[HN Gopher] World's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley
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World's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 129 points
Date : 2023-11-09 16:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| zactato wrote:
| I wish I could take a flight on it. Seems fun.
| kristianp wrote:
| 10 years of development! Whats going on there?
| creshal wrote:
| Trying to cheat the laws of physics so it sucks less than all
| the other failed attempts at making blimps more than a niche
| product.
|
| Nothing in the announcements indicate any degree of success, so
| I'll suspect it'll be quietly shuffled off to the few markets
| where blimps are already successful in.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Sergey Brin's hobby projects don't have deadlines or business
| plans.
| outworlder wrote:
| 10 years is also known as "started yesterday" when it comes to
| aircraft projects.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Very cool!
|
| Setting the helium supply aside, this is actually something that
| scales up well, right? The blimp's lift scales cubicly with size,
| but its cross section and surface area (drag and materials
| weight) only scale quadratically.
|
| Also, I remember someone trying to shape a blimp like a lifting
| body, so it gets a some extra lift from forward motion.
| creshal wrote:
| Helium supply was never really an issue. All the media hit
| pieces were essentially triggered by the Pentagon stopping to
| run a price-fixing cartel to the benefit of US universities,
| who after endless wailing and gnashing of teeth finally
| adjusted to market prices and such desperate last ditch
| measures like "we actually have to recycle our helium now and
| can't just vent it carelessly after every run!!1"
| auspiv wrote:
| You say that but helium is essentially not renewable and is
| not produced naturally at rates anywhere near human
| consumption. Not sure if you're aware but helium currently
| only sourced as a byproduct of natural gas production.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_Unite.
| ..
| creshal wrote:
| Yes, but for better or worse, we have lots of natural gas
| producers, and they'll be in business for a long time. And
| once the selloff of the US's strategic helium reserve is
| done with and prices stabilize, more natural gas producers
| will actually bother to capture their helium.
| lukev wrote:
| _Can_ we set helium supply aside, though?
|
| I really hope we can make airships work, but it seems like the
| volumes of helium required will be prohibitive for wide-scale
| deployment.
|
| Hydrogen works well but remains dangerous... perhaps modern
| tech can make it "safe enough"?
| creshal wrote:
| Realistically, all the other fundamental problems of blimps
| will limit before the helium supply does -- remember that it
| was artificially crippled by the selloff of the US's
| strategic helium reserve; it was sold under market value and
| so all the natural gas producers who _could_ have trapped and
| sold off their helium production just gave up on doing so.
| Supply will stabilize again after the last of the reserve is
| sold off this month.
| zyang wrote:
| Hydrogen fusion creates helium as a byproduct. But I don't
| see why they can't use hydrogen for cargo. We have the tech
| to make it safer than long haul driving.
| wolfram74 wrote:
| This is a pet peeve of mine when people talk about the
| advantages of fusion, if you did all of the US power budget
| with DT fusion that would generate very close to 10 million
| moles of helium, or 4E7 grams of helium, or 2E8 liters at
| stp. This is a big number! but it's 2E5 cubic meters and
| annual US consumption of helium is 40E6 cubic meters, less
| than 1% of consumption.
| notfed wrote:
| I found the last sentence confusing
| wolfram74 wrote:
| If you produced all the USA's electricity in a year with
| fusion and collected all the resulting helium with 100%
| efficiency, you'd have collected less than 1% of the
| amount of helium we go through in that year.
| phs2501 wrote:
| A naive translation (not checking facts in any way):
|
| Converting 100% of power generation in the US to
| (deuterium-tritium) fusion would result in 200,000 cubic
| meters of helium generated per year. But the US currently
| consumes 40,000,000 cubic meters per year.
| ooterness wrote:
| Simplified: If you magically switched every power plant
| in the USA to fusion, they would make about 200,000 cubic
| meters of helium per year.
|
| But the USA currently consumes 40,000,000 cubic meters of
| helium per year.
| bombcar wrote:
| Hydrogen is "safe enough" if we want to use it, compared to
| gasoline and other routine hazards.
|
| The Hindenburg provided a recognizable meme but even with
| that, there were things that could have been done differently
| (with technology of the time) to make even those disasters
| more survivable.
|
| With modern materials, it could be quite safe, indeed.
