14 ms·

The U.S.S. Akron and U.S.S. Macon, America's “flying aircraft carriers”

297 points by ilamont 5y ago

killjoywashere 5y ago
Fun fact: they have started reskinning Hangar 1 at Moffett Field.
brimble 5y ago
Zeppelins look so surreal. So much work put into a now-totally-dead technology, making these huge, incredible machines, that were only favored for a very brief span of time.
- WaxProlix 5y ago
  But they're so cool. Maybe with advances in materials science this kind of design could be viable again. Probably not likely with the looming helium shortage, lack of replacement gasses (?), etc. But I want my sweet 1920s art deco retrofuturist reality :(
  - jakear 5y ago
    Could some combination of a partial vacuum and hot air substitute for helium? Of course you'd need some ultra light superstructure to maintain the giant vacuum, but that's "just" engineering.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      > hot air Air at 175C has about 40% the lifting power as the same volume of helium (or hydrogen). That is very hot, and requires a lot of energy to sustain. Lower temperatures will reduce the lifting power. That's why thermal airships (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_airship) are very uncommon, the lift inefficiency means the structural weight doesn't scale, and the cross-section makes them very hard drive and control.
      - jandrese 5y ago
        I guess because airships were already out of fashion by the time the atomic age came, but a thermal airship where the heater is just a radioactive pile seems like a super simple design. The enormous bulk of the airship is an advantage in this case, you can reduce the amount of shielding you need by keeping the radioactive stuff way off on one side of the vehicle and the people on the other. Of course it would still be a nasty cleanup effort if your airship crashes, and you have to deal with radioactive materials when landed or when doing maintenance. From a practical standpoint there are issues, but in theory the concept works.
        robonerd 5y ago
        A reactor powered thermal airship is a fascinating idea! I'm skeptical that it could work though. Some quick web searching suggests that 3 MW burners for hot air balloons is fairly typical. I'm not sure how light and powerful a reactor could be made, but wikipedia says the Convair NB-36H had a 1 MW air-cooled reactor weighing 16,000kg. That reactor definitely wouldn't work then, too heavy by far and not enough power output. But that was a prototype reactor in the 50s. Also, shielding seems like a big concern even if the reactor can be built light. To stop neutron radiation you need light nuclei like hydrogen, making water or concrete (containing water) popular choices. These are heavy and bulky though, not conducive to airships.
        jandrese 5y ago
        That's why my consideration for shielding was mostly just distance. Certainly a concept for a time when people were more cavalier about radiation safety.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jakear 5y ago
        That’s where the vacuum comes in. Extract half of that hot air, seal the container, and you have 70% of the helium lifting force. (Math may be wrong there but you get the idea) Really you don’t need hot air at all. If you have a massive vacuum contained by a rigid shell of some super light super strong material you’d be set. Density of air at sea level is around 1 kg/m^3, so 100 m^2 of material lifts 3 tons. Assuming one ton for material, one for propulsion, one for cargo, you end up needing a shell material that can weigh up to 1 kg/m^2 and can hold a near vacuum. Like I said earlier, “just” and engineering problem. The good news is economies of scale are on your side: 10000 m^2 of shell can lift 3 thousand tons. At that scale your shell can be up to 300 kg/m^2. A bit more reasonable.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    The revival will truly come when we accept running them on hydrogen for lifting gas. It can likely be done quite safely, as the gasbag of the Hindenburg was very flammable and could have burned even if full of helium. And hydrogen is basically free.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      The reality is that airships are kinda crap: 1. they get "free lift" but you need a lot of gas to lift a lot of mass, which quickly makes them extremely unwieldy as it leads to gigantic cross sections (and sheer stuff to move, positioning a lift bag the size of a sports stadium is not exactly great, and requires humongous engines) 2. they're so damn slow 3. even ignoring the tendency to get on fire, hydrogen is a pain in the ass, it absolutely refuses staying put and embrittles structural metals leading to accelerated fatigue
      - bombcar 5y ago
        Yeah, they'd likely be best used as "cruise ships in the sky" where they can take advantage of large swaths of empty space (you could have ballrooms in a zeppelin pretty easily as they wouldn't weigh much) and the speed wouldn't be a huge issue. And you'd likely have to make them out of something other than metal, and it would vent hydrogen most of time.
        WalterBright 5y ago
        I'd love to take a low and slow tour.
      - outworlder 5y ago
        For passengers sure, they are slow. They could instead transport cargo. I think the biggest problem with them is mooring. It's a complex process, much more so than landing a plane, and requires lots of ground crew. It would have to be automated first.
        masklinn 5y ago
  - samizdis 5y ago
    Not sure how the company is doing atm, but the Airlander project by Hybrid Air Vehicles seemed quite promising: https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/
- RangerScience 5y ago
  A fun observation that strongly relates to this: In fiction, alternative universes always have more zeppelins. (It's actually one of the most common ways to visually signal "alternate timeline").
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    Now I'm imagining some sort of steampunk multiverse tour guide character popping into our universe with a bunch of customers, like "And here we see the local-minimum zeppelin universe. Notice how, due to the fact that their flying vehicles are heavier than air, they've isolated them to areas outside their cities for safety! They call these 'air-ports.' Yes, like a regular port, but for the air!"
