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Transportation

World's Largest Aircraft Seeks Investors To Begin Operation 140

Posted by Soulskill from the go-big-or-go-home dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The Airlander 10 is significantly larger than a 747. It's an airship that incorporates elements of blimps, planes, and hovercraft. Buoyed by a vast volume of helium, it's capable of cruising at a speed of 80 knots. It was built as a military venture, intended to be used for surveillance tasks. But as the war in Afghanistan wound down, government officials found they had no use for the airship. They ended up selling it back to the company who made it for $300,000 — after paying them $90 million to build it. Now, a small group of investors are trying to get it operational, in part to show people how safe the technology can be, and to hopefully spur construction of more airships. They say the Airlander 10 is capable of surviving a missile strike, but visions of the Hindenburg still loom large in our cultural memory.
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World's Largest Aircraft Seeks Investors To Begin Operation More

World's Largest Aircraft Seeks Investors To Begin Operation

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  • The Hindenburg always gets brought up here - I'm sure it was a big thing half a century ago. Now, much of the general public probably doesn't know what "Hindenburg" is, and the ones who are scared of airships are the same group who are scared of normal aircraft. I think the bigger thing here, in terms of travel, is that it only goes 80 knots. You can do 80 knots easily in an economy car. Legally too, in many places. 747s cruise at several hundred knots, around 250 IIRC. There's no reason to take this airshi

    • Re:Hindenburg? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @12:27AM (#49384027)

      The Hindenburg always gets brought up here - I'm sure it was a big thing half a century ago. Now, much of the general public probably doesn't know what "Hindenburg" is, and the ones who are scared of airships are the same group who are scared of normal aircraft. I think the bigger thing here, in terms of travel, is that it only goes 80 knots. You can do 80 knots easily in an economy car. Legally too, in many places. 747s cruise at several hundred knots, around 250 IIRC. There's no reason to take this airship for long distance travel unless your goal is chillin' on the ship and looking out the window.

      The Hindenburg and other airships were filled with volatile hydrogen, modern airships use inert helium. The problem is, helium is quite expensive in that volume. The fear at hydrogen airships was well founded, the Hindenburg wasn't even the worst airship disaster, that only killed 36, the worst disaster was the R101 which killed 48. Airships were not only vulnerable to explosion, they were unstable in high winds and storms. After the Hindenburg airships by and large stopped using hydrogen but there were still a lot of crashes due to weather.

      The design in the article uses helium which isn't unstable like hydrogen but the problem of weather still remains. But that isn't what will kill it, it's economics as helium is going to be expensive in the quantities they need and who is going to pay for an airship to freight something at 80 knots when if it isn't time critical, a bulk carrier will do it for less.

      • Re:Hindenburg? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @12:41AM (#49384067)

        I think the bigger thing here, in terms of travel, is that it only goes 80 knots.

        It is not intended for passenger transportation. It is for things like cargo to remote areas, or reconnaissance. If it can be automated, with no crew, then it can use hydrogen rather than helium, since there will be no risk to human life.

         

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          It is not intended for passenger transportation. It is for things like cargo to remote areas, or reconnaissance.

          Again, there are cheaper alternatives.

          Also, a lot of remote areas are remote because of weather, not terrain. If you cant get a helicopter in there, a blimp is just asking to crash.

          then it can use hydrogen rather than helium, since there will be no risk to human life.

          In order for this to be true, it would need to be loaded, unloaded and operated away from populated areas. This gives it a v

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by adolf ( 21054 )

            The airship cost $300,000 to buy. It doesn't matter if it cost someone else $90,000,000 to build it; the loss of $89,700,000 is the government's loss, not the current owners.

            Car analogy: I once paid $6,500 for an excellent car that had a new sticker price of $53,000, and I've been driving it like a $6,500 car ever since.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tsotha ( 720379 )

              The airship cost $300,000 to buy. It doesn't matter if it cost someone else $90,000,000 to build it; the loss of $89,700,000 is the government's loss, not the current owners.

              Well, the company bought it back from the government for $300k. That doesn't mean customers can buy it for $300k. Based on what other players in the market are charging if this company doesn't go bankrupt first the airship will probably sell for a whole lot more than that.

              • That doesn't mean customers can buy it for $300k.

                It doesn't mean it costs $90M per copy either. Much of the original $90M was likely NRE [wikipedia.org].

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by GTRacer ( 234395 )

              I once paid $6,500 for an excellent car [...]

              Did you? What kind of car is it?