| messe wrote:
| > The Hindenburg provided a recognizable meme but even with
| that, there were things that could have been done
| differently (with technology of the time) to make even
| those disasters more survivable.
|
| It's also worth noting that 64% of the crew and passengers
| survived. I'm not sure how that compares to the average
| plane crash, but it was certainly not as severe a disaster
| as it's usually thought of.
| dewey wrote:
| Maybe also worth noting that it was close to the ground,
| which it would not be in normal operation.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I'm not sure how that compares to the average plane
| crash
|
| Average plane crash survival rate is about 95%. I'm
| guessing it's a somewhat bimodal distribution, however.
| Aunche wrote:
| > Hydrogen is "safe enough" if we want to use it, compared
| to gasoline
|
| While I'm inclined to agree with your overall point,
| intuitively, it seems much more dangerous than gasoline.
| Gasoline is very difficult to ignite unless if it's
| vaporized. On the other hand, hydrogen is already a gas so
| it's significantly easier to ignite and more explosive when
| it does.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's easier to light, but it's pretty non-explosive if
| not mixed with air:
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_RKdWYqgu3Y (mixing with
| air _is_ a problem).
|
| The big advantage (and what could be designed for) is
| that hydrogen _goes up_ and so (by default) the flammable
| stuff escapes.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| It only ignites in the presence of oxygen and a source of
| ignition so as long as you keep those things away from
| the hydrogen it should be quite safe. It's a solvable
| engineering problem. Use only materials that cannot burn
| for the gas envelope and structures immediately adjacent
| to it. Locate the engines as far out as possible on
| pylons. Divide the gas envelope as much as possible to
| limit the fuel supply for any fire that does start. The
| major complication is not adding too much weight but
| there's no reason airships couldn't be as safe as
| airplanes.
| fsckboy wrote:
| hopefully the goal of modern technology would be "don't
| catch fire" more than "survive the fireballs!"
| bombcar wrote:
| 1. Don't burn.
|
| 2. If you must burn, do it politely.
| rjmunro wrote:
| I thought that the Hindenburg was more about the materials
| the airship skin was made of than the Hydrogen itself. If the
| skin hadn't caught fire, the hydrogen wouldn't have. Also the
| fuel tanks caught fire, and they could have been better
| protected. Normally the hydrogen can only catch fire if it
| leaks out and there is an ignition source near the leak.
|
| Even if this happens, if the skin is flame retardant, the
| hole probably won't grow very fast. You will lose buoyancy,
| but you'll probably have time to make an emergency soft-ish
| landing. Helium wouldn't really make any difference because
| it can leak out and cause loss of buoyancy just as easily.
| lonelyasacloud wrote:
| re: the lifting body thing, that's Hybrid Air Vehicles'
| Airlander https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ (may also be
| others).
| Yizahi wrote:
| It unfortunately scales up very well, or rather it completely
| doesn't scale down. The problem is while gigantic design seems
| to be good on paper you can't build a demonstrator blimp or a
| small scale model (kinda like airplanes can with
| widebody/narrowbody or shorter/longer fuselages) to break into
| the commercial industry. And they need not only individual
| scale of a single ship but also quantity scale to show that
| they can operate profitable. And even if someone build them,
| then they need to convince people to switch from ships, trucks
| and trains. And places unreachable by those already don't have
| enough production for the gigantic blimp transport.
|
| But it would be awesome if someone goes full Elon Musk on this
| idea and bruteforces the final giant design with a pile of
| money. Blimps are great :)
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| > Also, I remember someone trying to shape a blimp like a
| lifting body, so it gets a some extra lift from forward motion.
|
| They are all shaped like that. Famously, the R101 at the end of
| it's final flight was so overweight (reasons disputed) it
| needed dynamic lift to stay afloat, with eventually disastrous
| consequences when first one engine was down for maintenance and
| then the second was ordered to cut revolutions for unclear
| reasons.
| keepamovin wrote:
| A strange mix of baroque steampunk and iPod-white purity.
|
| A merry Art Deco Tic-Tac sailing obliviously across the sky.
|
| Ochre white on chill blue.
|
| _I love a sunburnt country_
|
| _A land of sweeping plains_
|
| _Of rugged mountain ranges_
|
| _Of blimps from San Jose_
| aaarrm wrote:
| Im guessing the whiteness has something to do with reflecting
| the sun's heat, so as to not heat up the helium inside.
