily with capacity or speed.

It had nothing to do with flammability, either. It had to do with the fact that we got advanced airplanes which could deal far better with weather than any airship.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[drinkypoo]

If you read the article, you'll see where they wanted to use Hydrogen but the government said No.

That's got to be the only time the government has said no to hydrogen. It looks more and more like hydrogen is What Is Coming Next, for example for motor fuel. California is making it happen, and now you can get a really bitchin' deal on a lease on a hydrogen car as a result. But add to that the fact that the military is looking at going to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as well and it really looks like a done deal. If GM is sure that they will get to deliver their Colorado-based hydrogen-powered vehicle (and eventually, others) then that would help explain their recent willingness to pull out of foreign markets which are not currently profitable for them, even though other automakers are making money there and they could probably eventually turn those divisions around.

Re:Wasting scarce resources

[houghi]

Depends on the boat.

Split Take

[SuperKendall]

The Spruce Goose of our time, or the Hindenburg of our time? Cannot decide.

Re:Split Take

[phantomfive]

These quotes from the article are precious though:

“Sergey is pretty innovative and forward looking,” -----> Yeap, that's why he he decided on a technology that was discarded over half a century ago

“Trucks are only as good as your roads, trains can only go where you have rails, and planes need airports." --------> If only someone had invented helicopters. Nah, that'd never work

“Personally, I’d love to have airships going back and forth across the Atlantic. I couldn’t think of any better way of doing that journey.” ----------> No, airplane is better. Really. In fact, make it supersonic. There is nothing in the Atlantic that you want to see and storms suck.

The only reason to cross the Atlantic by zeppelin is because you hate people and your private island isn't doing it for you anymore.

Re:Split Take

[Anonymous Coward]

“Sergey is pretty innovative and forward looking,” -----> Yeap, that's why he he decided on a technology that was discarded over half a century ago

Actually, it has received regular usage, and remains quite functional and effective, the real problem is there wasn't enough money thrown at it, mostly because airships make poor weapons in war.

Thus they don't benefit from all the glorious spending that comes from having the biggest dick to wag.

“Trucks are only as good as your roads, trains can only go where you have rails, and planes need airports." --------> If only someone had invented helicopters. Nah, that'd never work

Helicopters have their own sets of problem, including range limitation, weight capacity, and more.

They just won't scale well enough. Sorry Nick.

“Personally, I’d love to have airships going back and forth across the Atlantic. I couldn’t think of any better way of doing that journey.” ----------> No, airplane is better. Really. In fact, make it supersonic. There is nothing in the Atlantic that you want to see and storms suck.

Supersonic planes suck, there's a reason they never prospered. And the thing about an airship is that you can bring all the comfort with you. Same reason to have an RV.

The only reason to cross the Atlantic by zeppelin is because you hate people and your private island isn't doing it for you anymore.

Jealous, ain't you?

Re:Split Take

[Anonymous Coward]

Sergey Brin is a Russian! And if you Google "Seth Rich," it still returns pro-Trump lies beyond page seven.

Coincidence, or another evidence of Russian conspiracy to undermine Hillary's elections?
Demand investigations into Russia. Go to http://marchfortruth.info to learn how you can fight for her!

Re:Split Take

[phantomfive]

I would love to see a reference for that. This is the best I could come up with. They do a good job floating over football stadiums, I will agree with that.

Re:Split Take

[houghi]

Humanitairian work will basically means food to starving kids in Africa. Ask China if they need help building roads there.

High-flying dangerous idea

[HolgerHoefling]

I doubt that it will go anywhere. There are numerous big problems with the concept. Helium is scarce and costly to collect in nature - and there is not enough for a global transportation system. Airships are susceptible to storms, rains and other weather issues - much more so than ships and trucks. Hydrogen is better as a lifting gas and can easily be produced from water - but it is hugely dangerous. Having a 200m sized target filled with an explosive substance flying close to the ground is every terrorists fantasy. Stuff like this tends to happen if some people just have more money than they know what to do with ...

Re:High-flying dangerous idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuff like this tends to happen if some people just have more money than they know what to do with ...

Stuff like this tends to happen when government neglects to tax rich people. When they feel the pinch of taxes, suddenly they think of more productive ways to spend their money.

Re:High-flying dangerous idea

[Kohath]

Yeah, they invent things.

Re:High-flying dangerous idea

[nukenerd]

I doubt that it will go anywhere.

Back in the Zeppelin days they found that the safest way to anchor one was to attach the nose to a mast. That way it could trail downwind. This thing is going to need an anchor mast the size of the Eiffel tower ... well perhaps not quite that big, but you are not going to find one of those "anywhere".

Re:High-flying dangerous idea

[nukenerd]

Yeah, they invent things.