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dave420 ( 699308 )
            That is most certainly not what "remote" means. The places this is proposed to be used are literally remote (as in "far away from"), and helicopters can't lift heavy loads for hours (or days), as this thing can. You seem to have misunderstood the word "remote", conjured up your own definition, then used that definition to bash the idea. I hope you realise how absurd that is :)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            This might be interesting for use in the Andes and Himalayas, where much of the terrain is too high for helicopters to operate reliably and too rough for long airstrips.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by rioki ( 1328185 )

          *cought* Cargo Lifter [wikipedia.org] *cought*

        • Except when its landing, or taking off, or being loaded, or being unloaded, or serviced by humans ... or when it catches fire and falls from the sky in a massive fireball.

      • Re:Hindenburg? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @02:46AM (#49384345) Journal

        The fear at hydrogen airships was well founded, the Hindenburg wasn't even the worst airship disaster, that only killed 36, the worst disaster was the R101 which killed 48.

        I think this statement is taking things very far out of context: in the context of modern or even vaguely recent air travel, that was not a good thing. In the context of 1936, it was barely a blip. Air travel in 1936 was primitive and dangerous: the classic planes like the DC3 were just introduced contemporarily with the Hindenburg. What was common at the time was things like th Ford Trimotor. Long range planes had many engines partly because the engines simply lacked the reliability due to pushing the technology so far: it was routine to lose one engine in a long flight and mechanical problems frequently caused planes to land early. It wasn't long since planes were designed to allow in-flight engine maintainance.

        Additionally, crack porpagation and metal fatigue were very poorly understood and as planes transitioned from wood and linen to aluminium in the 30s, this was the cause of some parts flat-out falling off in flight (things like wings).

        The main problem with the hindenburg was that it was large and grand and a film crew witnessed it's demise.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Zeussy ( 868062 )
          The Airship era, had some pretty crazy stuff. Engineers in each engine nacelle with a normal sea-ship style Full Ahead, Ahead Standard, Full Reverse etc indicator for what Captain wanted from the Engines. There was also the late WWI German Riesenflugzeug [wikipedia.org] large biplane bombers which either had the engines inside the fuselage with gearboxes and driveshafts transferring power to the propellers out on the wings, or large nacelles to accommodate the engineers. In some desperate attempt to get reliability out of

          • And, frankly that was an improvement: some even earlier aircraft had the engineer wing-walking to get to the engine. I can't remember which ones off hand, and my google-fu is weak today.

      • it was a big thing half a century ago. Now, much of the general public probably doesn't know what "Hindenburg" is

        Don't worry, most of /. readers were in college when the Hindenburg caught fire.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rossdee ( 243626 )

        Funnily enough, the Hindenburg was designed to be filled with Helium. However theworld supply of He at that time was monopolized by the USA, who didn't trust the Nazis to only use airships for peaceful purposes, so denied them thte gas. So the Zeppelin company had to use hydrogen.

        "the worst disaster was the R101 which killed 48"

        But it didnt happen live on radio, or with the cameras rolling , thats why people remember the Hindenburg.

        " Airships were not only vulnerable to explosion, they were unstable in high

        • Hate to break it to you but the US is still the only nation to ever spend the money to build a facility to collect helium and remains the only source of helium. It would be nice if someone else did so as well but good luck getting anyone to care.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            Just start a fusion power plant! It should produce plenty of helium! Fusion power is only 20 years away . . .

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjgday ( 173139 )

        Hydrogen is less explosive than petrol.

        Hidenburg era airships didn't have plastics to make the gasbags from, modern Hydrogen airships could be safer than petrol powered road vehicles which crash and burn regularly.

        The difficulty with all large, lighter than air craft is ground handling. You have a massive, bouyant structure and a small breath of air results in a huge amount of momentum which can all too easily result in the airship hitting things and damaging itself or them.

        The solution is to never come bel

        • My god, Photobucket sucks ass. They now automatically try to sell prints of every single picture on there, even if they have to crop off the interesting parts of the picture. Just look at the ones at the bottom of that page.
      • Hydrogen not the issue with the Hindenburg, flammable metallic paint that burned like solid rocket fuel was. Hydrogen is superior lifting gas with twice the lift, should be used instead in a proper compartmentalized balloon system
      • And yet airline accidents have been and are far worse. Probably the up to 100 tons of volatile jet fuel on board.

      • Hydrogen is a safe lifting gas for airships. “Odorless, Colorless, Blameless” by NASA employee Richard Van Treuren (Air and Space/Smithsonian magazine, April/May 1997) provides a great explanation. Here's a summary: http://www.green-energy-news.c... [green-energy-news.com]

    • 747s cruise at several hundred knots, around 250 IIRC.