    - Aperocky 5y ago
      > isolated them to areas outside their cities for safety I'd imagine massive balloons are no more safe over the city than current aircrafts.
      - bee_rider 5y ago
        I dunno, in a hypothetical world where massive balloons had had as much R&D put into them as a modern aircraft, they maybe they can use the loitering advantage to make skyscraper landings possible. Anyway, these travelers come from a steampunk universe, so theirs are probably unrealistically capable.
        RangerScience 5y ago
        Fun fact: The builders of the Empire State Building aimed for this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/docking-on-the-empire-state-building-12525534/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/docking-on...
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    Cars/trucks, diesel-electric or electrified freight trains, diesel ships, jet planes, electrical wires, and pipelines, (and tracked vehicles, helicopters, nuclear subs, rockets, cable railways, etc. in niche roles), are practical means of transportation given our particular available resources, history of infrastructure investment, etc., but they are familiar and boring to make a speculative fiction story about. Coming up with an alternative set of constraints where other kinds of transportation (zeppelins, space elevators, pneumatic tubes, conveyor belts, ornithopters, futuristic sailboats, teleporters, ...) are economically/physically viable is fun for authors and readers.
- Stratoscope 5y ago
  Zeppelins still fly out of Friedrichshafen, their original home! Those of you who lived on the SF Peninsula 10-15 years ago may remember seeing the Airship Ventures Zeppelin NT. That company eventually went out of business and the Zeppelin was dismantled and taken back to Friedrichshafen, but I got to ride on one of their last Bay Area flights. It was the coolest thing ever. I posted a couple of comments here in recent years with more information and links to my photos from the Airship Ventures flight and information about their current operations in Friedrichshafen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21662645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21662645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18897492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18897492 Airships.net also has an article about the Zeppelin NT used in the Airship Ventures and Friedrichshafen flights: https://www.airships.net/zeppelin-nt/ https://www.airships.net/zeppelin-nt/
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Today I learned that the Goodyear Blimps are now Goodyear Zeppelins, at least in some cases.
    - mcv 5y ago
      A couple of years ago at a work event we were in the Goodyear Blimp (grounded, unfortunately), and back then it was definitely a blimp. Though I vaguely recall a rumour that it might have been a different blimp that they'd repainted with the Goodyear logo. No idea if that's true.
- mNovak 5y ago
  If we're pining for lost technologies, I still vote for the large ekranoplan (ground effect plane). It just seems so unreasonably effective.
- iancmceachern 5y ago
  Totally. The tech that went into making them work at the time was incredible. Before polymers they were made from among many other things, cow gut. They had a ban on sausage making in Germany during the war to ration all the cow casing for use in the zeppelin program.
hoseja 5y ago
Wow, that reminded me of the old game Crimson Skies, a dogfighting game where you play as zeppelin-based air pirate.
- brimble 5y ago
  The cartoon Talespin, too.
- outworlder 5y ago
  More recently, Fallout 4 with the Brotherhood of Steel airship. Deploys Osprey-like aircraft too.
  - Physkal 5y ago
    Battlefield 1 as well!
darknavi 5y ago
I really enjoyed the first few books of The Long Earth[0] series in which characters heavily utilize air ships similar to zeppelins. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Earth
- eatonphil 5y ago
  Cool! A Terry Pratchett series I hadn't heard of.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    It was co-written by Stephen Baxter, and if you're familiar with either his or Pratchett's writing then sometimes it's a bit too obvious who wrote which parts, which for me at least led to a certain amount of immersion breaking dissonance. Additionally I would say that the series goes steadily downhill after the first book, but is still pretty good overall.
- masklinn 5y ago
  For other fictional aircraft carrier airships, there was also the excellent Crimson Skies arcade flight sim, with Pandora. And didn't Riverworld have aircraft carrier airships? Or maybe just slaved / sibling airships? It's been decades since I last read that series.
mftb 5y ago
That airships.net is a cool site, ty. My old man, was a huge, zeppelin, dirigible, nut. I never got the story out of him, why, but he would have loved that site. The entry on the "flying aircraft carriers" in particular was cool. The audacity of launching/recovering planes like that, amazing.
gourabmi 5y ago
If you find yourself in the SF Bay Area, do visit https://www.moffettfieldmuseum.org/ https://www.moffettfieldmuseum.org/ . Their docents are actual air force veterans with tons of stories. They are so happy to chat. I had a great experience.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Lived in the Bay Area for 26 years and only just now figured out Moffett Field is named for "Admiral William A. Moffett, killed in the crash of U.S.S. Akron". I knew however that the dirigible hangars off 101 were for the Navy's airship fleet.
jotm 5y ago
Would've been great as party ships https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLJKjYUF1vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLJKjYUF1vI
kbrannigan 5y ago
