Aeroscraft Begins Flight Testing Following FAA Certification 158
Zothecula writes "After a 70-year absence, it appears that a new rigid frame airship will soon be taking to the skies over California. Aeros Corporation, a company based near San Diego, has received experimental airworthiness certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to begin flight testing the Aeroscraft airship, and it appears that the company has wasted no time getting started."
Windmills do not work that way, Human! (Score:4, Informative)
Uhh... That works with submarines because they actually do change their mass-inside-the-hull (and therefore their density) by taking in or dumping out water from the environment around them. With a rigid frame containing just helium, it doesn't matter whether you store the helium in a tank or in the balloon, you have the same total mass inside the footprint of the hull, and therefore the same overall density (for reference, a balloon "containing" a vacuum would have more buoyancy than even one using Hydrogen).
Not to say they couldn't have found a solution to that particular problem, but the explanation given... Doesn't solve that problem.
Re:Nice... (Score:4, Informative)
Those that dies in the Hindenburg were burned by diesel fuel spilled when the skin and lifting gas ignited. So on the whole, I'd say we have learned from History in this case. Of course, we still drive to work knowing that this is the least safe commuting option.
Re:Windmills do not work that way, Human! (Score:5, Informative)
They compress the helium into fabric bags, then this makes the some of the gas cells/bags inside the rigid frame deflate, that deflated volume is replaced with air. Then when you need to become lighter you allow the Helium to go back into the gas cell/bag and thus the bag inflates pushing the air out of the craft.
If they could do what you are suspecting is going on they would have no need for helium. They could just have a big rigid bag of vacuum.
Re:Because I had to look it up... (Score:3, Informative)
You woudn't have if you'd just RTFA, which BTW was excellent and described a whole lot of the technology that went into this thing. For instance, how it can land without a huge ground crew, why it doesn't take off when cargo is offloaded, why it's necessary in the first place. Its use will be for places like northern Canada and the Australian outback where there's no airport and no landing strip and no infrastructure whatever but where there are a lot of resources like timber and minerals.
This is one FA you should R. You'll not have to look anything up on wikipedia.
a 10 month absence (Score:5, Informative)
""After a 70-year absence, it appears that a new rigid frame airship will soon be taking to the skies over California..."
No, not a 70 year absence: a ten month absence. Zeppelin "Eureka" was flying over California from 2008 to 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_Ventures [wikipedia.org]
--couldn't make enough money flying sightseeing cruises to pay its way, alas
http://mountainview.patch.com/groups/business-news/p/airship-ventures-says-goodbye [patch.com]
Re:must we endure.. (Score:5, Informative)
In fact they can. They talk about this exact scenario at the very bottom of TFA...
Their absolute cargo capacity doesn't matter... It's a question of cost per kg of cargo. Since airships need to consume extremely little fuel, they are extremely economical to operate, and the cost of shipping heavy materials will be vastly less expensive than flying them on conventional airplanes.
That's absolute nonsense. A helicopter will consume MORE fuel than conventional airplanes, has less range, and moves more slowly, all for the convenience of VTOL. An airship will be VASTLY more economical to operate.
The diamond and oil mines in the arctic are operating without roads... Instead they truck in supplies at great expense only part of the year, over the ice. The Alaska pipeline was perhaps the most expensive engineering project in history, and the investment nearly bankrupted the whole US oil industry. Until recently, the South Pole McMurdo station was operating without a road over the 1,000 mile distance, and it was an incredible expense to develop, only profitable because conventional aircraft are so expensive to operate that it cost double the jet fuel for a given cargo weight to fly in supplies.
In short, there are MANY places that don't or perhaps CAN'T have roads, yet are profitable locations that need lots of bulk freight deliveries. Pretty much everything you've said in your comment is undeniably factually incorrect, and if these airships prove reliable, they may have a few incredibly profitable routes.
Re:deal bad-terrain yes, bad weather no. (Score:5, Informative)
Categorically wrong. No rigid airship built by the Zeppelin company after WW1 suffered any major mishap due to weather, and hardly any of almost 100 flown during WW1 did. The dilettante (UK and US) constructor/operators never developed enough expertise and experience to completely achieve safety in respect to weather like the Germans did. They certainly would have done so if they had more than barely wet their feet in the technology.
It is utter bullshit that the Zeppelins were "fair weather flyers". Graf Zeppelin (one million miles in nine years) and Hindenburg flew through quite strong weather, including frontal systems and squalls. Often passengers would look down on a violently churning, mountainous sea with huge ships bobbing like corks, while they themselves were walking around or dining, their own wine glasses absolutely undisturbed on the table. Once Hindenburg hooked onto a hurricane to boost her speed by the better part of 100 mph. The structure was not unduly stressed thereby, and the passengers remained in complete comfort.