      Off by a factor of two. The cruising speed is almost 500 knots.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      it only goes 80 knots. You can do 80 knots easily in an economy car.

      Yes, but would you want to? For short trips, yes. For longer trips, not necessarily. I would rather spend a comfortable night sleeping on an airship than having to stay up focused and driving all night to get to the same place at the same time.

      Speed is not everything, even when it comes to getting from A to B. And if getting from A to B is not the only goal of traveling, speed matters even less. That's why people go on cruises.

    • unless you use it with hydrogen and a nuclear bomb, then it burns (fuses) real good. like this one I happen to have here....
      afd0awre
      a0as8ufaspd[q43wk
      adi

      \-- modem disconnected

    • 80 knots uninterrupted across an ocean is pretty attractive.

      Especially for cargo slightly less valuable than most air freight, and much less volume than a boat can justify.

  • As long as it's not windy (Score:4, Informative)

    by GrahamCox ( 741991 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @12:35AM (#49384051) Homepage
    Most people seem to focus on the safety of airships, in the light of the Hindenburg, R101, etc. Surely a more significant problem is the wind? Any amount of wind is going to make landing and takeoff hazardous, and making much headway against a strong headwind is going to take a lot of power with that much windage. Good luck to them, maybe there are enough fair-weather opportunities to make it pay, but this aspect is seemingly never discussed.

    • I would think that most significant problem would be finding a place to put it.

      • Why? Far more realestate is required to land an aircraft than to dock an airship.

        • But far more space is required to store and/or service an airship.

          • Yes but there's no problem with finding a place to do that. You don't need to do that anywhere near a tight residential area, and there are far FAR larger buildings in the world than one that would need to fit a few of these airships for maintenance.

            Heck I'd wager that one of these would fit in most aircraft maintenance hangers already given how oversized those typically are.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by michelcolman ( 1208008 )

      and making much headway against a strong headwind is going to take a lot of power with that much windage.

      Just to clarify a common misconception about wind and "windage": many people seem to think that wind affects airplanes the same way as cars, needing more power to keep moving in a headwind. That is not the case. Airplanes fly in the air, they don't care about the ground. If that air happens to be moving, they move along with it. It's an extra speed vector to be added to airspeed, nothing more. Like walking on a conveyor belt, you don't get more or less tired (per minute) when walking at the same pace, but y

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Livius ( 318358 )

        Changing gusts of wind

        I.e. all winds in the real world.

      • Just to clarify a common misconception about wind and "windage": many people seem to think that wind affects airplanes the same way as cars, needing more power to keep moving in a headwind. That is not the case

        True, but misleading - while they don't need more power to maintain speed relative to the airflow, they do need more power to maintain speed over ground. (To "make headway" as the sentence you quoted states.) Airships (and the occasional small HTA craft) have been observed making negative speed over

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          they do need more power to maintain speed over ground.

          Not exactly true. There is an optimum airspeed and power setting for any aircraft (and weight). Pushing it harder to go faster tends to be inefficient. What one needs when flying into a headwind (lower ground speed) is more time and fuel.

          • *sigh* Do pay the fuck attention.

            The statement wasn't about efficiency, it was about the ability to maintain speed over ground. Aircraft (and airships) do need more power to maintain a given speed over ground in the face of a headwind, period. All this bull about efficiency and relative airspeed is just pedantic nitpicking that fails to make you look intelligent.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by PPH ( 736903 )

              relative airspeed is just pedantic nitpicking

              Well, that's how pilots fly. You've just failed ground school. Along with those guys who didn't care to learn how to land.

      • The only reason why airplanes often use more power in a headwind, is because the pilot may elect to fly faster to (partially) compensate for the wind. An 80 kt airship in a 40 kt headwind will only have a ground speed of 40 kt, so the pilots may well choose to increase power to get a higher ground speed.

        The other reason why airplanes use more power in a headwind is that the pilot still wants to get from point A to point B, which are fixed relative to the ground. If he has a headwind, it means he needs to co

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        A 40 kt headwind is 50% of the speed of an 80 kt airship, but only 10% of the speed of a 400 kt airliner. That's the difference between taking twice as long to arrive at your destination, or only an extra 1/10th of the time.

      • Point is though, that an airship (or any aircraft) is only actually useful if it makes some progress OVER THE GROUND. So sure, it doesn't need more power to maintain a particular airspeed, put it does to actually get somewhere in a headwind. And with that huge frontal area, that's a lot of drag to overcome.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsotha ( 720379 )

      When I rode the Zeppelin NT they told us it can safely fly under the same condition helicopters are safe, though they did say they wouldn't carry passengers once the winds started to get gusty since it tends to make people sick.