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| So how well does this work when it is windy?
| Retric wrote:
| Square cube law means larger airships have fewer issues with
| the wind. Still not great.
| gberger wrote:
| What would it be used for?
| two_handfuls wrote:
| They say humanitarian, cargo, and passenger.
|
| I suspect the main one is cargo, to fit the "reasonably fast
| but low-cost" market between boats (very slow) and planes
| (expensive). This is presented well in this video:
| https://youtu.be/ZjBgEkbnX2I?feature=shared
| microtherion wrote:
| A dirigible used for humanitarian purposes? They really
| missed an opportunity to name it "Oh, the Humanity!"
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Sky yachts that can be put under a non-profit and marketed as
| humanitarian or "educational" or "research" platforms. I knew
| of a superyacht that was "studying" coral loss. Of course, at
| Fiji. Probably had to give one of the 8 staterooms to some
| academic.
| cp9 wrote:
| man that looks miserable to fly in a crosswind
| recursive wrote:
| Probably handles more like a hot air balloon than a fixed wing
| aircraft.*
|
| * I have zero experience with any of this.
| dmckeon wrote:
| For flight to a destination, it may be possible to use an
| altitude with a more favorable wind direction. For landing, the
| aircraft approaches a mooring mast from downwind.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| "The Ministry for the Future" [0] slowly assembles.
|
| [0] a book about the climate crisis, in which after global eco-
| terrorist attacks on airplane travel, airships make a dramatic
| return as the main way to do inter-continental travel.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Spring powered airships appear in The Windup Girl IIRC.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I have my doubts that we'll soon see genetically modified
| elephants charge those springs.
| zhan_eg wrote:
| Or "The Sky Lords" trilogy [0]
|
| [0] The story is set in the future, after the 'Gene Wars' have
| turned the Earth into a blighted wasteland. The inhabitants of
| Earth live a tribal-like existence and offer tributes to the
| Sky Lords. The Sky Lords live in giant airships and are the
| rulers of the people below.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Silver was so much more appropriate for dirigibles.
|
| It's time to bring back these kinds of jobs:
| https://www.gallerym.com/products/repairing-the-hull-of-the-...
| black_puppydog wrote:
| You mean the silver in the film for the photos? I concur! :)
| fnimick wrote:
| Everything old is new again:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEREON_26
|
| (see also, The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, by John McPhee)
| jpm_sd wrote:
| I'm a big McPhee fan. Critical difference here, the Aereon was
| an aerodynamic lifting body design, this is a bog standard
| dirigible by comparison.
|
| Somehow the Wikipedia page has no photos?? Tons of great ones
| here:
|
| https://lynceans.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Aereon-Corp_...
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| That is my new favorite aircraft profile.
|
| Its a fat, tapered arrow! It so outrageous.
| Magi604 wrote:
| This is technically a dirigible right? Surprised that term wasn't
| used anywhere in the article.
|
| At its current stated speed of 75mph it would take over 45hrs to
| get from New York to London. Not sure how it would fare in the
| winds, but it would probably be a quiet ride.
| touisteur wrote:
| One smooth Hackathon in the cloud(s).
| nroets wrote:
| With the advent of Star Link, those 45 hours will be somewhat
| productive.
| metabagel wrote:
| Starlink isn't the only nor the first satellite internet
| provider.
| stcredzero wrote:
| _> Starlink isn't the only nor the first satellite internet
| provider._
|
| It seems to be doing the best job so far at providing
| reduced latency while scaling coverage fast. From what I've
| seen, everyone else was stuck in a niche mentality, willing
| to milk that niche with high prices. Starlink is the first
| thing to come along aimed at completely solving last mile
| for out of the way locations.
| foobiekr wrote:
| It is for the MuskCult.
| Difwif wrote:
| Did you actually use HughesNet or Viasat? It absolutely
| sucked compared to Starlink on both price and performance.
| I really don't understand why everyone feels the need to
| dunk on Starlink (probably musk related).
|
| It is an order of magnitude improvement.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It is for high speed low latency.
