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."
Because I had to look it up... (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigid_airship [wikipedia.org]
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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
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Northern Canada makes sense, but I'm having a hard time imagining its use in Australia... That's one of the FLATTEST countries on earth, with the EASIEST road construction possible. Building a road involves drawing a line on a map, cutting the brush, and dropping the asphalt, and you might eve
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Road on totally flat terrain is still not cheap, you have to truck all that asphalt out there and cut down all that brush. 1 million dollars might get you 10 miles of single lane. More likely half that. Australia is big.
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I too am still scratching my heads. Canada is amazing expensive – because you can’t just dump asphalt on the ground. Specifically, the mineral mines that lay in the far north. I think most of the road is tundra which is fiendishly tough to build roads on. No exactly a cite but..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Road_Truckers [wikipedia.org]
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Neither is an airship...
As I said already, you MAY be able to do without the asphalt. Australian truck-train drivers aren't unfamiliar with unpaved dirt roads, and they work reasonably well in the outback. They're more likely to get washed-out and impassable for some time, but with low volume trucking (which is surely what we're talking about) that's an easy trade-off to make.
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We're talking about Australian DESERTS here. WTF does permafrost, cooling devices, and Alaska have to do with it?
Dirt roads have been around FOREVER. They're well understood.
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Rain washes out dirt roads, or they turn into very nasty blacksoil mud - but of course since you've assumed the whole continent is like Chile's Atacama desert you've thought that is unimportant. Also dirt roads get very badly worn over time (corrugated), and some of the dirt (appropriately called bulldust) is danger
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It gets tiresome speaking to morons so frequently...
Then it's quite fortunate that modern rigid airships aren quite different than those original "li
How did you get both things so badly wrong? (Score:2)
I suppose this is the site where the high school VB
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It's more like a million per kilometer.
- If you're building a road in the bush, it's for freight transport, so that means extensive earthworks and groud prep to make it solid enough.
- Even dry areas have huge flash floods so you need decent drainage too.
- Plus you have to pay the contrstruction workers big $$$ to build roads in the middle of no-where
- Plus support infrastructure like construction camps etc.
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""After a 70-year absence, it appears that a new rigid frame airship will soon be taking to the skies over California..."
It will be delivering medical marijuana to sun kings stranded poolside in Santa Barbara. Follow the money, jeez, the Canada thing is just publicity. Shhhhhh.
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]
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Eureka is semi-rigid. It doesn't have a framework around the entire gas envelope.
Re:a 10 month absence (Score:5, Funny)
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So you can see it would be good for delivering Hydrogen, Propane or other fuel gasses to remote locations.I suppose you could fill it with helium and take it to a remote tribe so they can talk like Mickey Mouse, useful stuff. Hope they made it out of aluminum and other non sparking metals. Seems there was a problem with that a while back...
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These would be very good for windmill installations. And installing the power line towers needed to move the electricity from the wind farm to the city.
Also for moving drilling rigs to remote dry land sites, and to replace to some truck traffic with a lower cost alternative.
Think of these new dirigibles as 'go anywhere" barges that don't need rivers.
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ground-breaking airship (Score:5, Funny)
What, did they land too hard?
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: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:Windmills do not work that way, Human! (Score:5, Funny)
They could just have a big rigid bag of vacuum.
What if their vacuum is bagless?
Sorry, I couldn't help it.
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I believe internal gas bladders within the outer skin is a standard feature of all dirigibles - that's the only way you can vary the density/buoyancy to change altitude without changing the shape of the rigid airframe that defines a dirigible. Without the rigid airframe you have a blimp, not a dirigible.
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I'm failing to see what's unique here, tbh.
ht [wikipedia.org]
Re:Windmills do not work that way, Human! (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the new part is partially that the gas is re-compressed rather than vented in order to reduce buoyancy, and mostly that it's designed with vectored-thrust engines that allow it to land and take of while heavier-than-air, drastically increasing stability and safety - I believe the majority of historical airship accidents are involved with those narrow, high-risk operating windows.