      • comparing something to one of the most dangerous modes of transportation (1+ fatality in 100k hours of flight is dismal compared even to cars that are thought dangerous) is in generally not a good thing.
        Hey, guys, don't worry, we don't crash more often than Windows ME!

    • They say it is larger than the 747, but the comparison is meaningless, since they should be comparing the cabin of the airship to an airplane - otherwise we might as well add the length of the jet fumes to the length of a plane. In fact, the lift capacity of the huge airship is quite disappointing, it can only carry 10 tons of cargo. For comparison a 747-8 can carry over 150 tons...
      I like the idea of airships in general, but I can't say they would be a game changer, weather, lift capacity, speed, cost, all

  • Hindenberg was full of flammable hydrogen. Helium is not flammable. No crewed or uncrewed airship in service today uses hydrogen for buoyancy - FAA regulations prohibit it.

    884283: a 747-400 cruises at just shy of Mach 1 (actually 0.855, or 920km/h/570mph) at 35,000 feet (10700m). LTOL (Laden Takeoff/Landing) speed is 250kt. That's shy of 290mph. 80kt=92mph. Not legal anywhere really apart from the German Autobahn and certified race tracks (most places in the US are limited to 55mph and the UK has a (laughab

    • In practice blimps would be usefull if they could be run using hydrogen.
      Helium is a limited and expensive ressource, hydrogen is comparativelly "free"...

      And I suspect that the issues with static electricity, heat, etc... are much better understood today than 80..90 years ago.

      The weather forecasts are also much more accurate and the risk of loosing a blimp to the wind are way lower than in the 30s...

      The advantage of blimps is that they do not need as much infrastructure as planes, and if you compare the saf

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsotha ( 720379 )
        In practice airships are quite practical using helium. It's not that expensive, and you don't consume it as part of normal operations. A modern design will only vent lifting gas in an extreme emergency.

        • Actualy He2 is a very small molecule and like H2, it tends to difuse through most practical materials; so it is consumed as a part of normal operations.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tsotha ( 720379 )

            But only in small quantities. Not enough to affect the bottom line. In the early airships they would simply vent hydrogen if they needed lower buoyancy, so they took on hydrogen along with fuel and ballast when arriving at the destination. You don't need to do that with helium. Or rather, you don't design a helium airship such that it's necessary.

            The biggest drawback to helium is it gets contaminated by other molecules moving the other direction. Not really sure why that happens. Anyway, that's why

    • 1) Helium leak
      2) (Fast) Descent
      3) Landing / crash

    • Most freeways (autobahn equivalent) in the US have a speed limit of 65 or 70 mph. 55 only happens in large urban areas and on the two lane highways.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dave420 ( 699308 )
        They're equivalent in as much as they're the fastest roads, but when you start to compare engineering, "equivalent" is one hell of an insult to the Autobahn :)
    • Most places in the US are limited to 55MPH? Um... Nope. Almost all States in the United States have maximum speed limits on Interstates (presumably we are talking about highways and not rural two-lanes) of 65MPH or greater. Have for many years. And the limits are gradually increasing to 70MPH in a increasing number of states, with some going even higher. Some states even allow greater than 55MPH on rural two lane roads! Your information is several decades out of date. Check: http://www.motorists.org/speed [motorists.org]

    • most places in the US are limited to 55mph

      Maybe in the Northeast, but not generally true across the country, and especially not so out West, where 75 is normal on freeways. In Texas, the speed limit tends to be 70 even on two-lane roads.

  • They say the Airlander 10 is capable of surviving a missile strike, but visions of the Hindenburg still loom large in our cultural memory.

    It is the spector of traveling in an aircraft at 80mph that I am concerned with. If I am going to get off the ground in an aircraft I will be going a considerable distance. Eighty miles an hour is much too slow to be efficient.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dave420 ( 699308 )
      Seeing it's more for cargo, unless you are posting yourself somewhere, you need not worry.

    • 80kn is about 92mph or 148km/h, so it would be more in line with fast trains in the US; and not constrained by tracks.

    • They say the Airlander 10 is capable of surviving a missile strike, but visions of the Hindenburg still loom large in our cultural memory.

      It is the spector of traveling in an aircraft at 80mph that I am concerned with. If I am going to get off the ground in an aircraft I will be going a considerable distance. Eighty miles an hour is much too slow to be efficient.

      It would be fine as an alternative to driving though. I know Americans are more used to long car journeys, but here in the UK, a long drive from (say) London to Edinburgh, which is about 400 miles, would take 5 hours in this airship, plus you could have a drink, stroll around looking at the views, read a book, etc. Driving would be at least 8 and probably more like 10 hours assuming some toilet/coffee breaks and you'd be tired and fed up by the end of it.