| arbuge wrote:
| The quietness will depend on how well sound-insulated those
| diesel generators are I guess. They'd probably have to be
| running for most of that trip given that battery technology is
| where it is currently.
| bertil wrote:
| I'm assuming that it would be feasible to cover the ship with
| flexible solar pannels and not need generators, but I
| understand that they want to deal with one problem at a time.
| krupan wrote:
| You aren't going to have sunlight for 45 hours straight
| bertil wrote:
| Of course not, but you can have sunlight for 12, reach
| the jetstream, cut the engines unless you are
| maneuvering, store some energy to have enough to operate
| for the next 12 hours, and replenish your batteries for
| 12 more hours while you still don't need it too much.
| Before that is depleted, you should have arrived.
| ianburrell wrote:
| It wouldn't be feasible to cover the ship in solar panels.
| Solar panels, even light flexible ones, weight too much. To
| be able to take off, the dirigible is covered in
| lightweight fabric.
| tbalsam wrote:
| I'm on the spectrum, and I hate loud noises with a burning
| passion (due to the fact that the all of the information
| usually hurts like all get-out), but something ever since being
| a child that has gotten me extremely excited whenever I hear it
| is in the slow, giant-engine-whine "whip whip whip whip whip
| whip whip whip whip" sound of traditional old-school dirigibles
| from movies and such.
|
| I don't even know if the classical dirigibles even make that
| noise. It just gives me dopamine.
|
| I relearned a similar lesson while hiking the Appalachian Trail
| this year, I stayed at a paid campsite by the railroad tracks.
|
| I thought I was going to hate it, but somehow my adult, self-
| believed rational self turned into a gasp-giggling, excitedly-
| breathing, and hand-clapping and jumping up and down experience
| whenever a train came by (and blew its horn at full volume
| because we were right freaking near a train crossing).
|
| Intellectually I don't have the strongest passion for trains,
| but viscerally is something else. It did not matter if it woke
| me at 4-5 in the morning, I would always lift the hammock tarp
| and find myself very excited each time.
|
| My emotions about the issue are roughly about the same as if
| you personally suddenly found your body and brain doing that
| around trains. I'll probably seek trains out more for that
| reason (because it feels...amazing!), and continue working
| through whatever residual shame lies in authentically
| experiencing such a thing as my self with that kind of joy. My
| brain may be autistic, but my soul is not, so some things
| require adjustment. <3 :')))) ;')))) :')))) <3
|
| Still, what a beautiful thing to have such small things to make
| me extremely happy, no matter how unexpected or "strange",
| given the context.
| dhosek wrote:
| There seems to be something somehow wired into (at least
| some) people's brains that makes trains appealing. You don't
| see, e.g., BusFan forums to correlate with the RailFan
| forums. Heck, I can entertain myself for extended stretches
| of time just following the path of railroad tracks on Google
| Maps.
| technothrasher wrote:
| There probably aren't as many bus spotters as train
| spotters out there, but they definitely do exist in more
| than de minimus numbers.
| Steltek wrote:
| I have to imagine that sounds like that from movies are
| entirely fabricated from a sound designer's mind. The best
| you could hope for would be a live sound recording from a
| Goodyear blimp.
|
| In fact, from a quick Youtube check, the Goodyear Blimp
| sounds a lot like any other propeller driven plane on
| takeoff. While LTA's design is electric and hopefully
| quieter, it adds evidence that the desired sound from movies
| is probably fiction.
|
| Edit: clarity
| tbalsam wrote:
| I have a sinking feeling under some further investigation
| that it may be! I am pretty sure that I've heard it in a
| few places, one of which being the Disney movie Up.
|
| I'm not sure how to describe it, it is a sensorially very
| unique and pleasant experience for me hearing it.
|
| Here's one example, starting roughly around 7-8 seconds or
| so: https://youtu.be/ah7I6jr-gKQ?feature=shared
|
| I listened to some older zeppelin/dirigible recordings
| based on your comment and they seem to make a rather nice,
| but also not as-euphoric fan whine. Noooooo, that is quite
| disappointing!
|
| I think there's one game that had an extremely highly
| punctuated, very clockwork-like soundtrack in one of its
| worlds that used the dirigible-whip sound as a base layer
| for one of its themes whenever you were in that part of the
| world. I'll see if I can find it.