No they take ideas invented by others without much understanding of whether they are viable or not, no matter how crackpot, and blow some money on it. When you have got a few billion dollars it does not matter if you waste a few million, as long as you get a quick thrill and your name into the news.

Re:High-flying dangerous idea

[Kohath]

Yeah, innovation requires taking a chance that things won't work out sometimes.

Re:High-flying dangerous idea

[MangoCats]

Fly a bit upwind and drop a hook from the nose, lower/raise cargo on ropes. You shouldn't need to hover much more than 50' above the treetops.

Re:High-flying dangerous idea

[drinkypoo]

Hydrogen is the least of the potential problems. The Hindenburg burned because of its flammable skin; the highly flammable accelerant may or may not have been removed from the paint, but its metallic constituents made it exotically flammable once ignited. Most of the passengers and crew of the Hindenburg actually survived; once it had reached a sufficiently low altitude they were able to simply jump to the ground and run away.

All of the real, potentially insurmountable problems are related to weather.

Shades of Howard Hughes

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Lol, this is similar to what Howard Hughes did, pouring tons of money into building a giant-ass albatross of a plane that no one wanted or could afford. Hughes' monster plane was the the Spruce Goose, which flew precisely once before being retired.

Re:Shades of Howard Hughes

[dbIII]

that no one wanted or could afford

Didn't US Navy money go into the Spruce Goose?
From wikipedia:

Howard Hughes was called to testify before the Senate War Investigating Committee in 1947 over the use of government funds for the aircraft

There was a lot of that sort of thing going on at the time such as the deathtrap "Liberty Ships" build dirt cheap and sold the the government for a fortune. Not quite so funny anymore is it?

Re:Shades of Howard Hughes

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Not quite so funny anymore is it?

Who said it was "funny"?

Re:Shades of Howard Hughes

[dbIII]

Not quite so funny anymore is it?

Who said it was "funny"?

The term you started with, "lol" usually indicates such a thing, but I was really writing about the general attitude to the thing of people thinking it's funny that a millionaire squandered his own money on a vanity project. It's not so funny when the vast amount of padding in a job unwanted by the supposed client is picked up by a taxpayer.

Looking forward to the maiden flight!

[Gravis Zero]

The inside word is that it's going to be named the USS Invincible aka "the unpoppable airship". With a name like that, you know nothing could possibly go wrong! ;)

Re:Looking forward to the maiden flight!

[religionofpeas]

They'll double check the rivets this time.

Re: WASTE of Resources of Our Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that it will be filled with HELIUM, which is an IRREPLACEABLE RARE ELEMENT that is used in SCIENCE RESEARCH that advances humanity and helps get us off this rock.
Not only will it be FILLED with helium, ALL balloons LEAK like a SIEVE, so out into the atmosphere and from there into space the helium goes in massive quantities, never to be seen again.
That's fucking stupid.

If they want to do something, they should do the RESEARCH on Hydrogen fill such that any risk of fire is minimized, including various forms of "ejection seat / cabin" style apparatus.

At least you can make hydrogen with water and solar panels.

Key is - Recycling!

[SuperKendall]

ALL balloons LEAK like a SIEVE, so out into the atmosphere and from there into space the helium goes

Pretty sure Sergey is also building a helium recapture net to cover the upper atmosphere with so that should be fine.

If they want to do something, they should do the RESEARCH on Hydrogen fill such that any risk of fire is minimized, including various forms of "ejection seat / cabin" style apparatus.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we should be arriving at our destination shortly. The captain has prepared the charges and the cabin should begin our patented Super Rapid Ground Approach shortly, please take to your seats and fasten all seventeen points of your harness. Our cabin crew decided not to get on in the first place so talk amongst yourselves if you have trouble with the straps."

Re:Key is - Recycling!

[MangoCats]

Actually, the military piles of depleted uranium and other alpha emitters would be a good place to start a helium capture operation, just need some shielding...

Re:Better living through chemistry

[Applehu Akbar]

"Is there some additive that could make hydrogen safe? "

Yes, just mix with oxygen and toss in a match. The H2 is perfectly safe after that.

Re: WASTE of Resources of Our Time

[ColdWetDog]

Lots and lots of helium available as a by product of lots and lots of natural gas.

It will, however, cost more than just pumping it out of helium wells that have a relatively high concentration of the gas.

Not to worry,

$150 Million?

[HaeMaker]

Do they mean the development cost or the unit cost? The A380 cost 15 Billion euros to develop, and has a unit cost of $440 million to buy.

That's cheap, boeing 747's cost more

[Kartu]

Up to 350 million dollars.

Re:That's cheap, boeing 747's cost more

[MangoCats]

Jet airliner costs are mainly in the engines.