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Correct. The issue that those of us who have familiarity in the field have with Aeros is how their design could possibly handle rapidly changing, gusty winds on landing and takeoff. Not necessarily violent winds. Very moderate winds which are changeable.
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Ah, missed that. Looking at it now though it seems like a very different design:
- They mention maintaining a necessary envelope pressure, suggesting that it's a blimp rather than a zeppelin which has a rigid frame typically operated at roughly ambient pressure. Essentially the pumping of air seems to be just to keep the airfoil inflated as the ambient pressure changes. The Aeroscraft on the other hand actually alters their buoyancy so that they can become substantially heavier than air. That's the uncom
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And I read about space elevators in old golden-age science fiction. Ideas are easy, the devil is in the engineering details.
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I also flew in a blimp and talked to the pilot and other personnel; also studied the theory and technology at length. If you are talking about a blimp or a Zeppelin NT, you couldn't possibly be more wrong about decreasing or increasing buoyancy by using the ballonets (what you call "bladders"). That's not what they do at all. They have zero effect on overall static lift; none; nada. They are for fore-aft trim, as you say, but primarily they are to keep the pressure in the envelope constant as the helium exp
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Did I say it was for instantaneous buoyancy change to climb or descend? No. You just made that assumption. It isn't used for that, as you note. It is, however, correct to state that the buoyancy is changed. I will grant you that it is close to 15 years since I got to fly in it,
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That would be the ultimate. Unfortunately, it is presently beyond our capabilities to construct a container of appreciable volume (or many, many tiny ones put together) that can withstand a vacuum (i.e., ~10^5 Pa of positive pressure) while still weighing less than the displaced air (about 1.2 kg / m^3 at sea level and room temperature).
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That was my sly joke.
What he supposed was happening is currently impossible.
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And it works here because they actually do change their mass-inside-the-hull (and therefore their density) by taking in or dumping out *air* from the environment around them.
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True, strictly speaking, but overcomplicated. The interior of the hull not occupied by gas cells is vented outside, so the volume of the hull is irrelevant. Only the volume of the sealed portion -- i.e., the gas cells and associated plumbing -- counts in determining the buoyancy. If the total weight of the ship divided by the sealed volume is less than the density of ambient air, the buoyancy will be positive.
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Especially in near-ground operations.
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The hull is rigid, but it's supported by structural members, not by internal gas pressure.
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It's not a rigid frame containing just helium. It's a rigid frame containing non-rigid gas cells that can expand or contract based on the amount of helium in them. Compress helium from the cells into a pressure tank and let (heavier) air enter the airframe to make up the volume.
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What pla said. A dirigible is not a gasbag. It has its lifting gas in many individual cells, and the outer envelope is vented to atmosphere; if you look around the Net, you can find pictures of Hindenburg crewmen walking around inside it on catwalks with the gas cells all around them.
Connect hoses to the cells, and you can compress gas from them into a rigid tank, whereupon the cells get smaller and the closed volume of the ship does likewise.
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Actually what you said applies to a rigid airship specifically. A dirigible is simply a lighter than air craft which can move independent of the wind and directly control its flight path (contrasted to a balloon). I.e., a synonym for "airship". Dirigible simply means "capable of being steered" [merriam-webster.com]. A blimp is just as much of a dirigible as a rigid airship is. I realize popular usage of the word has become completely bogus.
Megaloads (Score:2)
The Spokane area is all aflutter with some "megaload" controversy about shipping some water treatment equipment to a mine in Canada over some "scenic" roads.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/aug/14/megaload-fight-headed-federal-court/ [spokesman.com]
Driving this stuff over mountain roads is apparently the only method of getting equipment of this size to the location where it's needed. I realize this is bigger than the airship is capable of lifting but I'd bet there are plenty of other situations where this would be a
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Yes, engineers are great but they may have a different idea then yours.
I am thinking about Effile (of the tower) who designed a iron bridge that could be transported by camels. i.e. lots of small pieces that can be assembled into a whole.
What is it filled with? (Score:2)
What do they fill it with? If it is rigid, then couldn't it be a vacuum since that would give the most buoyancy? Or perhaps an aerogel?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship [wikipedia.org]
Re:What is it filled with? (Score:4, Funny)
Popcorn, obviously.
