modern zeppelins

[Marko Dash]

How feasible would it be to design and build a fleet of lighter than air passenger craft as a sort of flying cruiseliner service, using modern technology? How economical would it be considering advances in metallurgy and engine design?

[Crossroads Inc.]

How feasible would it be to design and build a fleet of lighter than air passenger craft as a sort of flying cruiseliner service, using modern technology? How economical would it be considering advances in metallurgy and engine design?

*AHEMS*

[Feil]

Not very. A stormy day makes the passengers of a cruise ship stay inside in stead of going out on deck. It makes the passengers of a dirigeable conduct an an emergiency evacuation of the aircraft.

[Sikon]

Widespread use of passenger airships like those of the early 20th century is unlikely, but there are potential market niches for helium craft:

• A high altitude blimp can be at altitudes up to 30 to 40 kilometers and stay up there for as long as a year. Such has the potential to fulfill some of the functions of a communications satellite or surveillance satellite for less cost, as implied here.
• Speculation: Surveys indicate that seeing earth from space is one of the main motivations of potential suborbital space tourists. If high-altitude blimps entered production, perhaps there could be a market for using similar technology to make blimps able to take up passengers for tourism. An altitude up to 30 km to 40 km is less than space, defined as an altitude of 100+ km, but there would be a black sky and a similar view.
• Lower altitude airships with massive cargo capability might transport more massive items of industrial equipment than can currently be transported by aircraft. Such would also allow delivery to third-world countries or other remote regions short on airports able to handle large cargo airplanes. See here.
• For transport craft, the greatest possibility may be to make hybrid airships, having a potential market niche of transportation faster than trucks or ships but less expensive than conventional airplanes. Although passengers could be transported (albeit with slower airspeed and longer flight time than regular airline airplanes), the application most often proposed is cargo, as described here. An example of a design proposal to avoid a large ground crew being required for landing is here.

For short-haul markets, The Short Take-Off and Landing ("STOL") capability of Aeroscraft, its relatively low noise, and efficient fuel consumption (due to lower power levels) give the Aeroscraft power advantages. Aeroscraft will be comfortably competitive in short-haul markets, which have to date been largely uneconomical for traditional airliners. The airlines have largely abandoned service routes between 20 and 300 miles, but Aeroscraft could operate profitably in these markets, restore service between city centers and even minor airports, and work as a feeder to international airports and hubs.

Even when market niches may exist, expensive entry barriers in the industry prevent any guarantee of an unusual, different aircraft being developed in a given decade. Some blimps exist today, such as the passenger-carrying Zeppelin mentioned earlier and many small advertising blimps. However, the preceding describes much more ambitious proposals.

In any case, helium-filled craft certainly aren't going to replace regular aircraft.

But there are some applications in which their advantage to disadvantage ratio may be favorable, as implied above.

[wautd]

A battleship gun-platform



It cannot fail

[wautd]

[CJvR]

As a regular passenger line probably not. However as some nice tourist sightseeing line perhaps. Take the Berlin-Paris route over the Harz, Rhein-Mosel valleys and round it off with flights over the cities on arrival. It would have to be larger ships though, a small gondola and a chair is not enough.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Not very. A stormy day makes the passengers of a cruise ship stay inside in stead of going out on deck. It makes the passengers of a dirigeable conduct an an emergiency evacuation of the aircraft.

That can depend on the size and power of the ship. Many dirigibles avoided storms, but they did that for comfort and not for pure safety. The reason the R101 crashed, for instance, was down to human error. Otherwise, the ship would've been okay.

But no, I don't see the heydays of the airship coming back, though there is still a definite market for LTA craft for surveillance, tankers or heavy lift.

[Marko Dash]

I'm talking about large helium craft being used for the same purpose as pleasure cruises.

As for storms, with modern tech most airships could cruise well above most weather, only dipping back down for sight-seeing.

What speeds could a blimp with lightweight jets do without stressing the frame?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Jets? Why? Terribly inefficient.

But with ducted fans or fanprops, you can do around 160 km/h and more with a tailwind.

[Coyote]

The biggest stumbling block is actually public perception. Much like the public now has it firmly ingrainded in their minds that "radiation = t3h pur3 3vul!!!111oneone" so too do they also have it accepted as inarguable "fact" that "Zeppelis = t3h H1nd3nburg OH NO3ZZ" and that they'll be detonatining in city-destroying fireballs everywhere.

Conveniently ignoring the whole helium / hydrogen thing, and the fact that even hydrogen equipped zepps operated quite well for years until, it is theorized, someone finally had to resort to a bomb to take the Hindenburg out.

A helium-based rigid airship would be ideal for many things-- long-range cargo, for one, and cruise lines for another. The slow rate of travel could, for cargo carriers, be made up by the fact that the zepps could carry far more cargo than a plane could ever hope, at a fraction of the cost, and that a zeppelin in a state of crash is essentially a slow-motion drama that can be brought to a controlled landing most of the times (less cost to insure).

It could also be marketed as ecologically sensitive tourism for flights over the poles or pristine rainforests, etc, in the relative lap of luxury.

Zepps can-- in theory-- also be filled with water tanks and serve to fight forest fires. It'd be harrowing getting buffeted by the thermal updrafts but the amount of retardant it could dump would be a real boon in some of the worst fire seasons.

But, no, we can't have that, because "Zeppeleins = Hindenburg! We're all gonna die!"

[Admiral Valdemar]

Actually, helium is the biggest stumbling block. Good luck getting any real supply in the near future. The American reservoirs are drying up and that stuff is pricey as is. Science also needs it for certain things before anyone else wastes it for recreation.

Too bad we can't make a General Products hull for vacuum ships.