Remember those Alien invasion movies, where you have a huge mothership that releases a swarm of smaller attack vessels. Like a hive releasing bees.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  Or https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Carrier https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Carrier This was always my favorite way to play, just get 100 carriers and watch all the drones buzzing around.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    Hours and hours of my childhood were spend amassing Carriers in Starcraft 1, on moneymaps. My friends and I would build massive defenses (because moneymaps favor that sort of thing), then stomp the computers, inevitably betray each other, and have to try and wear down each others' defenses with wave after wave of carriers, battlecruisers, guardians, etc... Never learned to play the game properly, but it was great fun to throw around massive resources like that.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      > then stomp the computers, inevitably betray each other Are you my friends?
      - bee_rider 5y ago
        Well. Friends, until the computer is done.
    - mrguyorama 5y ago
      Take a look at Supreme Commander and the crazy expensive units you can mass build in it. Some of them are called "Game enders" in that if you let them get built, they win. This includes a building that generates infinite resources, a building that builds a nuke basically every minute, a flying UFO air carrier, and multiple giant walking killer robots. Also the default unit cap is 1000. Also each and every bullet, laser, weapon, etc are simulated in real time, meaning if you are desperate and lucky, you can protect yourself from said nuke by having a plane fly into it and detonate it above your base, doing way less damage. I struggle to play to a capacity to even beat the AI, but it's so much fun to just play around.
AaronM 5y ago
Those are making a comeback. In January, DARPA successfully launched a Dynetics’ X-61A Gremlin UAV from the bay of a Lockheed Martin C-130A cargo aircraft. The program is aiming to demonstrate the efficacy of low-cost combat-capable drones that can be both deployed and recovered from cargo planes. DARPA envisions using cargo planes like the C-130 to deploy these drones while still outside of enemy air defenses; allowing the drones to go on and engage targets before returning to the airspace around the “mother ship” to be recaptured and carried home for service or repairs. https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/flying-aircraft-carriers-are-totally-possible-and-sort-of-crazy/ https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/flying-aircraft-carriers-are-to...
- masklinn 5y ago
  > Those are making a comeback. Various projects have been trying to bring them back for something like 2 decades. So far there have mostly been cancellations, and "slippage" (e.g. Lockheed's LMH-1, originally planned to float out in 2017, is still nowhere to be seen 5 years later; Airlander is supposed to start shipping in 2025 but the last news is they're trying to find a new location to build a facility).
  - AaronM 5y ago
    I should have been more clear, the idea of launching flying things out of other flying things is making a comeback, not necessarily zeppelins in general
    - mlyle 5y ago
      Don't forget e.g. the M/D-21. Or Orbital Pegasus, or... air launched cruise missiles, or... This is an idea we flirt with, to varying success, over and over and over again.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I should have been more clear, the idea of launching flying things out of other flying things is making a comeback To make a comeback, it would have to have gone away. Launching pilotless flying things from piloted flying things has been very continuously a thing in the military. (OTOH, recovering flying things to other flying things may be making a comeback.)
ajuhasz 5y ago
The Black Box Down podcast has a great episode on the crash of the Akron[1] [1] https://roosterteeth.com/watch/black-box-down-2020-5-28 https://roosterteeth.com/watch/black-box-down-2020-5-28
riazrizvi 5y ago
From a systems point-of-view the main problem is that there is no redundancy in a single balloon. Once materials are designed that are lightweight, strong and cheap enough to design one of these with many small balloons, they would be less vulnerable, especially in warfare.
- outworlder 5y ago
  > there is no redundancy in a single balloon But there is? Balloons like this were made out of a bunch of bladders. What you see externally is just the skin.
  - yosito 5y ago
    It seems to me that with enough bladders made of some kind of lightweight fireproof material that prevented the explosion of one from exploding the others, blimps could still be useful as floating aircraft carriers for drones or other types of aircraft. And equipped with modern laser anti-aircraft weapons I bet they would be less vulnerable to attack in certain military applications as well.
    - jandrese 5y ago
      The caveat is that volume and surface area have a cube square relationship, so the smaller you make each lifting bladder the more weight you spend on material vs. what you get in buoyancy. Lots of small balloons are less efficient than one large balloon. Also, it turns out that it's actually pretty hard to shoot down airships. They don't "pop" like rubber balloon, bullets tend to pass right through the thin skin. Missiles don't detonate because they don't meet enough resistance, etc... you get slow leaks that might eventually doom the airship, but only after its lifting gas reserves are depleted.
      - mcv 5y ago
        A system to patch those holes might even prevent that.
      - 5y ago
ilamont 5y ago
Biplane Launch From Airship USS Akron (ZRS-4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTGBFY82Gik&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTGBFY82Gik&feature=youtu.be
cronix 5y ago
I miss seeing "the goodyear blimp" at the Portland air show. When I was a kid in the 80's and 90's, they'd always have the blimp come out and fly around the metro area for a week. It was so cool to see this absolutely huge thing floating around the sky, over your house, etc., with the deep droning mrrrrrrr of the multiple props. It was almost like an alien space ship (to us kids) because you never saw anything in the skies except birds and planes. Everyone would run outside pointing up at the sky when it was passing overhead. Edit: It looks like the Goodyear Blimp is still a thing! It's going to be in PA/SC/LA this month. Here's the schedule: https://www.goodyearblimp.com/news-and-events/schedule.html https://www.goodyearblimp.com/news-and-events/schedule.html