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It's not really "corrosive" because that's an oxidation thing - but it does really fuck up welds if it gets in. There are ways around it to the point that high pressure hydrogen gas cylinders are made of steel and they have no problems. Also Iron is pretty heavy stuff so not much has ever been used in airships. The stuff that aluminium alloy bikes are made from today (and a lot of aircraft parts) is often within spec of the "duralumin" used in air
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Learn how to use a dictionary instead of pasting (Score:2)
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Birds! When they need to descend, they sprinkle birdseed on the floor, when they need to ascend, someone shoos the birds.
Ideal bad-terrain cargo carrier... (Score:5, Interesting)
We have shows like Ice Road Truckers about dangerous, expensive, and time-limited freight delivery in the Artic circle because impassable terrain most of the year... And at the opposite end of the globe, the 1,000 mile-long McMurdo â" South Pole Highway constructed over 4 years at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars with lots of ongoing maintenance... And also consider the manifold poor remote villages that are often starving and suffering after natural disasters because they are accessible only by foot (or mule) due to mountainous terrain over which road construction would be astronomically expensive...
All these scenarios, because flying-in heavy items via conventional aircraft over long distance can consume twice their weight in jet fuel.
Airships can no-doubt fundamentally change the arithmetic of delivering supplies to these hazardous and remote locations. If these airships prove to be reliable heavy-lifters, that consume far, far less fuel, they could generate a LOT of cash from carrying cargo to such difficult destinations, no matter how slow they are to arrive at their destinations.
deal bad-terrain yes, bad weather no. (Score:3)
Yes to bad-terrain; no to bad weather.
The real killer to the age of the Zeppelin wasn't the Hindenberg; it was the continuing series of crashes of airships due to bad weather.
Zeppelins are fair-weather flyers.
(with that said, however, with modern weather satellites and predictions, this would be much less of a problem than it was in the 1930s)
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They hope to use their ability to manage their buoyancy to fix that. Also the fact that this craft is designed as a lifting body. So it could if need be in theory become heavier than air and glide to the ground in poor weather.
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Yes to bad-terrain; no to bad weather.
The real killer to the age of the Zeppelin wasn't the Hindenberg; it was the continuing series of crashes of airships due to bad weather.
Zeppelins are fair-weather flyers.
(with that said, however, with modern weather satellites and predictions, this would be much less of a problem than it was in the 1930s)
Hmmm. I suspect the advent of more reliable fixed wing a/c took the air out (or in, actually) of Zepplin travel as well. I wonder if this new airship will have a high enough service ceiling to avoid a lot of the weather. BTW. Does NOVAAR and ECRM ring a bell?
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You are correct about the weather problem, but incorrect in suggesting that satellites and computer based weather prediction will do much to fix it.
Airships have been repeatedly announced and failed to achieve commercial reality, over and over again. This time is no different. An airship is essentially a giant aerodynamic sail. The power to surface area of the vehicle will not allow these airships to fly safely and reliably. Goodyear blimp or no.
Heavier than air aircraft have a hugely more advantageous
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.
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The problem, well known historically but seemingly needing to be rediscovered every twenty years or so, is that airships aren't reliable heavy lifters. They're extraordinarily sensitive to the weather - much more so than any means of transport they replace. Absent heavy and complex propulsion systems (above and beyond that what's need
Repeat after me (Score:2)
SKY TRUCKERS!!!
Interesting, but will it work (Score:3)
Its an interesting craft, and I hope it succeeds, but its going to all fall to how the demonstrator performs. They're making some lofty statements, two man crew, 66 tons, minimal ground crew, 120 knots, minimal fuel consumption, 3,000 mile range, etc. If they can hold to it and keep construction/operation costs down it'll be a great craft, but they're obliviously trying to wave around the military applications of the craft so I'd watch out for massive cost overruns, ever decreasing capabilities & constantly extended time tables. Hangering these craft is also going to be an issue, the company seems to be open about the fact that these craft will not be able to handle bad weather, but their "they'll just fly around bad weather" explanation seems questionable even if their speed capabilities are not exaggerated. These things will require massive hangers as I highly doubt just tethering them to the ground would be sufficient protection from even a Midwestern thunderstorm let alone hurricanes or monsoons.
