The Age of the Airship Returns? 315
Popular in Victorian and Steampunk fantasies, airships and zeppelins evoke a certain elegance that most modern travelers don't associate with the airplane. Some companies are capitalizing on that idea, and a need to move cargo by air in an era of ever-increasing fuel costs, to re-re-introduce commercial zeppelins. Popular Mechanics notes four notable airship designs, all with specific design purposes. One craft in particular, the Aeroscraft ML866, is being funded by the US government's DARPA group. It looks to combine the best elements of the helicopter and the zeppelin. "The Aeroscraft ML866's potentially revolutionary Control of Static Heaviness system compresses and decompresses helium in the 210-ft.-long envelope, changing this proposed sky yacht's buoyancy during takeoff and landings, Aeros says. It hopes to end the program with a test flight demonstrating the system. "
A new mode of transport in general? (Score:5, Interesting)
I see a couple hurdles though.
The first is designable around -- damage to the hot air or helium part due to lightning, or tears due to other factors. Having multiple "balloons" might help this situation, so if one is ruptured, the airship still can stay up, or descend in a fairly graceful fashion.
The second is a bit harder, but sort of related to #1. There are people out there (in most areas of the globe) who wouldn't mind taking potshots at an airship. It could be a drunk hillbilly who is playing with his new 30/06, or someone who has a RPG and is hoping to knock the thing out of the air completely. Oddly enough (and I have little or no aerospace expertise), I wonder if, even with major damage from a missile hit, a well engineered airship still can land gracefully (assuming the gondola isn't what is damaged.) Could an airship fly high enough so the chance of getting hit by ground fire be minimized?
Lastly there is a third problem. There is a ton of air traffic already. I wonder how hard it would be to factor in large, slow vehicles into the aviation corridors without impacting takeoffs and landings of jets and prop based traffic.
Blimps compete with trucks and trains - badly (Score:4, Interesting)
Only 40 Years Ago... (Score:3, Interesting)
It was only about 40 years or so I read about this system. Of course, this was the Mad Scientists Club in Boy's Life magazine that competed in a balloon race and handled the buoyancy problem in this advanced manner. Maybe some of those Boy Scouts grew up to fly like Eagles and design airships.
(P.S. I also read Arthur Clarke's original short story Sunjammer in BL, before he had to go and change the title to the far less elegant The Wind From The Sun title, after some other author also used the same original title in another story that same year.)
Airships seem to be more common than most think (Score:4, Interesting)
A very interesting use is being worked on by a company called JP Aerospace (http://jpaerospace.com/). Their idea is to build an airship-to-orbit system. Not in one go. It would involve transferring from a ground capable airship to an extreme high altitude airship.
Re:The discouraging prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article it looks like they want to use those machines to survey... Hmmm... Big brother?
Re:A new mode of transport in general? (Score:5, Interesting)
The second is a bit harder, but sort of related to #1. There are people out there (in most areas of the globe) who wouldn't mind taking potshots at an airship. It could be a drunk hillbilly who is playing with his new 30/06, or someone who has a RPG and is hoping to knock the thing out of the air completely. Oddly enough (and I have little or no aerospace expertise), I wonder if, even with major damage from a missile hit, a well engineered airship still can land gracefully (assuming the gondola isn't what is damaged.) Could an airship fly high enough so the chance of getting hit by ground fire be minimized?
For the .30/06 its like shooting a parachute with a pistol. Enough holes would be dangerous but the helium bags aren't under enough pressure to pop like a balloon and a hole roughly 1/3 in. in diameter isn't going to be enough to bring it down before a patch can be made. Also, with the exception of some serious firepower like the .50 and .75 caliber rifles, bullets don't actually travel too far before dropping. Your chances of hitting a blimp with a hunting rifle or an AK when its in the air are practically nonexistent outside of takeoff or landing. The maximum effective range of an AK-47 (the area at which you could expect to hit a large target firing horizontally, though I think a blimp is a bit above the large target in this standard) is generally estimated around 250m. add the distance you are away from it and account for the upward angle you're firing at and I believe it'd be quite impressive to to hit a blimp with small-arms fire.
As far as the RPG goes, I'm not sure what we could hope for there... military aircraft don't stand up so well to direct RPG hits. Commercial aircraft simply can't be designed for that particular level of abuse.
Re:The discouraging prior art (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh great (Score:2, Interesting)
What about a vacuum in a cleverly engineered light weight container? Or hot air? Buckminster Fuller had an idea of mile diameter geodesic domes that would levitate from waste heat. They only need to be 1 degree hotter than their environment -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_nine_(Tensegrity_sphere) [wikipedia.org]
Re:Hydrogen (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a Mythbusters episode that investigates this. They called it a bust. The paint did burn readily but it was nothing compared to tthe hydrogen exploding.
Article [nytimes.com], episode itself [spikedhumor.com].
Re:Hydrogen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The discouraging prior art (Score:1, Interesting)
Worlds Best RV... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://blog.myspace.com/khanz [myspace.com]
Most of societies problems would probably be solved by mass production of Zeppelin houses. This may not seem realistic or reasonable to non-visionaries or cynics, but I really believe it, and have plenty of rational observation to back up this claim. Since the entire skin of the zeppelin would be cheap solar panels, the electricity used in the zeppelin (including lighting, heating, transportation, television) would mostly be environmentally friendly (and free!), and since the very nature of a vehicle by design is to be mobile, everyone would be effectively living "off the grid" which would translate into other environmental benefits, and better and more reliable power in the case of emergencies. Speaking of emergencies, Zeppelins are pretty much earth quake proof, tsunami proof, and brush fire proof, and with a reasonably good weather report, you could probably avoid most tornadoes and hurricanes by simply flying somewhere else for a while. In addition, zeppelins are slow, and, do not carry much momentum, so "traffic" accidents would probably be very rarely fatal for anyone involved, and with the wifi/gps/radar navigation system I have in mind would probably be extremely uncommon anyway. By removing cars and housing and the entire electrical grid out of the equation we have essentially solved global warming, traffic fatalities, homelessness, and maybe eventually even poverty altogether.