      I know you could do it by train, but that is less

      • I know you could do it by train, but that is less fun and probably more expensive.

        Or you could take an aircraft and be there in under an hour.

        Any remark about price difference is just guessing as there have been no prices set for travel by the airship.

  • How many passengers can it carry? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Flytrap ( 939609 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @02:30AM (#49384317)

    I am really excited about the possibility of a week long cruise over Europe or a 5 day low altitude cruise across an African savanna or game park aboard a cruise liner such as the Airlander. However, when reading articles about the Airliner, it is always about the technical gobbledegook that engineers and airship geeks get off on... never does it cover the things that matter to the potential investor or future passenger.

    At some point there was a view that future airships would be able to gently cruise the skies for days on end much like ocean liners of yesteryear. Future airships were said to be able to carry and support 200-300 passengers and crew over a few days or up to 1000 passengers and crew on a single transatlantic voyage. These were the promises (or dreams) being made a few years ago.

    Now, with the Airlander, we have an opportunity to evaluate those promises and see how close to the dream of luxury airship liners, reminiscent of old school luxury ocean liners, we can get. And suddenly everyone appears to be silent about those prospects... nothing to fire up the imagination of a dreamy eyed 12 year old except for the fact that the Airlander's "unusual shape emulates a wing, giving it lift as it is propelled forward by its four engines, as well as from the 38,000m3 of helium that fills its hull."

    Yawn!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      If an ocean liner is the Waldorf-Astoria, a think an airship would end up being more Holiday Inn express. From what I've read, the Hindenburg was pretty spartan in terms of accommodations, especially in comparison to the liners of its era.

      The Hindenburg was a lot bigger than the Airlander and carried a maximum of 72 passengers. It's hard to see the smaller Airlander carrying more than 30 passengers, maybe less depending on the level of amenities and size of berths. Carrying 2-300 passengers would seem li

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dave420 ( 699308 )
        We have much lighter materials now than we did in 1937, so you'd need to put in a bit more work before condemning this thing :)
      • In Friedrichshafen, Germany at the Zeppelin museum they have a full scale replica of a section Hindenburg passenger, and they are very plain and small. Bunk beds, metal frames, a small sink.
        However the plan was you would only sleep there and spend the rest of the time in the lounges, bars and dining rooms which were very nice and based on the reproduced lounge comfortable and roomy.

    • However, when reading articles about the Airliner, it is always about the technical gobbledegook that engineers and airship geeks get off on... never does it cover the things that matter to the potential investor

      If the potential investor isn't interested in the technical gobbledegook, he probably shouldn't be investing. Or at least he shouldn't be at this point, when the technology is still unproven and the hardware still in the prototype stage.

      On top of the irony that on a site for "news for nerds" a comm

  • The PDF on their site says that this will be able to lift up to 10.000kg. This doenst seem too impressive, considering that your run-of-the-mill CH-47 Chinook helicopter can lift up to 12.000kg.

  • April fools (Score:4, Funny)

    by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @03:25AM (#49384443)

    Why would it come out on April 1, and why would you compare it to a 747-400, not even the largest 747?
    The An-225 is 84m long.

    Bruce Dickinson has also done several April fools pranks before.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bcmm ( 768152 )

      Bruce Dickinson has also done several April fools pranks before.

      Bruce Dickinson also really, really likes aviation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by asylumx ( 881307 )
      FYI The article is dated Tuesday 31 March 2015 03.40 EDT
  • Why is the speed measured in knots? Do they throw ropes off the side of airplanes to measure how fast they're flying? I'm not in that business so I genuinely don't know. I just figured km/h, or mph if absolutely necessary, would paint a clearer picture. I mean if I ask Google what 80 knots is, he says its 148.16km/h. I can work with that number. I can relate to that number. But who measures things in knots? And why?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      A knot is a nautical mile per hour. A nautical mile is... "approximately one minute of arc measured along any meridian"*. IOW, it's used in the marine and aviation worlds (including weather) because it makes notepad speed and navigation calculations easier.

      * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_mile

  • That much of helium alone could be worth more than $300,000. We still have the strategic helium reserve, pay companies to make, (not make, it can't be made) to collect helium, store it in some abandoned mines, and get that supply of helium may be for free for the defense department, fill it up in a balloon, abandon the project, sell it to private companies at some ridiculous throw away prices.

    People have been looting our US government from the day it was founded. George Washington spent post presidential l

  • This is pretty elaborate for an April Fool's joke, having previously planted all that stuff all over the net.

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