|
| Curious that it shows up in a few places, there _has_ to be
| able origin for why people who are designers associate it
| with airships. It likely wouldn't just occur by chance....
| tbalsam wrote:
| Okay, I found the MonkeyBall adventure reference, at
| about 2:17:00 or so (it's so low in the mix usually you
| just here it when falling out, and there's this sorta
| terrible whining noise above it), but I remember it
| sticking out to me for whatever.
|
| Like many things in autism, I have effectively 0 clue
| why: https://youtu.be/rdnITafjFcQ?si=2mCNpD9zne8YjaKq
| jameshart wrote:
| Yes, movie sounds are intended to sound like viewers
| expect, not how they actually sound. See _Airplane!_ where
| the action all takes place on a passenger jet but the
| background sound effects are all for a propeller airliner,
| because it evokes the sound and feel of _Zero Hour_ , the
| movie it's parodying. (https://www.google.com/search?q=zero
| +hour+movie&ie=UTF-8&oe=...)
| tbalsam wrote:
| I am sure it adds another layer of ironic, wry,
| situational comedy to that movie as many other layers of
| it are.
|
| When I learned about how it was basically a shot for shit
| remake of Zero Hour, AND the story of how and why they
| basically got to remake it, it tickled me even further.
|
| Sorta reminds me of the infamous official "Ghost Stories"
| dub, which is....uh.... something else. Er. Lol.
| aaarrm wrote:
| If this was cheap, I'd definitely ride it for long trips like
| that, but I'm sure it will not be. I guess I'm curious also
| what the interior is like and how much square footage they have
| available too.
|
| Edit, I found this information in a different article:
|
| It could eventually carry up to 14 people and has a cargo
| capacity of up to 11,000 pounds. To that end, LTA says the
| airship will be primarily used to bring humanitarian aid (food
| and supplies) to remote areas that are difficult to access via
| traditional aircraft and vehicles.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I didn't get from the article or their vision
| https://www.ltaresearch.com/our-story that "New York to London"
| is their mission.
| Magi604 wrote:
| Yeah I was just musing.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| If it's much cheaper than plane but still much faster than
| container ships it could be useful for some types of cargo.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Nowhere near enough cargo capacity so. And never will...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Then it will remain a curiosity.
| paxys wrote:
| Think of it as equivalent to a container ship rather than a
| passenger jet.
| jessriedel wrote:
| "Dirigible" re-directs to the "Airship" on wikipedia, and the
| dictionary also considers them to be synonyms. I think
| "dirigible" is just considered to be a dated term and to not
| add anything.
| runeofdoom wrote:
| We must be headed into an alternate timeline. Hopefully it's a
| good one.
| dhosek wrote:
| Can't be much worse than this one.
| throwawayakron6 wrote:
| I had a conversation with a contractor involved on the project
| who had a willingness to spill beans. Apparently there was also a
| non-publicized test flight sometime in late August or early
| September.
| bombcar wrote:
| Kinda hard to hide a test flight of the largest aircraft ever
| made.
| twodave wrote:
| You fools! We go at night!
| InfiniteRand wrote:
| Just say it's a weather balloon
| jmclnx wrote:
| Very nice, and I heard lots of Helium was found on Canada's
| Baffin Island. With that news, hopefully these can be used to
| replace some container ship and air travel in the near future.
| _3u10 wrote:
| Uhh hello airplanes? It's blimps, you win, goodbye.
|
| https://youtu.be/vzYLTnI7TUI
| myself248 wrote:
| Weirdly right on the heels of the Tustin hangar fire. How many of
| these hangars are, um, hangin' around out there?
| rob74 wrote:
| Airships have always fascinated nerds and always will, but
| whether there is a niche that airships can fill which airplanes,
| helicopters or ground transportation can't still remains to be
| proven. A German startup
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter) tried something
| similar 20+ years ago, but only got as far as building a giant
| hangar (which is now a tropical theme park -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Islands_Resort) before
| they ran out of money. So LTA Research has already surpassed
| them...
