5 ms·

The opening preamble of this article is clearly a shill for the BBCs adaptation of His Dark Materials. That said, the reason we don't have a return to airships

The opening preamble of this article is clearly a shill for the BBCs adaptation of His Dark Materials. That said, the reason we don't have a return to airships, is that they cannot carry the sheer numbers that planes can, need a much larger 'docking' area compared to planes, and take 100 times as long to get anywhere compare to modern air travel.

sandworm101 7y ago
They may be slower than planes, but they were not as slow as people think. (Remember that "airship" is not the same as "blimp".) They easily did 100+kph in a strait line. That makes them faster than road travel, and very much faster than marine crossing times. They might not ever compete with 747s but there are some business cases for delivery of goods or provision of information services (airborne cell towers).
- FabHK 7y ago
  > That makes them faster than road travel Not in Germany.
patall 7y ago
I agree that airships will never directly replace with airplanes. However, historically airships reached 100 - 160 km per hour which is gets you to about 2 days for a transatlantic flight. Thats about a day more than a flight today but given the reduced effect of jetlag, I would assume quite a few people would go for it (not the buisness travellers, obviously). However, for that airships would need to have as much space as a cruise ship and therefore become really big again. You would start on in a small plane, land on the airship, travel long distance with it and exit again why another plane.
- 1996 7y ago
  I disagree. They could replace planes for me. Give me a real bed in a room that can be locked (even if shared with a few other people), and a restaurant to socialize like in a train. For comfortable travel I would pay extra, business or not. I must not be the only consumer wanting that. And no, regardless of "class", airplane travel is miserable. I do not want to seat in a open space with people walking around, eating on my lap or from a folding table food served on a tray.
  - specialist 7y ago
    Given strong coffee, broadband, a bit of legroom, and clean bathrooms, I'd love dirigible travel.
  - dageshi 7y ago
    You're basically describing a sleeper train but those are increasingly rare because they are that much more expensive than flying that people don't consider them worth it. Not enough people will pay the extra for regular point to point travel. I could see something like that taking off in terms of an experience, like an air version of the orient express.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      I took the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Edinburgh recently. For two people, the pricing wasn't bad and I don't regret doing it. But it was a very small room and the common cafe space was very cramped as well. We're definitely not talking Agatha Christie Orient Express experience. But, yeah, in general sleeper trains don't work other than for the experience. Just for kicks, I looked at traveling to Chicago from Boston by sleeper a couple years back instead of flying. Made absolutely no sense for me in terms of time and I couldn't have justified the expense to my company. The concept of airship travel as presented in fiction looks really appealing. But it would probably cost $10K for a trans-Atlantic ticket. And if you have that kind of money to spend, and especially aren't really in a hurry, there are other attractive options.
      - Jaruzel 7y ago
        I do the Caledonian Sleeper a few times a year to Inverness. Recently they've rolled out new rooms on their trains which are much better, but compared to the price of flying it's really expensive. I still travel on the sleeper though because I cannot stand the indignity of modern standard-class air travel.
        ghaff 7y ago
        We were on a longish trip and had checked luggage. I didn't want to fly a budget airline especially and my friend wanted to spend a bit of time in London. So it probably cost us a bit more but wasn't really too bad. But, especially given that I got a day room in London anyway, it certainly wasn't cheap either. The experience was fun and that's what counted anyway. I will take train when I reasonably can though. I never fly from Boston to NYC unless it's to connect to another flight.

sandworm101 7y ago

They may be slower than planes, but they were not as slow as people think. (Remember that "airship" is not the same as "blimp".) They easily did 100+kph in a strait line. That makes them faster than road travel, and very much faster than marine crossing times. They might not ever compete with 747s but there are some business cases for delivery of goods or provision of information services (airborne cell towers).

FabHK 7y ago
> That makes them faster than road travel Not in Germany.

patall 7y ago

I agree that airships will never directly replace with airplanes. However, historically airships reached 100 - 160 km per hour which is gets you to about 2 days for a transatlantic flight. Thats about a day more than a flight today but given the reduced effect of jetlag, I would assume quite a few people would go for it (not the buisness travellers, obviously). However, for that airships would need to have as much space as a cruise ship and therefore become really big again. You would start on in a small plane, land on the airship, travel long distance with it and exit again why another plane.

1996 7y ago
I disagree. They could replace planes for me. Give me a real bed in a room that can be locked (even if shared with a few other people), and a restaurant to socialize like in a train. For comfortable travel I would pay extra, business or not. I must not be the only consumer wanting that. And no, regardless of "class", airplane travel is miserable. I do not want to seat in a open space with people walking around, eating on my lap or from a folding table food served on a tray.
- specialist 7y ago
  Given strong coffee, broadband, a bit of legroom, and clean bathrooms, I'd love dirigible travel.
- dageshi 7y ago
  You're basically describing a sleeper train but those are increasingly rare because they are that much more expensive than flying that people don't consider them worth it. Not enough people will pay the extra for regular point to point travel. I could see something like that taking off in terms of an experience, like an air version of the orient express.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I took the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Edinburgh recently. For two people, the pricing wasn't bad and I don't regret doing it. But it was a very small room and the common cafe space was very cramped as well. We're definitely not talking Agatha Christie Orient Express experience. But, yeah, in general sleeper trains don't work other than for the experience. Just for kicks, I looked at traveling to Chicago from Boston by sleeper a couple years back instead of flying. Made absolutely no sense for me in terms of time and I couldn't have justified the expense to my company. The concept of airship travel as presented in fiction looks really appealing. But it would probably cost $10K for a trans-Atlantic ticket. And if you have that kind of money to spend, and especially aren't really in a hurry, there are other attractive options.
    - Jaruzel 7y ago
      I do the Caledonian Sleeper a few times a year to Inverness. Recently they've rolled out new rooms on their trains which are much better, but compared to the price of flying it's really expensive. I still travel on the sleeper though because I cannot stand the indignity of modern standard-class air travel.
      - ghaff 7y ago
        We were on a longish trip and had checked luggage. I didn't want to fly a budget airline especially and my friend wanted to spend a bit of time in London. So it probably cost us a bit more but wasn't really too bad. But, especially given that I got a day room in London anyway, it certainly wasn't cheap either. The experience was fun and that's what counted anyway. I will take train when I reasonably can though. I never fly from Boston to NYC unless it's to connect to another flight.