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I would also rather use hydrogen. The Hindenburg disaster was spectacular, but not especially deadly! 36 fatalities, 62 survivors. Compare to modern passenger
by b0rsuk 7y ago
I would also rather use hydrogen.
The Hindenburg disaster was spectacular, but not especially deadly! 36 fatalities, 62 survivors. Compare to modern passenger airplanes, where EVERYONE tends to die. If modern dislike for zeppelins is mostly due to Hindenburg, it's irrational.
- pasabagi 7y agoI think there were a series of disasters - of which the Hindenburg was just the last. All the same, I think with modern materials, Hydrogen would be pretty safe.
- mothsonasloth 7y agoIndeed, Iron Maiden wrote a song about the British Airship R101, called "Empire of the clouds"
- ianai 7y agoIt’s at least worth considering whether modern zeppelins could be safe. All options need to be on the table for dealing with climate change.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agodoesn't seem that bad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airship_accidents
- squarefoot 7y agoThe Hindenburg accident happened while the ship was about to land; people on the ground were already holding the ropes hanging from its nose. Had the explosion happen at a higher altitude nobody wold have survived. Using hydrogen, especially today, is a disaster waiting to happen, since any idiot with a medium quadcopter drone carrying a small explosive charge could easily outrun and shot down an airship then post the FPV video on social networks.
- brnt 7y agoI think since Hindenburg fabrics has developed tremendously, and collision, perhaps even explosion safe fabrics for zeppelin hulls could be possible.
- n0rbwah 7y agoHope they still get covered with a thick layer of thermite.
- zabzonk 7y agoYou mean "thermite, the well-known incendiary compound"? https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Thermite https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Thermite
- n0rbwah 7y agoThere's a myth that the hindenburg was coated with different layers of metallic paint that triggered a thermite reaction when the hydrogen caught fire.
- gambiting 7y ago>>Using hydrogen, especially today, is a disaster waiting to happen, since any idiot with a medium quadcopter drone carrying a small explosive charge could easily outrun and shot down an airship then post the FPV video on social networks. Literally the exact same thing could happen with a regular plane(just send a drone into a plane as it takes off), and yet somehow it doesn't happen. I guess people aren't psychotic murderers, or at least there isn't enough of them to worry about it.
- arcticfox 7y agoI think it would be far more difficult to take down a plane than an airship given the enormous difference in velocities. Even at takeoff, a drone-sized IED would probably only be fatal to a small part of the plane's occupants, while it could probably 100% destroy a hydrogen airship in flight. That said, I don't see any reason we'd need to put humans on these, so that probably lowers the risk massively.
- brownbat 7y agoAirline crashes have a surprisingly high survivability rate (because the typical crash is not the craft plummeting from 30k feet, but some kind of runway incident). To your overall point though, hydrogen isn't that much worse. In fact, many leading airship disasters involved helium. USS Shenandoah is typical of the most common enemy of airships--strong winds. The captain warned that the updrafts and storms in the Midwest would destroy the ship but was ordered to fly over several cities anyway, just for a promotional tour. The deadliest airship disaster in history is not the Hindenburg, but the lesser known USS Akron, a helium ship that was simply destroyed in bad weather.
- rootusrootus 7y ago> airplanes, where EVERYONE tends to die Overall, about 95% of passengers survive airplane crashes. If you arbitrarily restrict the stats to just the most severe crashes, it's still over 50%.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]