| gumballindie wrote:
| I would imagine airships are easier to autopilot and could be
| used for setting up automated warehouse to warehouse deliveries
| - including loading and unloading cargo, establishing a
| continuous flow of goods.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| > warehouse to warehouse deliveries
|
| Maybe, but smaller blimps don't have very much throughput
| compared to trucks, much less rail. A Hindenburg sized
| megablimp that can actually carry a lot (but still way less
| than rail + trucks) is logistically difficult.
|
| Seems like the niche is more point-to-point, where a large
| cargo needs to get somewhere unusual or unscheduled, and
| kinda quick. Something too big or too cheap for a helicopter,
| and maybe where a manned truck would not work or have a
| similar cost.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Article says 4 tons of payload. That is one truck load.
| Might even be a panel truck.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Oh I missed that. Its more than I expected from a "small"
| prototype blimp.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| there are automated mining trains, today.
| https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/stories/how-did-worlds-
| bigg...
|
| if you are building new then an automated isolated railway
| network is not hard to achieve; and with any airship
| infrastructure you are pretty much building new anyways.
| bluGill wrote:
| Not just mining. A number of public tranist trains
| run.fully automated.
| lock-the-spock wrote:
| Indeed, e.g. Paris metro is fully or nearly automated as
| they wanted to reduce the risk of driver strikes.
| c-smile wrote:
| > warehouse deliveries
|
| Main problem here is that it is a floating device. As soon as
| it unloads 4 tons of cargo it gets pushed up with 4 tons
| force upwards. And you'd better do not release helium to
| compensate that - it is quite expensive.
|
| Without solving that problem airships are mostly for
| travel...
| Gare wrote:
| There are many routes where cargo needs to be moved both
| ways
| burkaman wrote:
| The niche I'd like them to fill is low-carbon intercontinental
| travel. Right now the only option is hitching a ride on a cargo
| ship, which is very slow, expensive, and only low-carbon in a
| marginal sense, and the prospects for long-distance electric
| planes or actually-sustainable aviation fuel seem pretty grim.
| BWStearns wrote:
| I feel like running your super ambitious airship out of Akron is
| bad juju just from the naming association. Really cool project
| though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron
| stcredzero wrote:
| One thing I've thought about, when thinking about airships, is
| the problem of expendable stores, like lift gas or ballast. Solar
| might well be the solution! One approach being taken is re-
| liquefying of the lift gas. Another approach might be the
| condensation of water from the air. Both might be combined.
| Either way, the problem is made simpler by the availability of
| power. Airships have a lot of surface area for solar power!
| swalling wrote:
| "While Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in
| addition to its crew, water ballast and fuel, future humanitarian
| airships will need much larger capacities."
|
| For context, a C130 can airdrop 21 tons of cargo. So if the use
| case is delivery of humanitarian aid in zones without landing
| strips, Pathfinder is still really far from a viable replacement
| of current aircraft.
| bertil wrote:
| Dirigibles benefit from the square-cube law, so as long as you
| have a hangar large enough to build them, larger is overall
| better. There are probably some questions about those 3,000
| titanium hubs, so it might not be trivial to make it bigger,
| but it feels more manageable to scale than an airplane.
| krupan wrote:
| "as long as you have a hangar large enough to build them"
| seems to be doing a _lot_ of work in your reasoning here
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| Not really, Pathfinder 1 isn't even close to using the
| capacity of its current hangar https://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloud
| front.net/cms/brand/CW/2023-CW/1...
|
| Hangar One at Moffett (where Pathfinder is) is 348,964 sqft
| while the largest airship hangar ever built was the Aerium
| hangar at 851,500 although they didn't wind up building the
| big airship that was supposed to go along with it and
| converted it into an indoor rainforest resort and
| waterpark.
| bertil wrote:
| I don't think larger hangars than what we have now are that
| hard to build - not compared to, say, buildings like the
| Burj Kalifa. We can do tall.
|
| The biggest issue would be to have a wide span without
| columns. But those are long shapes: if you can make a gate
| 50 m tall (18 floors) and 50 m wide (the Golden Gate bridge
| has a 1,280 m span between each tower), you can build 10
| gates in a row and have enough room for a dirigible with a
| 45 m diameter and as long as you need, but 300 m seems
| doable.
|
| This prototype is 20 m wide and 124.5 m long, so if you
| scale it to 45 m x 45 m x 300 m, you might get something
| that can carry about twelve times more than this one.