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I like airships, the problem is that they're not practical these days. Back in the '30s, I'm sure they were great, but the parts of the world that can afford lighter than air travel, also have decent railroads and highway systems that can make the trip with more efficiency.
I suppose this might replace ships for passengers, but even there, I can't imagine it being practical.
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These can also be used in places that cannot afford those things. Imagine you have a large mine in some third world nation and need to get your product to port, but there are no roads for large vehicles. Since this craft can become heavier than air at will it is easier to land and can deal with weather far better than previous airships.
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I don't think you understand how lighter than air crafts work. Yes, they can use the engines for a bit of lift, but no, they can't be used as you describe. These craft have severely limited capacity for cargo, ever seen a photo of one of those things? The size of the compartment is tiny compared with the rest of the craft.
What's more, you'd be far, far better off just getting a Chinook, as those are much smaller and are designed to handle a substantial amount of cargo.
But, even a Chinook is going to be more
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I don't think you read the article. What I am talking about is what it says.
They want to move remote or oversized cargo. They can become heavier than air and the airship is shaped as an obvious lifting body.
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You obviously haven't worked in areas where you can't build roads. The reality is that most of those areas aren't typically suitable for airships either. You've got steep hills and deep canyons. And something the shape and size of an airship is going to be a logistical nightmare to use in a situation like that. Even up north in the Arctic there are serious problems as well.
Yes, the maneuverability is better than in the past, but it's not that good. And most of the best mining ground in the world is in areas
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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.
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All your arguments are circular nonsense and fact-free... A large mining operation will be too large for these? And a small mining operation will be too small for these?
It's undeniable airships have FAR lower operating costs per mass of cargo than conventional aircraft, and your suggestion of Chinook helicopters is positively laughable. Airships certainly CAN do many things you baselessly claim t
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One summer, I was physically carrying gear up a steep mountain because there wasn't any way of getting a helicopter in, and the trail wasn't big enough for pack animals.
I don't understand. You are saying that a helicopter couldn't get there, or they didn't want to pay for it? I've seen helicopters work around a variety of steep mountains, and they do quite well, so long as your final site is visible to the sky (lowering things on a 100 ft cable, released from the helicopter when touched down is not impossible). But I've not seen anywhere actually "not accessible", except for caves and such.
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In May 2005, pilot Didier Delsalle of France landed a Eurocopter AS350 B3 helicopter on the summit of Mount Everest.
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I may not be the ultimate authority on all things mining
I definitely agree with the author's statement.
Extracting oil from the Canadian tar sands requires huge pieces of equipment that are currently barged up the Columbia River then trucked through Idaho and Canada on oversized vehicles, at night, requiring road closures because the things are so wide. Air freight by dirigible from the Port of Portland or Seattle would be much more economical (and avoid a lot of political noise as well). Not that I favor this: my politics are quite green and tar sands exploitat
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Aeroscraft, maximum useful cargo capacity 66 tons.
Your argument, is invalid.
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These airships are perfect for installation and maintenance of windmill farms. One could easily handle the big components like towers and blades that are currently so hard to get to good sites. Airships would also be useful when building new power lines. And of course an airship could carry a huge amount of solar cell panels into roadless areas.
Airships and renewable energy development are a good fit.
The Chinook and other heavy lift helicopters are great for short distance hauling, such as logging. But th
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You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but there's a reason why this technology was never used for this purpose back in the '30s. What's more, it was never proposed for this purpose.
I'm familiar with how the vessel operates, it's just questionable if it's going to have any practical application like this. The amount of supplies that mining crews need is huge, take a look at the vehicles they're using. They're both immensely heavy, as well as huge. The dumptrucks that the larger mines are using are liter
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You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but there's a reason why this technology was never used for this purpose back in the '30s
And that reason is because the technology did not exist back in the '30s.
That was before carbon fiber, before Mylar, before the concept of a lifting body air frame. In short, it was before 80 years of engineering advancements.