- yosito 5y ago
  As someone who grew up in Akron, Ohio, the Goodyear blimp is still a regular sight around here. I grew up in the 90s thinking blimps were normal everywhere, and it was only as I got older that I realized that it's really an Akron thing.
  - luke2m 5y ago
    It's still around now.
- myself248 5y ago
  Yeah, but it's not a Goodyear-designed craft anymore. The one they're flying now is a Zeppelin NT. The last Goodyear was retired in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsb3g99x2Ss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsb3g99x2Ss
- Pxtl 5y ago
  Fun fact: there are only 25 about "blimps" in existence right now (note this does not count rigid airships, but I don't know if there are any of those left). https://www.rd.com/article/why-you-dont-see-blimps-anymore/ https://www.rd.com/article/why-you-dont-see-blimps-anymore/
anikan_vader 5y ago
It's easy to forget the role that airships played in the US military. These two were fielded as aircraft carriers during the interwar period. Non-rigid airships were mass-produced during WW2 as anti-submarine vessels to escort convoys (including the one that brought FDR/Churchill to Yalta). They were quite effective in this escort role, and I believe only one was lost in combat. Then after the war the US tried dropping nukes [1] from airships: >> The tests were to "determine the response characteristics of the model ZSG-3 airship when subject to a nuclear detonation in order to establish criteria for safe escape distances after airship delivery of antisubmarine warfare special weapons."[10] According to the Navy, the "airship operations were conducted with extreme difficulty. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-class_blimp#Nuclear_weapon_effects_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-class_blimp#Nuclear_weapon_e...
- guyzero 5y ago
  "I believe only one was lost in combat." I think that means that we lost more to weather than combat, which was their downfall.
  - anikan_vader 5y ago
    I'm not as sure about that. From everything I can find, fewer than 10 of 134 were lost in weather. New variants of the K-class were fielded after WW2, and the navy didn't retire the class until 1959. This was one year after air-to-air missiles saw their combat debut in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Airships continued to see active surface until the entrance of anti-air missiles. It's hard to see at that point how they could compete with heavier-than-air aircraft which were much smaller and faster.
- duxup 5y ago
  Airships seem really neat but it seems like nobody has been able to make the comeback with those. For some reason the whole concept of an airship where it keeps itself in the air with creatively little effort seems like you should be able to something with that but they never seem to make it into a commercially viable product. Well outside some very specific uses.
marcodiego 5y ago
Designed and built without digital computers.
antattack 5y ago
I saw old footage, posted on yt, with three sailors lifted of the ground when Akron was landing, tragically, two could not hold on. I recall that, because I though to myself that today's news would not have shown all the gruesome details, specially with such sensational commentary. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jshHDM93PSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jshHDM93PSE
- bombcar 5y ago
  Today's news wouldn't - but news back then was more akin to the wild-west of YouTube.
marcodiego 5y ago
https://youtu.be/AkCF0m2IKP8?t=249 https://youtu.be/AkCF0m2IKP8?t=249 Working safety was a joke at the time. I wonder how many people died building this thing.
ortusdux 5y ago
This reminds me of Amazon's patent # 9,305,280 for flying warehouses. IIRC, they were working on using them as mobile drone delivery hubs. I think there was talk of using them at sporting events and the like.
Linda703 5y ago
[dead]
mysterydip 5y ago
Is there a reason airships end up being round? I would think more of a saucer shape would be easier to move through the air and less subject to crosswind whims.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  They aren’t negligibly slow. Hindenburg had a cruise speed of 120kph, certainly a speed where you optimise the aero design for going forwards. Some new designs of airships shape the hull as an airfoil, so it generates lift, supplementing the lighter-than-air-ness.
  - mysterydip 5y ago
    Thanks for the info, looks like I have more reading to do!
mech987 5y ago
It's a bit tangential, but the role of small disposable drones in warfare will only increase in the coming years. They're one of the more terrifying (non-WMD) weapons in terms of capabilities in my mind.
- pault 5y ago
  I believe weaponized drone swarms should be categorized with chemical weapons, cluster munitions, etc. A few thousand drones carrying shrapnel explosives and trained to recognize humans is basically a mobile minefield. It’s terrifying, really. I expect they will be used heavily if WW3 comes around, with devastating effect. Much like horse mounted cavalry encountering machine guns for the first time at the beginning of WW1. I’m not a weapons expert, so I could be wrong, but it seems so cheap and practical I can’t think of a scenario where it doesn’t happen eventually.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    Chemical weapons aren't banned because they're effective, but because a) the way they kill is so cruel b) they kill indiscriminately. Cluster munitions are banned by some countries (notably not including the US, China, Russia and India) because they leave UXO that is likely to explode later, killing or maiming civilians. Just like the other examples (e.g. machine guns), I don't see drone swarms getting banned. Slaughterbots will be a documentary one day.
    - pault 5y ago