| sorokod wrote:
| And that is on the lower side of the scale, il76 and c17 lift
| 60-70 tons, while the big boys do over 100 tons.
| noughtme wrote:
| And a typical US 53ft trailer can carry 22 tons.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Helicopter, payload 10 tons:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
| Steltek wrote:
| For the humanitarian use case, how quickly could an airship
| landing zone be established? I assume it's more than a helipad
| (empty dirt field) but far less than a runway (FOD-free, long,
| flat, straight, paved).
|
| I wonder if the airship could deliver it's own LZ kit in a
| delicate touch-and-go slash hover.
|
| The article briefly mentions repurposing yachts and that made me
| think of hospital ships. I wonder if you could reconfigure the
| internal space as a go-anywhere hospital (or at least, a set of
| operating rooms) or if it just makes more sense to deploy a
| standard field hospital with tents.
| bertil wrote:
| The ship doesn't need to touch the ground, but you need to
| attach it firmly (because as soon as you unload a ton, that
| ship wants to jump up by about a ton). You can mitigate some of
| that with helium pumps and pointing the engines up and down,
| but a firm cabling would be necessary. In a pinch, I assume you
| can drop the necessary equipment to attach cables from the ship
| itself (it will still jolt when you do that).
| Steltek wrote:
| Right. We're far removed from the 1930's "have lots of men
| hold on to lots of ropes" level of technology.
|
| I assume airships aren't allowed to touch the ground because
| it needs to rotate with the wind. For an LZ, the load could
| just be slung then released. If the craft jumps skyward, who
| cares because it can't land yet anyway.
|
| To your point about weight, I was thinking that instead of
| permanent anchors fixed to the ground, you could use water
| bladders or those large military sandbags[1] for ad-hoc
| purposes. You need to forage for the ballast on-site because
| of the relationship of lift you described.
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion
| trekkie1024 wrote:
| _> We 're far removed from the 1930's "have lots of men
| hold on to lots of ropes" level of technology._
|
| This morning, the airship floated silently from its WW2-era
| hangar at NASA's Moffett Field at walking pace, steered by
| ropes held by dozens of the company's engineers,
| technicians and ground crew.
|
| That made me chuckle.
| dalex00 wrote:
| So often tried never successful. What si the difference now?
|
| Still wind is the enemy and the airship need to be huge to
| deliver relevant amount of cargo.
|
| Also super slow normally...
| bertil wrote:
| Money: most projects didn't have enough investment. Brin
| presumably can handle a conversation that starts with "We need
| another billion for..."
|
| Wind patterns are actually well understood: hot-hair ballons
| already move around simply by changing their altitude and going
| around reasonably freely. I don't know if those could handle
| the jet stream, but that would make NY-London a lot faster.
|
| Agree with you on how slow previous prototypes have been: I was
| part of a project that tried to use them for urban transport,
| and it was not going nearly that fast... 65 knots is the speed
| of cars on a highway (at least the legal limit).
| bertil wrote:
| 65 knots is probably the most surprising piece of information
| there. That's the speed of a car on a highway. If there were a
| bridge from NY to London, would you take it? What if the views
| are nice, and you can nap, walk around, and have tea while you
| work?
| leoedin wrote:
| The problem with that sort of speed in an aircraft is that
| suddenly weather becomes very important. It's not unusual for
| wind speed to be close to 65 knots at altitude. If that's a
| headwind, you're standing still.
| ternaus wrote:
| It would be great to add airships to the big four of
| transportation: planes, ships, cars, and trains.
|
| Flying on a plane is faster, but if we cannot have comfortable
| trains in the US, let's have quiet, comfortable airships.
| jwr wrote:
| I feel like we're not mentioning the elephant in the room:
| helium.
|
| Helium is a non-renewable resource that we don't have a lot of
| down here on earth.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Where is a good place to see it today?
| Dah00n wrote:
| Weapon version in 3...2...1...
| RobKohr wrote:
| So many children's birthdays will be without balloons due to this
| use of helium.
|
| If it is for cargo, use hydrogen. It is cheap and plentiful, and
| can be used safely enough for this kind of application.
| malfist wrote:
| Do we really need to "think of the children" air cargo
| transportation? Especially something as frivolous as floating
| balloons?
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