Goodyear's New State-of-the-Art Airship Makes Its First Flight 66
Zothecula (1870348) writes "The Goodyear blimp may have been flying around for almost 90 years, but it still manages to turn heads. On Friday, there was another reason to look beyond nostalgia for the days of the great airships of old as Goodyear unveiled its new state-of-the-art blimp to the media, Goodyear associates and dealers at its Wingfoot Lake hangar in Suffield, Ohio. Built in partnership with the Zeppelin company, the new craft that replaces the 45-year old GZ-20 blimp fleet is not only larger and faster, it isn't even a blimp, but a semi-rigid airship."
Enjoy it while it floats (Score:5, Informative)
In a few decades, flying a blimp might become a bit difficult [theweek.com].
Re:Enjoy it while it floats (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, if we continue to waste helium like idiots. However, one design for modern airships involves re-compressing the helium to control buoyancy rather than bleeding it off.
The future of airship transport looks pretty interesting to me:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]
Zeppelin NT (Score:5, Informative)
It's a Zeppelin NT. One was based in Silicon Valley for several years [airshipventures.com], but didn't make money after the price of helium doubled. It cost $400 for a sightseeing tour of the Bay Area.
I've heard a talk by the company CEO, who'd piloted the thing. It handles much better than the classic Goodyear blimp, which he'd also flown. With three steerable props and computer coordination, it's much more controllable during landing. It doesn't require a large ground crew hanging onto ropes to get the thing tied down. That's why Goodyear is going with the NT, even though it's more expensive than their classic blimp. There are videos on Youtube of both types landing.
If you want to see what it's like to fly one, the open source FlightGear simulator has a good model of the NT, including the mobile docking truck.
nitpicking nomenclature (Score:5, Informative)
This means that the craft is technically no longer a blimp or dirigible because the structure of the envelope is no longer supported entirely by the gas inside.
Any aircraft that obtains lift from a lighter than air gas is an airship or aerostat. An airship that has the ability to propel itself is a dirigible, one that cannot is a balloon. An airship that contains no rigid support structure for the envelope can be called either a blimp or non-rigid. An airship that has the envelope supported entirely by a solid structure is considered a rigid dirigible or a Zepplin, named after the person that developed that style of craft and the company that bears his name that built them.
Since these new Goodyear airships are semi-rigid and built by the Zeppelin company I would tend to call this type of airship a Zeppelin. Perhaps my tendency might conflict with others as it might be more correctly be called a semi-rigid dirigible that happened to be made by Zeppelin.
I agree that these new aircraft are not blimps but they are most certainly dirigibles.
With that said I'm not going to beat anyone over the head for calling them "blimps", everyone will know generally what they are talking about. I might even call them a blimp just because I've heard people using the words "Goodyear" and "blimp" together for so long that I'd have to be reminded that these new crafts are not blimps.
What gets crazy is that some airships are not technically lighter than air. They contain gasses in the envelope that is lighter than air but not enough to provide sufficient buoyancy for lifting the entire weight of the craft. They'd technically be still heavier than air and would require the engines running to leave the ground. I don't know if the Goodyear airships are lighter or heavier than air.
Whatever people want to call them I think these airships are cool. I believe this is a technology that will allow for some very large and heavy lifting aircraft that could compete with many other forms of transport over land, air, or sea.
Re:Enjoy it while it floats (Score:5, Informative)
When underground radioactive elements decay, helium is a byproduct (look up "alpha particle radiation"). Because it's a noble gas and doesn't bond with anything, it seeps its way to the surface, where it escapes into the upper atmosphere. Some helium can instead become trapped by non-porous rock, in underground pockets. Those same pockets sometimes have natural gas deposits.
So you find a natural gas deposit, tap it, and what comes out as well? Helium. It's not the main product they're after when they go drilling, but it is valuable enough to set aside and sell.
Re:Name suggestions? (Score:4, Informative)
Ze Hindenburg in spandex . With ze helium
The Hindenburg was designed for helium, but had to use hydrogen because of an US monopoly of helium in combination with an acute attack of envy which resulted in a boycott. The rest is (well known) history ...
Re:nitpicking nomenclature (Score:5, Informative)
They contain gasses in the envelope that is lighter than air but not enough to provide sufficient buoyancy for lifting the entire weight of the craft. They'd technically be still heavier than air and would require the engines running to leave the ground. I don't know if the Goodyear airships are lighter or heavier than air.
You're right, I believe Zeppelin NTs are several hundred kilos heavy on take-off, when carrying payload and full load of fuel. Though they can be lighter than air when landing with the fuel mostly gone. Of course the other big complication to trimming a dirigible is air conditions, which can change during the flight. Buoyancy increases significantly if an airship flies from warm air into a bank of colder, denser air and the craft will remain buoyant until the helium cools to match the air temperature. In the old days, air
All this is what makes vectored thrust a fantastically useful thing for an airship pilot. It gives better control and also means the pilot can vector thrust up to land when his/her craft is lighter-than-air. I'd say this is vital for keeping costs down, as it avoids venting helium for landing.
Although the usefulness of vectored thrust was no lost on the early designers. See this picture [wikipedia.org] of a pre-World War 1 British military blimp with rotatable props.