      That’s exactly it; I don’t expect the technology to be sufficiently discriminate.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
UberFly 5y ago
I was first introduced to the fact that zeppelins launched aircraft when Indiana Jones and his father escaped in one in the Last Crusade. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm6pFf9XX64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm6pFf9XX64
- aceazzameen 5y ago
  My first thought also!
tinybrotosaurus 5y ago
As long as hydrogen is (ignorantly) banned, airships will never make a comeback. LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, using hydrogen as lifting gas, flew 1.7 million km safely. [1]. Built in the 20's, without polymers or hydrogen sensors or electronics of any kind. The real problem, however, is not the lifting gas. It never was. Airships biggest nemesis is the wind. Luckily we have it solved today with radar and satellite imagery. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Graf_Zeppelin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Graf_Zeppelin
- singingboyo 5y ago
  I'm not sure wind and weather are solved. Planes, ships, and to a lesser extent cars/trains are still lost to weather quite frequently. Yes, we can track it better, but people still have to go about their lives in inclement weather. Knowing where it is does not mean we never have to deal with it. Also, as others have noted elsewhere, hydrogen is still an absolute pain to work with. It's better than it was, but that doesn't make it safe. In-flight fires are still a nightmare on planes - it'd be much worse if the only thing keeping you in the air is a massive hydrogen balloon. All this is apart from airships being slow, unwieldy, relatively low altitude, etc.
pm90 5y ago
Kirov Reporting
- Aperocky 5y ago
  Maneuver Props Engaged.
jleyank 5y ago
Err, it would be pretty easy to shoot down as it would have a radar or visual cross-section that would be pretty big. And if anything flammable is used for lift, it's already an FAE bomb waiting for an igniter. Zeppelins because way less interesting once AA cannons were developed or fighters could climb quickly. And that was 100 years ago.
simonw 5y ago
If you're in the Bay Area I can thoroughly recommend a trip to the Moffett Field Historical Society museum, which has all sorts of fascinating things relating to the history of the USS Macon which used to operate out of Hangar One right behind the museum. I wrote it up for my website the other day: https://www.niche-museums.com/105 https://www.niche-museums.com/105
BWStearns 5y ago
I've always wondered if we can have void ships (rigid vacuum bladders) with enough advances in materials science. Skip the helium shortage, dodge the hydrogen debate and have lift scale favorably with size.
dmurray 5y ago
> The deep-ring design also accommodated a Navy requirement that all areas of the structure be accessible during flight; the 8-foot deep rings were large enough for a man to climb their entire circumference. How did this work? Weren't they meant to be sealed and filled with helium? Even if you could open a hatch on the bottom without too much leakage, was the plan for mechanics to operate inside the envelope wearing some kind of breathing apparatus?
- jbay808 5y ago
  Rigid airships are not full of helium (or hydrogen). The outer skin is for aerodynamics, not to seal the gas. Inside, they have a series of gas bags affixed to the rigid structure that can expand or contract according to the pressure at altitude. At full altitude, those gas bags would expand to their full size and take up most of the volume in the airship, but there was still a lot of space around them (and inside the trusses) for storage, maintenance access, walkways, and so on.
- mandevil 5y ago
  The helium was in bladders (big balloons) inside the structure and the outer skin covering. There were many bladders together inside the metal and the outer skin.
a4isms 5y ago
If flying aircraft carriers of this vintage interest you, "The War in the Air"—written by H.G. Wells in 1907 and published in 1908—is chock full of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air > It is (like many of Wells's works) notable for its prophetic ideas, images, and concepts—particularly the use of aircraft for the purpose of warfare—as well as conceptualizing and anticipating events related to World War I.
Vladimof 5y ago
That's what Amazon should do... "flying warehouses"
ajmarsh 5y ago
I've always loved the AAC concept. https://interestingengineering.com/meet-the-boeing-747-aac-a-1970s-concept-for-flying-aircraft-carrier https://interestingengineering.com/meet-the-boeing-747-aac-a...
cebert 5y ago
I had an opportunity to tour the Akron facility when I was an employee of Lockheed Martin in 2009. At the time, Lockheed was the owner after acquiring it from Goodyear. Visiting the hanger was one of the coolest work trips I have ever had the opportunity go on. It’s a large building, and pictures doesn’t do it justice. I wasn’t able to take any pictures for security reasons. I had an opportunity to test an application I entirely wrote which controlled imaging equipment on PTDS (https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/ptds.html https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/p...). This was my first job out of college and it was amazing to see my code control behavior on such large machines. I coded my part according to design specs and had no idea if it would actually work. Fortunately, it did and was a nice development for my career.
andkenneth 5y ago
Would love to see more details on the launch and recovery ops.
dirtyid 5y ago
Wonder if bragging about having the most naval carriers will be akin to having the most carrier blimps in the coming years.
Tevias 5y ago
We have swimming aircraft carriers. Now get ready for: Flying seacraft carriers.
Melatonic 5y ago
New ones being tested right now at Moffett Field in the bay area. No idea for exactly what purpose, however.
onion2k 5y ago
The time between the first powered heavier-than-air flight of the Wright Flyer to the launch of these airships that can launch and recover planes was 27 years, 7 months, and 22 days. The rate of technological change in the early part of the 20th century was incredible.

