4 ms·

Whatever Happened to Airships?

5 points by Hooke 5y ago

sh4un 5y ago
Whatever happened to horse drawn carriages?
HonestOp001 5y ago
Airships do not have a good value. The tv show archer made this point, it takes a dirigible significant amounts of time to traverse an area. Going to our product triangle: 1. Is it faster than the alternative: no 2. Is it better quality delivery: No, similar / nearly indistinguishable from an airplane 3. Is it cheaper: Not sure, there is always a claim that massive amounts of goods could be lifted for delivery, that is why that water park in Europe exists, they were trying to gets as big an airship as possible to move goods. The only airspace this could work is if it can deliver goods for cheaper than an airplane, truck, or rail. Which at the moment, there is a reason those spaces are dominant.
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
So Goodyear has kind of proven they are viable. The problem is that helium scarcity is an issue: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20200605a/full/ https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.2020060... If we suddenly built thousands of new helium blimps. We will be back to having lots of trouble. It's not really practical to goto scale. Hydrogen blimps? Well that ended with the hindenburg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg#/media/File:Hindenburg_burning.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg#/media/File:... The interesting thing. While hydrogen is dumb for cars. It is technically super brilliant for blimps. Not only is it for your lift, it's your fuel. Blimps are slow, instead of a few hour flight from nyc to la. it's like 2 days. The thing is, we are going to see this resurgence. Materials science has greatly improved since 100 years ago. Hydrogen will almost certainly be safe to do. It'll be a huge cost though. I wonder if this would be possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship Maybe with modern tech we could make it happen. No risk suddenly of big fireballs. Could be a big deal and better yet maybe even solar panels all over the top of the blimp.
- smegsicle 5y ago
  i'd be more afraid of a vacuum airship than hydrogen
simonblack 5y ago
Simple answer. They're not cost-effective.

5 points by Hooke 5y ago

Whatever happened to horse drawn carriages?

Airships do not have a good value. The tv show archer made this point, it takes a dirigible significant amounts of time to traverse an area. Going to our product triangle: 1. Is it faster than the alternative: no 2. Is it better quality delivery: No, similar / nearly indistinguishable from an airplane 3. Is it cheaper: Not sure, there is always a claim that massive amounts of goods could be lifted for delivery, that is why that water park in Europe exists, they were trying to gets as big an airship as possible to move goods. The only airspace this could work is if it can deliver goods for cheaper than an airplane, truck, or rail. Which at the moment, there is a reason those spaces are dominant.

sleepysysadmin 5y ago

So Goodyear has kind of proven they are viable. The problem is that helium scarcity is an issue: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20200605a/full/ https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.2020060... If we suddenly built thousands of new helium blimps. We will be back to having lots of trouble. It's not really practical to goto scale. Hydrogen blimps? Well that ended with the hindenburg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg#/media/File:Hindenburg_burning.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg#/media/File:... The interesting thing. While hydrogen is dumb for cars. It is technically super brilliant for blimps. Not only is it for your lift, it's your fuel. Blimps are slow, instead of a few hour flight from nyc to la. it's like 2 days. The thing is, we are going to see this resurgence. Materials science has greatly improved since 100 years ago. Hydrogen will almost certainly be safe to do. It'll be a huge cost though. I wonder if this would be possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship Maybe with modern tech we could make it happen. No risk suddenly of big fireballs. Could be a big deal and better yet maybe even solar panels all over the top of the blimp.

smegsicle 5y ago
i'd be more afraid of a vacuum airship than hydrogen

simonblack 5y ago

Simple answer. They're not cost-effective.