Re:Still not as yuge as Trump's Johnson

[davester666]

Sorry, there's a reason why his nickname is "Tiny Hands". It's because that's all he needs to complete the job...

Cargolifter

[DollyTheSheep]

The idea of rejuvenating the airship business isn't exactly new. In 1996 company Cargolifter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter) was founded with exactly the same idea: built large airships for cargo delivery, preferably to remote locations with no other means of transportation. It didn't work out. Lack of interest and orders forced Cargolifter to go into banktruptcy in 2002. Only their humungous hangar survived and is now refurbished as tourist attraction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Islands_Resort).

Maybe our favorite internet billionaire has more luck, but I doubt it.

Intention: Good, Implementation: Bad

[PinkyGigglebrain]

While I think his intent to use the craft for disaster and emergency situations is laudable his plan of a single huge airship is ill conceived at best, idiotic at worst.

A single ship is a single point of failure, anything goes wrong with it, a mechanical failure in an engine, an issue with it's control systems, bad weather at it's launch site and it is grounded. Plus you have the "time to site" to consider, to wit: An Earthquake in central India, how long will it take the airship to get there from California? Airships are not all that fast.

A better plan would be a fleet of smaller airships stationed at bases around the world. Redundancy in numbers. When a disaster happens they all load up and move out. The ships from closer bases get there first and can start helping while the ships from farther out are in transit, and the ships in transit can be redirected to depending on local need. Something you would not be able to do with a single ship.

Unless the idea isn't really to help others, but more about getting into the record books for having the biggest something in the world.

Re:Really Irritating

[MangoCats]

Does Google get use of that hangar for free?

If you really want it, you could try to outbid them when their current lease is up. Meanwhile, I'm kinda glad that _my_ hangar is at least generating some rental income instead of just rotting away sucking down maintenance and security expenses.

The early 20th century just called ...

[Ihlosi]

... it wants its idea back.

Re:Better living through chemistry

[kqs]

NO! That just makes it far more dangerous!

An old US Navy Challenge?

[Ferocitus]

This sounds like one of the U.S. Navy challenges from the 1990's, with similar requirements to the "100 knot Navy".
IIRC, one requirement was:
Deliver 250,000 tonnes anywhere in the world in 7 days, and a total of one million tonnes in 28 days.

Re:Really Irritating

[kqs]

Irritates the crap out of me that Google is probably building this "balloon" in MY hangar at Moffitt.

Yeah, it was better back when NASA ran the hangar and used magic owl-dodging aircraft.

I'm pretty sure that when someone leases your hangar for decades, it's a bit disingenuous to call it YOUR hangar.

And that's nothing!

[LordHighExecutioner]

Just wait for Sergey Brin to enter into the shoe design and production world!

Airpiercer

[stinkydog]

Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Airpiercer, a plane that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt17...

I welcome serving my Google overlords...

SD

drone delivery base?

[Doke]

Could you use it as a mobile base for delivering small packages via drone to destinations as you slowly pass over?

Airborne carrier

[pelpet]

Why is Brin doing this? Could it somehow be connected to Larry Page's flying cars business? Maybe a giant airshop could work as a carrier for flying cars or delivery drones? I don't see the business case yet but someone might have an idea?

remarks

[thuocdaudaumigrin]

Good!

H-He mix?

[stereoroid]

Why not a hydrogen/helium mixture? Everyone seems to be treating this as either/or proposition when it doesn't need to be. For example, helium is a neutral gas, so wouldn't it serve to reduce the flammability of hydrogen?

One immediate problem I can think of would be separation of the gases in to layers, meaning an inconsistent mix. If that's a problem - and I'm not sure that it is - it could be tackled by limiting the height of the gas cells: just make them thinner and flatter. A simple fan could also keep the gas moving if necessary to prevent stratification.

I found an old posting that seems to indicate that you could only have up to 8.7% hydrogen for the mixture to be safe, and that's not enough to make a difference (since the lifting power of hydrogen isn't that much better than helium's. A mix with more hydrogen might then be better classed as "less flammable", rather than setting up an expectation that the gas be totally non-flammable. If some helium can "tame" hydrogen a bit, I think that would be worth pursuing.

Re: Still not as yuge as Trump's Johnson

[eric_harris_76]

Let's bring out the rulers, and get to measuring. (Pun intended.)

Bumper sticker possiblities

[eric_harris_76]

I brake for hurricanes.

I brake for tornadoes.

Or maybe they should be:

I break for hurricanes.

I break for tornadoes.

The new Howard Hughes?

[ebvwfbw]

Sounds like we have a new Howard Hughes. All he needs to be is crazy as well and become a recluse.

Re:Still not as yuge as Trump's Johnson

[RockDoctor]

Trump named his hands after Boris The Buffoon?

I knew he was weird. Well, both of them were weird. But not that weird.