297 points by ilamont 5y ago

Fun fact: they have started reskinning Hangar 1 at Moffett Field.

Zeppelins look so surreal. So much work put into a now-totally-dead technology, making these huge, incredible machines, that were only favored for a very brief span of time.

WaxProlix 5y ago
But they're so cool. Maybe with advances in materials science this kind of design could be viable again. Probably not likely with the looming helium shortage, lack of replacement gasses (?), etc. But I want my sweet 1920s art deco retrofuturist reality :(
- jakear 5y ago
  Could some combination of a partial vacuum and hot air substitute for helium? Of course you'd need some ultra light superstructure to maintain the giant vacuum, but that's "just" engineering.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > hot air Air at 175C has about 40% the lifting power as the same volume of helium (or hydrogen). That is very hot, and requires a lot of energy to sustain. Lower temperatures will reduce the lifting power. That's why thermal airships (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_airship) are very uncommon, the lift inefficiency means the structural weight doesn't scale, and the cross-section makes them very hard drive and control.
    - jandrese 5y ago
      I guess because airships were already out of fashion by the time the atomic age came, but a thermal airship where the heater is just a radioactive pile seems like a super simple design. The enormous bulk of the airship is an advantage in this case, you can reduce the amount of shielding you need by keeping the radioactive stuff way off on one side of the vehicle and the people on the other. Of course it would still be a nasty cleanup effort if your airship crashes, and you have to deal with radioactive materials when landed or when doing maintenance. From a practical standpoint there are issues, but in theory the concept works.
      - robonerd 5y ago
        A reactor powered thermal airship is a fascinating idea! I'm skeptical that it could work though. Some quick web searching suggests that 3 MW burners for hot air balloons is fairly typical. I'm not sure how light and powerful a reactor could be made, but wikipedia says the Convair NB-36H had a 1 MW air-cooled reactor weighing 16,000kg. That reactor definitely wouldn't work then, too heavy by far and not enough power output. But that was a prototype reactor in the 50s. Also, shielding seems like a big concern even if the reactor can be built light. To stop neutron radiation you need light nuclei like hydrogen, making water or concrete (containing water) popular choices. These are heavy and bulky though, not conducive to airships.
        jandrese 5y ago
        That's why my consideration for shielding was mostly just distance. Certainly a concept for a time when people were more cavalier about radiation safety.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - jakear 5y ago
      That’s where the vacuum comes in. Extract half of that hot air, seal the container, and you have 70% of the helium lifting force. (Math may be wrong there but you get the idea) Really you don’t need hot air at all. If you have a massive vacuum contained by a rigid shell of some super light super strong material you’d be set. Density of air at sea level is around 1 kg/m^3, so 100 m^2 of material lifts 3 tons. Assuming one ton for material, one for propulsion, one for cargo, you end up needing a shell material that can weigh up to 1 kg/m^2 and can hold a near vacuum. Like I said earlier, “just” and engineering problem. The good news is economies of scale are on your side: 10000 m^2 of shell can lift 3 thousand tons. At that scale your shell can be up to 300 kg/m^2. A bit more reasonable.
- bombcar 5y ago
  The revival will truly come when we accept running them on hydrogen for lifting gas. It can likely be done quite safely, as the gasbag of the Hindenburg was very flammable and could have burned even if full of helium. And hydrogen is basically free.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    The reality is that airships are kinda crap: 1. they get "free lift" but you need a lot of gas to lift a lot of mass, which quickly makes them extremely unwieldy as it leads to gigantic cross sections (and sheer stuff to move, positioning a lift bag the size of a sports stadium is not exactly great, and requires humongous engines) 2. they're so damn slow 3. even ignoring the tendency to get on fire, hydrogen is a pain in the ass, it absolutely refuses staying put and embrittles structural metals leading to accelerated fatigue
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Yeah, they'd likely be best used as "cruise ships in the sky" where they can take advantage of large swaths of empty space (you could have ballrooms in a zeppelin pretty easily as they wouldn't weigh much) and the speed wouldn't be a huge issue. And you'd likely have to make them out of something other than metal, and it would vent hydrogen most of time.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        I'd love to take a low and slow tour.
    - outworlder 5y ago
      For passengers sure, they are slow. They could instead transport cargo. I think the biggest problem with them is mooring. It's a complex process, much more so than landing a plane, and requires lots of ground crew. It would have to be automated first.
      - masklinn 5y ago
- samizdis 5y ago
  Not sure how the company is doing atm, but the Airlander project by Hybrid Air Vehicles seemed quite promising: https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/
RangerScience 5y ago
A fun observation that strongly relates to this: In fiction, alternative universes always have more zeppelins. (It's actually one of the most common ways to visually signal "alternate timeline").
- bee_rider 5y ago
  Now I'm imagining some sort of steampunk multiverse tour guide character popping into our universe with a bunch of customers, like "And here we see the local-minimum zeppelin universe. Notice how, due to the fact that their flying vehicles are heavier than air, they've isolated them to areas outside their cities for safety! They call these 'air-ports.' Yes, like a regular port, but for the air!"
  - Aperocky 5y ago
    > isolated them to areas outside their cities for safety I'd imagine massive balloons are no more safe over the city than current aircrafts.
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      I dunno, in a hypothetical world where massive balloons had had as much R&D put into them as a modern aircraft, they maybe they can use the loitering advantage to make skyscraper landings possible. Anyway, these travelers come from a steampunk universe, so theirs are probably unrealistically capable.
      - RangerScience 5y ago
        Fun fact: The builders of the Empire State Building aimed for this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/docking-on-the-empire-state-building-12525534/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/docking-on...
- jacobolus 5y ago
  Cars/trucks, diesel-electric or electrified freight trains, diesel ships, jet planes, electrical wires, and pipelines, (and tracked vehicles, helicopters, nuclear subs, rockets, cable railways, etc. in niche roles), are practical means of transportation given our particular available resources, history of infrastructure investment, etc., but they are familiar and boring to make a speculative fiction story about. Coming up with an alternative set of constraints where other kinds of transportation (zeppelins, space elevators, pneumatic tubes, conveyor belts, ornithopters, futuristic sailboats, teleporters, ...) are economically/physically viable is fun for authors and readers.
Stratoscope 5y ago
Zeppelins still fly out of Friedrichshafen, their original home! Those of you who lived on the SF Peninsula 10-15 years ago may remember seeing the Airship Ventures Zeppelin NT. That company eventually went out of business and the Zeppelin was dismantled and taken back to Friedrichshafen, but I got to ride on one of their last Bay Area flights. It was the coolest thing ever. I posted a couple of comments here in recent years with more information and links to my photos from the Airship Ventures flight and information about their current operations in Friedrichshafen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21662645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21662645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18897492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18897492 Airships.net also has an article about the Zeppelin NT used in the Airship Ventures and Friedrichshafen flights: https://www.airships.net/zeppelin-nt/ https://www.airships.net/zeppelin-nt/
- bombcar 5y ago
  Today I learned that the Goodyear Blimps are now Goodyear Zeppelins, at least in some cases.
  - mcv 5y ago
    A couple of years ago at a work event we were in the Goodyear Blimp (grounded, unfortunately), and back then it was definitely a blimp. Though I vaguely recall a rumour that it might have been a different blimp that they'd repainted with the Goodyear logo. No idea if that's true.
mNovak 5y ago
If we're pining for lost technologies, I still vote for the large ekranoplan (ground effect plane). It just seems so unreasonably effective.
iancmceachern 5y ago
Totally. The tech that went into making them work at the time was incredible. Before polymers they were made from among many other things, cow gut. They had a ban on sausage making in Germany during the war to ration all the cow casing for use in the zeppelin program.

