Lighter than air aircraft

[BrendAn]

A rear view of the new airlander 10

[onetrack]

So that's why ARS Technica has done an article on it! 

 

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/04/airlander-10-worlds-largest-aircraft-slowly-drifts-towards-commercial-use/

[pmccarthy]

Looks Kardashian to me.

[kgwilson]

It is not called the "Flying Bum" for nothing.

[facthunter]

This type of vehicle has been flying in the NE of Switzerland  (maybe rigid framed) for ages. They will always have the problems they had a century ago. but helium is safer But less buoyant. How do you MOOR in strong winds? and they are slow. and can't lift much.    Nev

[kasper]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

This type of vehicle has been flying in the NE of Switzerland  (maybe rigid framed) for ages. They will always have the problems they had a century ago. but helium is safer But less buoyant. How do you MOOR in strong winds? and they are slow. and can't lift much.    Nev

Well helium is MORE buoyant than hydrogen …

 

the issues for passenger use are more along the lines of passenger expectations - 460mph in a jet 80-100mph in a buoyant = 100+ hrs Sydney to London.  But environmentally probably better. 
 

for cargo lift/transport there are obvious specialist uses eg agro forestry in remote areas but again for long haul it’s up against speed in jets and low cost in shipping.  Again the shipping would be environmentally better in buoyant but scale to replace is enormous 

[facthunter]

Sorry Kasper it's NOT. Hydrogen is the  basic  molecule of the universe and Helium is twice as dense but NOT flammable.  Nev

[onetrack]

Hydrogen provides approximately 8% more lift than helium does. Sorry Kasper, Nev has it right.

[kasper]

My error.  Clear I did law and finance and not physics and chemistry eh?

[spacesailor]

SO !, a mix of the two could give us less flamibility & only a little loss of buoyancy .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Never heard of that being done. Helium is expensive and a bit rare. Nev

[RossK]

13 hours ago, spacesailor said:

SO !, a mix of the two could give us less flamibility & only a little loss of buoyancy .

spacesailor

Is a little less flamability like being a little bit pregnant?

[BrendAn]

That one looks like it uses methane😁

[Markdun]

So no progress on ‘no molecules’, just a vacuum? ....far less dense than H2 gas & not flammable.  Easy to adjust buoyancy by pumping stronger vacuum to go up and letting atmos gases in to go down. Issue is finding open cell rigid foam that is of sufficiently low density and compressive strength to withstand vacuum, or alternatively a carbon fibre egg-shell type structure.

[facthunter]

Only have to withstand one Bar. 14.7 lbs/sq in. At least you can vary the Buoyancy. Nev

[kgwilson]

On a nice Summers day cruising along in an airship in a plush restaurant observing the world below from a thousand feet or so as it slowly passes by is something I'd like to do. The problem is that the cost would most likely be beyond mere enthusiasts like me. It would bring the romance back in to (slow) air travel.

 

I suspect though that specialist freight carrying large irregular shaped things will be its main role. The current design can stay aloft for 5 days with a 10 ton payload with a 4000 NM range and maximum altitude of 20,000 feet. The next design is pretty ambitious with a 50 ton payload. It will carry 200 passengers or 6 x 20 foot containers & 48 passengers over 2200 km. It is very environmentally friendly & needs minimal infrastructure, will be fully amphibious able to land/take off from land, water, snow, ice etc. How it deals with strong winds and bad weather will be the biggest challenge. 

[spacesailor]

BAD WEATHER !

Throw out a alloy ' storm anchor ' .

with tail feathers it will stay nose down anchored to Terra firma .

The old dirigibles couldn,t do that as any static would & did start an uncontrollable fire .

new synthetic cables , Should be an insulator between the anchor & airship .

spacesailor

 

[planedriver]

I once got a ride in a Goodyear blimp at Biggin Hill, from memory it seemed the rush hour traffic on Parramatta Road would have moved a lot faster.. However it was a freebie, so I wouldn't complain as it was worth the experience..

[Markdun]

CASA probably wouldn’t allow freight. I tried to hire one of the firefighting helicopters to lift an 11m x 6m, 3.5 tonne sailing catamaran from my front yard in Canberra to Batemans Bay.  Cheaper and potentially less hassle than a wide load permit with police escort etc.  Guys operating the helio said it would be easy except for the requirement that any and every public road we flew over had to be closed to prevent the risk of the load falling on a car.  So it was the wide load permit with 3 escort vehicles, plus two police escort vehicles, 100 pages detailing traffic management plans for every intersection and breakdown pullovers every 20km etc etc rtc etc and 5 months for a bureaucrat to approve. The actual move took 6 hours (yard to floating boat); & police not interested in the approved 100 page plan (fuck that, we will just do it this way, ie drive down on the wrong side of the King’s Hwy with our lights flashing and try to keep up with us).  A dirigible would have been far better.

[Old Koreelah]

Mark that yacht lift job should have been one of those times when you just do it, and ask for forgiveness afterwards!

[Old Koreelah]

On 25/1/2023 at 9:28 PM, kgwilson said:

On a nice Summers day cruising along in an airship in a plush restaurant observing the world below from a thousand feet or so as it slowly passes by is something I'd like to do...

Very like balooning: a silent, windless flight experience that isn’t beyond most budgets.

On 25/1/2023 at 9:28 PM, kgwilson said:

I suspect though that specialist freight carrying large irregular shaped things will be its main role…

Like wind turbine blades? I suspect the size of them (like the Space Shuttle’s solid boosters) is limited by the land transport they must travel on. 

[red750]

Ballooning has become notorious in Victoria. A number of balloons making emergency landings on beaches, almost on freeways lately.

[Markdun]

The guys operating the big Helios had the call.  They were wanting to generate more income in off-fire season ‘downtime’. In their view it was a rule intentionally made to prevent Helios competing with existing fixed wing and road transport freight haulers. There is an insurance issue as well.... if anything goes wrong with a helio lift the first item on the checklist is ‘release the cargo’.

[facthunter]

The Authorities( Ie CASA) go ballistic about anything dropping from aircraft in flight. (and also the aircraft dropping).  Nev

[kgwilson]

They spoiled all the fun with bombing & ribbon cutting. We were still dropping wooden bombs in club competitions & played aerial golf at Hamilton Airport across the ditch in the late 90s. Don't know if that is still allowed. The joke was that the best place to stand as a scorer was on the target as no-one ever hit it.