The rebirth of the Airship?

[Guest]

Easy enough…

Heavier than air aircraft use a butt-load of fuel.  And fuel is NOT cheap.  Rigid frame airships (dirigibles) use NO fuel to stay aloft, and only minimal fuel for forward movement.

With today’s high strength lightweight materials, and with Helium being so common and cheap it is a disposable child’s toy, can the airlines be saved by creating fleets of hyper fuel efficient luxury airships to replace the faster but more fuel demanding wide body jets?

[Imperious Leader]

They are too large as a ratio of their utility on the basis of weight that they carry vs. cost.

Bringing back the Hindenburg would be cool, but slow ineffectual travel unless its for rich people with light luggage.

The hangars that are required to house a 800 foot banana would make the thing nothing but an excuse for beer logos on the side for advertisements. Nobody needs that.

Besides the novelty would attract morons with ideas about bombs and blowing up stuff for other causes. Nobody needs that.

[Guest]

I am not sure that cost would be a factor.  A modern jet is terribly expensive to build, and fuel and maintenance are incredibly high.

Advertisement to offset costs… Capitalism at its best.

As for bombs…  Helium not Hydrogen, so no greater risk (probably less risk with good design) of a fatal mid-air bombing in an airship as with a jet.  Add composites and modern lightweight materials, and the number of passengers becomes profitable.

As for cost per pound of cargo… the longer the flight, the more cost effective a lighter than air transport than jet transport; since the dirigible requires no fuel to remain aloft, unlike a jet.

[Imperious Leader]

the longer the flight, the more cost effective a lighter than air transport than jet transport; since the dirigible requires no fuel to remain aloft, unlike a jet.

who is gonna wait 3 weeks to cross the Atlantic at 60 knots, when a jet can cross in a few hours. A jet is about 100 times faster and a jet can carry alot more weight (hence cargo) with a smaller size and 100 times faster delivery. How can anybody make money on transporting good this way?

As i said before its just a luxury for the rich, because they will be paying for a hangar thats huge and all sorts of people needed to moor the dirigible. When its windy its also gonna be a problem. A jumbo jet has little problems.

It does not use as much fuel because its going so slowly its more economical but offset by the huge size and housing issues and personal. I think a plane would have less people to pay because the jet is flying in a few hours, while the banana needs people day and night serving lobster while people stare out the window.

[Guest]

It would indeed be a luxury mode of transport, or for high value bulky cargo.

As for travel time, it is about 3 days trans Atlantic based on Hindenburg technology.  I strongly suspect that with modern improvements, it would be a 2-day trip to Europe, and about 30 hours East coast to West coast, which would put it on par with high speed rail.

[balungaloaf]

its a good idea, but i dont think people will fly in them.  the airlines could put a hindenburg campaign out easily.  but then again, maybe people will fly in them.  i had to vote no, b/c i still dont think many people would, but it makes sense to go cheaper, but longer.

maybe there will be two methods, and this will allow the super poor to travel long distances.

[11HP20]

In the fifties the US Navy used blimps in the anti submarine roll. We had squadrons on both coasts one of which was stationed in Lakehurst NJ (thank you Discovery Channel). After losing numerous ships and crews during bad weather the idea went the way of the dinosaur. The routes of any modern lighter than air ships would have to be constantly monitored and adjusted. If I had the money I would love to cross the ocean in one. I just don’t seee them making a comeback. I do give you credit for thinking outside the box balungaloaf. If more people did that we could solve all kinds of problems.

[frimmel]

I think the biggest issue for passenger travel would be speed. 53mph is not very fast. But with some investment in the tech?

However as far as cargo goes unless it is perishable it could certainly be a viable option. The real issue is probably the ratio of cost of operation per pound per mile. (The correct measure seems to be called ton-miles.)

Seventeen crewman for the blimp.

I can’t seem to come up with the comparable number for a A380 or 747.

[frimmel]

Here is an interesting discussion on aircraft operating costs.

[Imperious Leader]

Dude thats the Goodyear blimp…about 200 feet long banana and not a real Airship which is like 800 feet long and must have more than 17 people working it.

That thing is an excuse to sell tires at football games. It cant fly across the Atlantic unless its a Kamikaze mission on Paris.

http://www.aerosml.com/gallery.htm

most likely the type of thing that carries 300+ people and gets to travel to Europe in 18 hours is gonna be real big to carry all that and most likely a nice big target to blow up by some people. Once that happens the thing goes back in the box like the Hindenburg episode.

[Imperious Leader]

Courtesy of goodyear tires:

The Hindenburg was the largest, and it was 804 feet long, more than four times the length of the larger Goodyear GZ-20. Its gas volume was over six million cubic feet, and it had 242 tons of gross lift, enough to carry itself plus seventy passengers, a crew of sixty, diesel fuel for a transatlantic flight, luggage, some cargo and mail, and twenty tons of water ballast that could be dropped in the event of an emergency descent. It was faster, too, cruising at about eighty miles per hour.

not much has changed in terms of size needed to lift ratio. The American ones used Helium and faired worse than the Germans zepps.

[Smacktard]

Too slow, holds too few people. A drastic decrease in speed means an increase in food, water, entertainment items (people aren’t going to simply sit in a seat twiddling their thumbs for 30+hours), and bigger holding tanks for storing more waste. All of those mean increased weight and less space. They’ll never be as efficient as a jet carrying hundreds of people 300+MPH.

[losttribe04]

Helium may be cheaper but ratio wise it would have to be b/c Hydrogen is ligher so you would need more Helium.

I think our best bet would be an electic-magnetic rail system in the US.

LT

[Imperious Leader]

electric-magnetic rail system in the US.

Im with you on that. need to tie the USA together from east to west with at least one running from California to say Boston

laid on a diagonal with a few shorter runs to Florida and Chicago.

[losttribe04]

I would have liked the old Route 66 path.  LA to NY with a stop in Chicago.

LT

[Amon-Sul]

@ncscswitch:

Easy enough…

Heavier than air aircraft

do you refer to zeppelins or

what precisely enters into ˝heavier than aircraft˝domein

[Guest]

Heavier than air aircraft require air to be moved over an airfoil to create lift, either by a rotating airfoil like a helicopter or by forward motion moving air over an air foil as in the case of fixed and variable wing aircraft.  The motion of air over the airfoil creates the lift.

Lighter than air aircraft displace enough air with a lighter than air gas to create buoyancy in the same manner as a ship floats on water.  The most common methods of creating that lighter than air are:
Heated air (which is less dense than regular air) as in a hot air balloon
Filled with light weight gases such as Hydrogen (in the case of the Hindenburg) or Helium (as in the case of the Goodyear Blimp)

[Guest]

I suspect that you could duplicate the Hindenburg and fill it with helium for less than the cost of a new 747 or Airbus.  I do not think that it is a matter of if, only when.  The biggest headaches/roadblocks are FAA certification and ground facilities.  The FAA is now one of the biggest obstacles to real change in the aviation area because of its certification process.  I tried to get the AN-2 biplane transport certified in the early 1990s, but the cost of $2 million minimum was more than I could raise.  Also, the major group interested in financing the project wanted the Polish government to privatize the factory, and that simply was not going to happen.  Project went on back burner in consequence.

[ABWorsham4]

If movie and pop stars and political leaders endorsed the airship then certain people would use airships. Otherwise our fast pace society will not accept such travel.

Most people’s thoughts of airships consist of the Hindenburg burning and the beer commercial series Bud Bowl.

I would love if ships and airships became the mode of travel again.

[Guest]

I greatly enjoy cruise ships as a mode of travel, and given the level of comfort you could supply on an airship, I would love that as well.