hoseja 5y ago

Wow, that reminded me of the old game Crimson Skies, a dogfighting game where you play as zeppelin-based air pirate.

brimble 5y ago
The cartoon Talespin, too.
outworlder 5y ago
More recently, Fallout 4 with the Brotherhood of Steel airship. Deploys Osprey-like aircraft too.
- Physkal 5y ago
  Battlefield 1 as well!

darknavi 5y ago

I really enjoyed the first few books of The Long Earth[0] series in which characters heavily utilize air ships similar to zeppelins. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Earth

eatonphil 5y ago
Cool! A Terry Pratchett series I hadn't heard of.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  It was co-written by Stephen Baxter, and if you're familiar with either his or Pratchett's writing then sometimes it's a bit too obvious who wrote which parts, which for me at least led to a certain amount of immersion breaking dissonance. Additionally I would say that the series goes steadily downhill after the first book, but is still pretty good overall.
masklinn 5y ago
For other fictional aircraft carrier airships, there was also the excellent Crimson Skies arcade flight sim, with Pandora. And didn't Riverworld have aircraft carrier airships? Or maybe just slaved / sibling airships? It's been decades since I last read that series.

mftb 5y ago

That airships.net is a cool site, ty. My old man, was a huge, zeppelin, dirigible, nut. I never got the story out of him, why, but he would have loved that site. The entry on the "flying aircraft carriers" in particular was cool. The audacity of launching/recovering planes like that, amazing.

gourabmi 5y ago

If you find yourself in the SF Bay Area, do visit https://www.moffettfieldmuseum.org/ https://www.moffettfieldmuseum.org/ . Their docents are actual air force veterans with tons of stories. They are so happy to chat. I had a great experience.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
Lived in the Bay Area for 26 years and only just now figured out Moffett Field is named for "Admiral William A. Moffett, killed in the crash of U.S.S. Akron". I knew however that the dirigible hangars off 101 were for the Navy's airship fleet.

jotm 5y ago

Would've been great as party ships https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLJKjYUF1vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLJKjYUF1vI

kbrannigan 5y ago

Remember those Alien invasion movies, where you have a huge mothership that releases a swarm of smaller attack vessels. Like a hive releasing bees.

ModernMech 5y ago
Or https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Carrier https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Carrier This was always my favorite way to play, just get 100 carriers and watch all the drones buzzing around.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  Hours and hours of my childhood were spend amassing Carriers in Starcraft 1, on moneymaps. My friends and I would build massive defenses (because moneymaps favor that sort of thing), then stomp the computers, inevitably betray each other, and have to try and wear down each others' defenses with wave after wave of carriers, battlecruisers, guardians, etc... Never learned to play the game properly, but it was great fun to throw around massive resources like that.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    > then stomp the computers, inevitably betray each other Are you my friends?
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      Well. Friends, until the computer is done.
  - mrguyorama 5y ago
    Take a look at Supreme Commander and the crazy expensive units you can mass build in it. Some of them are called "Game enders" in that if you let them get built, they win. This includes a building that generates infinite resources, a building that builds a nuke basically every minute, a flying UFO air carrier, and multiple giant walking killer robots. Also the default unit cap is 1000. Also each and every bullet, laser, weapon, etc are simulated in real time, meaning if you are desperate and lucky, you can protect yourself from said nuke by having a plane fly into it and detonate it above your base, doing way less damage. I struggle to play to a capacity to even beat the AI, but it's so much fun to just play around.

AaronM 5y ago

Those are making a comeback. In January, DARPA successfully launched a Dynetics’ X-61A Gremlin UAV from the bay of a Lockheed Martin C-130A cargo aircraft. The program is aiming to demonstrate the efficacy of low-cost combat-capable drones that can be both deployed and recovered from cargo planes. DARPA envisions using cargo planes like the C-130 to deploy these drones while still outside of enemy air defenses; allowing the drones to go on and engage targets before returning to the airspace around the “mother ship” to be recaptured and carried home for service or repairs. https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/flying-aircraft-carriers-are-totally-possible-and-sort-of-crazy/ https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/flying-aircraft-carriers-are-to...