The Aeroscraft airship is not the steampunk airship you imagine it to be.
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Bingo. As for bringing raw materials back, I have to wonder - if the Aeroscraft can take in machinery for extraction of a resource, if it's one that can be readily pre-processed by straightforward mechanical or chemical means perhaps that could be done on site as well. I suppose the airship could be used for many 'outback' construction needs besides mineral extraction sites also - remote weather stations come to mind.
Existing heavy-lift helicopters such as the later Chinooks and S-64 are range-limited to
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Even if you can refuel the chinook in flight, helicopters burn fuel like that is their job. Not a cheap way to move cargo.
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Have fun waiting, they are using He not H.
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Oh, I Se.
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:Nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly, we now accept air disasters every few years that cause more death and destruction than the Hindenburg without a single call to ground the dangerous jetliners.
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So who is to say that every 63rd flight would have done that? Especially with new precautions in place. Even if the odds were literally one in a trillion it could happen on the 1st flight or the trillionth or anywhere in between (it could even go 12 trillion then have two disasters in a row).
Keep in mind too that at that time, the accident rate for general aviation was more than 10 times what it is now. Other forms of travel were also less safe than now.
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Fuel a jetliner with automotive diesel and you'll probably ramp the crash rate way up, assuming they can even get off the ground - they just aren't designed to use that blend of fuel. Similar issue with the Hindenburg - it was designed to use non-flammable helium as the lift gas, and as such had minimal protection against fire incorporated into it's design. Obviously the fact that they then chose to operate it with much cheaper hydrogen lift gas eventually became a problem.
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Which caused the price of helium to increase, leading them to choose to use hydrogen instead. The US was hardly the only source of helium.
> their choices were either use hydrogen, or not have the airships. ...or use airships designed to use hydrogen as a lift-gas. Such airships were not uncommon at the time, just more expensive. They could probably even have retrofitted the Hindenburg to use hydrogen relatively safely had they chosen, though it might have involved replacing the flammable skin at not i
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Statistics don't work that way (Score:2)
Statistics don't work that way. It is irrelevant to the crash rate how many flights a particular airship made before it crashed - a one-in-a-million outcome is just as likely to occur on the first test as on the millionth. To find the actual crash rate you would have to look at the total number of Hindenburg-style airship flights and divide the number of crashes by the total number flights. You'd need to have a statistically valid number of airships in action to confirm that it was a design flaw and not a
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You mean, mistakes such as posting without having read the fucking article?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwh07fYNdCY [youtube.com]
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Kill yourself for not knowing that modern airships use helium or even bothering to check. That's basic historic and aviation knowledge.
Slashdot is at least theoretically a tech site.
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Look at the list of airship and dirigible acidents. The Hindenburg was minor. An awful lots of dirigibles broke up in mid air
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents [wikipedia.org]
Newer materials may help as will the mor aerodynamic shape but the forces that can be generated on a surface area that large are huge.
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Is everyone off their meds?
1) No the GP didn't make a particularly good point. It amounts to "oh noes, multiple things in the air! Oh the collisions!". And he throws in "drones" in there for some reason. It might have been a vaguely good point if he actually mentioned what his brother has said at the supposed collision between an airship and a drone, but decided to simply chuckle as his own unspoken joke instead.
2) Correct, the sarcasm is unwanted, and more importantly unwarranted, as there would be no "bal
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They failed miserably because of underestimating the complexity and technical problems.
I'm highly skeptical but nonetheless interested how Airoscraft will perform.
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Well, that was part of the awesomeness. The other part was their use predates practical intercontinental travel by airplane. If you wanted to travel from Germany to Brazil or the US in 1930 the fastest way to go was on the Graf Zeppelin.
But the thrust of you comment is probably accurate. Airships travel at most about 25% of passenger jet speeds. Even assuming you can find people who are willing to spend four times as long getting to their destination, the real killer from a business standpoint is you h
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yeah, they call that "freestyle cruising". Oh, wait, that might be the other thing that ruined the cruise experience. Or was it the TSA at the docks...
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