Zeppelins are Back, Too
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06. 6.08
Sami noted that turboprops were back; It took a while, but Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin left an endowment to ensure that his eponymous airship rose again too. Sean Dodson of The Guardian is full of bad puns as he writes: "it's hard to keep an idea as audacious as the airship down. With the cost of oil at record highs, and airline chiefs warning of the end of cheap flights, the idea of the airship is being seriously floated once more."
The 12 passenger prototype is on its way to London, and then crossing the ocean and America to San Francisco. The Guardian concludes:
The rising price of oil may one day make them affordable. For a short-haul journeys, they could easily compete with the likes of ferries and trains, but the return to long-haul remains something of a dream. And yet who would have thought, a decade ago, that passenger airships would ever fly at all? ::Guardian
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They will be great for heavy lifting.
Great to see them around.
vsk
"The rising price of oil may one day make them affordable"
Except maybe for the slight problem of helium shortage...
They're probably using hydrogen, I would.
I still think hydrogen has real potential as a lift gas. It's cheaper, more buoyant, can be produced in situ through electrolysis, and can be burned either in ICE's or in a fuel cell for propulsion. And I'm still not convinced that it's truly dangerous.
After all, 2/3 of the people aboard the Hindenburg survived (how often does that happen when a jet crashes?), and both materials chemistry and safety procedures are infinitely better today than 70 years ago. I mean, zeppelins used to release hydrogen into the ambient air in order to reduce their buoyancy and making mooring easier - what were they thinking?
Yeah, hydrogen could at least be used in cargo lifting airships.
I see it this way: if we get a fusion reactor online, we'll have more than enough helium. Dirigibles for everybody!
how about a zeppelin with thin-film solar? That would even save weight, because no fuel would be necessary.
Anyone see the history channel program on the real cause of the Hindenburg crash? They used to coat skin of the zeppelin with powdered magnesium paint to reflect sunlight. If the zeppelin gained too much heat the hydrogen would expand, they would have to release some of the gas and then when the zeppelin cooled at night the gas would contract and the zeppelin would be under inflated. The reflective paint reduced solar heat gain but as anyone who's taken a science class knows, magnesium powder is extremely flammable. They said that if it were just a pure hydrogen fire the gas would have escaped straight up and the rest of the zeppelin would have been undamaged. The rolling fire on the skin indicates that the paint and canvas caught fire before the bags were punctured.
I've been reading about the immanent return of airships since the late 70's. It seemed every other year Popular Mechanics or Popular Science would do an expose on them. I love airships but I'm not going to hold my breath in hopes of seeing them in large numbers anytime soon.
And if they do make a comeback, they'll have to use Hydrogen. There simply won't be enough helium available.
I doubt it.
The other commentators by and large get it. Still it would be good to see more donning of thinking caps.
Imagine, if you will, when produce is harvested, it then is picked up and flown from field to market?
Propulsion is electric drive from the solar envelope, sure, and how about hydrogen from the inner envelope going to the PEM fuel cell?
What about advertising on the outer envelope floating above are pristine beaches?
What about swarm intelligence convoys?
The Aeroscraft ML866 just got FAA certification, you'll see them out soon. Home page -
http://www.aerosml.com/ml866/
This is better than a dirigible.
Has anybody ever done a hybrid sort of buoyant airplane?
Sure it would have to be huge, but if they didn't have to spend so much fuel on lifting all of the vehicle weight off the ground, then I think they could build pretty efficient vehicles that could still be zippy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargolifter
I wont trust in them with global warming around, I think they might be very dangerous with the climate change appening right now
12 passenger?
I don't think the airlines have any thing to worry about. This is going to compete with the Goodyear Blimp.
One potential use is replacing helicopters for news crews and police highway patrol.
An all passenger air-ferry in the pacific northwest would be great!
Maybe it would have been a good idea to check your own copy for bad puns before poking fun at others. "Rose again" indeed. I hope that the picture you've used isn't stolen from The Guardian or maybe that's just Treehugger's idea of recycling.
the debate on the future of LTA's (lighter than air) is rosy as the us govt has agreed a study due to the fact that they could move approx 1-2 million pounds of equipment at 150KPH. therefore no-one puts money in unless they are confident