Now the biggest benefit though of living in a TRULY mobile home (and a home that was FREE to move, and could move over water, land, ice, and mountains!), is that in the event of a war, you could easily just fly somewhere else. In fact, at some point this evolutionary step from living in huts on land to yachts in the sky could prove to be the end of war completely. What's the use in fighting over land, when you live in the sky? The only thing to bother with of value on the land is going to be fruit, meat, vegetables, and water, and I think that those can be had fairly cheaply still, and will probably become even cheaper if our society chooses to make this transcendental step forward.
Myself personally I've been a fan of many places on the planet, and would love to be able to flit hither and thither with the comfort of my own bed, computer, closet, shower, and toilet immediately with me. I'd most especially like to do so while not paying rent, paying for hotels, and while having my own kitchen and fresh produce. I also would like to surf the internet, lounge in the hot tub, take a nap, play violin, or play mario kart while my home travels between Hawaii, Oregon, New York, Alaska, San Diego, and Ireland on the free power of natural sun light, and automatically by GPS auto pilot, and radar and wifi collision avoidance. Further, I'd like to enjoy the sunset and sunrise at all of these locations from a spot in the air, and maybe even on the top of my zeppelin on the sun deck that I have planned there, amongst the clouds and fresh perfect air free from the pollutants that rule our current carbon based economy.
The most frustrating part about this whole zeppelin utopia that I've created and have already been living in in my own mind, is that it's entirely feasible. Not just feasible, but almost childishly simple. It's a simple matter of running some numbers, running some computer simulations, and building/buying a factory and changing everybody's world, for the better. No more commutes, no more traffic, no more pollution, no more housing bubbles, no more traffic accidents, no more corporate slavery, no more censorship, no more war, no more poverty, no more stress, and probably eventually no more misery or suicide or prescription drugs like oxycontin (sp?). Just 6 billion happy people living with their families in luxury liners in the sky, with free electricity, internet, and water, drifting along in the sunshine from organic fruit stand to organic steak house to Irish pub for a night of
Re:The discouraging prior art (Score:3, Interesting)
Sky Cruise (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Helium Supply (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct. The way you get helium is: go to Amarillo, Texas and drill a hole.
Amarillo sits atop a huge deposit of alpha-emitting radioactive ores. An alpha particle is two protons with two neutrons attached, which from another perspective is a helium nucleus. As soon as it finds two electrons it grabs them, and ba-bing, ba-boom, helium atom.
The consortium that holds the government contract to extract helium has been a major local profit center for decades, which is why Amarillo is the only city with a monument to an element.
rj
I have been reading about this since the '70's. (Score:2, Interesting)
There are always beautiful artists renderings. They will be logging the Yukon, or carrying water-purification to South Asia.
I was a mad fanatic of Oswald Bastable, and Moorcock's Warlords of the Air. I wish the Chilean wizard, O'Bean, were as real as the next chap. But I fear 'tisn't so.
I wanted to start my own dirigible run from Africa to India: "Trans-Imperial Air Safari". Instead, a few intel agencies will use this for eavesdropping and sub-orbital comms stations.
Re:Flies in the ointment. (Score:1, Interesting)
Where can I get an all-weather, $100k rail car that can carry a 50' x 50' x 50' piece of equipment to a remote diamond mine (i.e. no rail service) in Canada?
Trains are great for lots of things, but pretending that they service all transport needs is ridiculous. Ignoring the limitations of the rail system (selected service points, need to load/unload cars you don't own, need to meet schedules for tracks you don't control, etc.), rail is cheaper than trucks for any heavy load going more than a couple hundred miles. And yet long-haul trucking is still commonly used for many goods in many industries. I'm gonna guess that's because the economics aren't always as simple as picking the cheapest transport method by dollars per pound-mile.
Airships! Neato (Score:3, Interesting)
Classic airships were terribly difficult to operate given the technology of the day. Landings were particularly difficult thanks to the strange concept of the mooring tower. Perhaps classic-era zeppelins could have been safer if they used a winch-down technology similar to helicopters on modern destroyers. In heavy seas, the helicopter cannot land conventionally. A cable is dropped to the deck where it is secured in a winch drum. The chopper pilot applies full throttle as he is slowly winched out of the sky. If the deck rises, he rises, and likewise falls when it falls. This prevents him from getting smacked into splinters by an unpredictable wave. For a zeppelin, a few mooring lines dropped from the air could leave it secured against errant wind gusts while it is winched down. Of course, we now have computer-aired control systems and could use rotating thruster pods like modern ships for three-dimensional maneuvering.
While hydrogen is probably still our best modern fuel, I'm curious as to what kind of unobtanium would be required to create vacuum airships, ones that don't just use a lighter than air gas but completely evacuated containers to create buoyancy.
Final thought: I hope they put more thought into this than the Germans who came up with Zeppelin NT [wikipedia.org]. I'm still waiting for Titanic ME.