masklinn 5y ago
> Those are making a comeback. Various projects have been trying to bring them back for something like 2 decades. So far there have mostly been cancellations, and "slippage" (e.g. Lockheed's LMH-1, originally planned to float out in 2017, is still nowhere to be seen 5 years later; Airlander is supposed to start shipping in 2025 but the last news is they're trying to find a new location to build a facility).
- AaronM 5y ago
  I should have been more clear, the idea of launching flying things out of other flying things is making a comeback, not necessarily zeppelins in general
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Don't forget e.g. the M/D-21. Or Orbital Pegasus, or... air launched cruise missiles, or... This is an idea we flirt with, to varying success, over and over and over again.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I should have been more clear, the idea of launching flying things out of other flying things is making a comeback To make a comeback, it would have to have gone away. Launching pilotless flying things from piloted flying things has been very continuously a thing in the military. (OTOH, recovering flying things to other flying things may be making a comeback.)

ajuhasz 5y ago

The Black Box Down podcast has a great episode on the crash of the Akron[1] [1] https://roosterteeth.com/watch/black-box-down-2020-5-28 https://roosterteeth.com/watch/black-box-down-2020-5-28

riazrizvi 5y ago

From a systems point-of-view the main problem is that there is no redundancy in a single balloon. Once materials are designed that are lightweight, strong and cheap enough to design one of these with many small balloons, they would be less vulnerable, especially in warfare.

outworlder 5y ago
> there is no redundancy in a single balloon But there is? Balloons like this were made out of a bunch of bladders. What you see externally is just the skin.
- yosito 5y ago
  It seems to me that with enough bladders made of some kind of lightweight fireproof material that prevented the explosion of one from exploding the others, blimps could still be useful as floating aircraft carriers for drones or other types of aircraft. And equipped with modern laser anti-aircraft weapons I bet they would be less vulnerable to attack in certain military applications as well.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    The caveat is that volume and surface area have a cube square relationship, so the smaller you make each lifting bladder the more weight you spend on material vs. what you get in buoyancy. Lots of small balloons are less efficient than one large balloon. Also, it turns out that it's actually pretty hard to shoot down airships. They don't "pop" like rubber balloon, bullets tend to pass right through the thin skin. Missiles don't detonate because they don't meet enough resistance, etc... you get slow leaks that might eventually doom the airship, but only after its lifting gas reserves are depleted.
    - mcv 5y ago
      A system to patch those holes might even prevent that.
    - 5y ago

ilamont 5y ago

Biplane Launch From Airship USS Akron (ZRS-4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTGBFY82Gik&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTGBFY82Gik&feature=youtu.be

cronix 5y ago

I miss seeing "the goodyear blimp" at the Portland air show. When I was a kid in the 80's and 90's, they'd always have the blimp come out and fly around the metro area for a week. It was so cool to see this absolutely huge thing floating around the sky, over your house, etc., with the deep droning mrrrrrrr of the multiple props. It was almost like an alien space ship (to us kids) because you never saw anything in the skies except birds and planes. Everyone would run outside pointing up at the sky when it was passing overhead. Edit: It looks like the Goodyear Blimp is still a thing! It's going to be in PA/SC/LA this month. Here's the schedule: https://www.goodyearblimp.com/news-and-events/schedule.html https://www.goodyearblimp.com/news-and-events/schedule.html

yosito 5y ago
As someone who grew up in Akron, Ohio, the Goodyear blimp is still a regular sight around here. I grew up in the 90s thinking blimps were normal everywhere, and it was only as I got older that I realized that it's really an Akron thing.
- luke2m 5y ago
  It's still around now.
myself248 5y ago
Yeah, but it's not a Goodyear-designed craft anymore. The one they're flying now is a Zeppelin NT. The last Goodyear was retired in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsb3g99x2Ss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsb3g99x2Ss
Pxtl 5y ago
Fun fact: there are only 25 about "blimps" in existence right now (note this does not count rigid airships, but I don't know if there are any of those left). https://www.rd.com/article/why-you-dont-see-blimps-anymore/ https://www.rd.com/article/why-you-dont-see-blimps-anymore/

anikan_vader 5y ago

It's easy to forget the role that airships played in the US military. These two were fielded as aircraft carriers during the interwar period. Non-rigid airships were mass-produced during WW2 as anti-submarine vessels to escort convoys (including the one that brought FDR/Churchill to Yalta). They were quite effective in this escort role, and I believe only one was lost in combat. Then after the war the US tried dropping nukes [1] from airships: >> The tests were to "determine the response characteristics of the model ZSG-3 airship when subject to a nuclear detonation in order to establish criteria for safe escape distances after airship delivery of antisubmarine warfare special weapons."[10] According to the Navy, the "airship operations were conducted with extreme difficulty. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-class_blimp#Nuclear_weapon_effects_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-class_blimp#Nuclear_weapon_e...

guyzero 5y ago
"I believe only one was lost in combat." I think that means that we lost more to weather than combat, which was their downfall.
- anikan_vader 5y ago
  I'm not as sure about that. From everything I can find, fewer than 10 of 134 were lost in weather. New variants of the K-class were fielded after WW2, and the navy didn't retire the class until 1959. This was one year after air-to-air missiles saw their combat debut in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Airships continued to see active surface until the entrance of anti-air missiles. It's hard to see at that point how they could compete with heavier-than-air aircraft which were much smaller and faster.
duxup 5y ago
Airships seem really neat but it seems like nobody has been able to make the comeback with those. For some reason the whole concept of an airship where it keeps itself in the air with creatively little effort seems like you should be able to something with that but they never seem to make it into a commercially viable product. Well outside some very specific uses.

marcodiego 5y ago

Designed and built without digital computers.

antattack 5y ago

I saw old footage, posted on yt, with three sailors lifted of the ground when Akron was landing, tragically, two could not hold on. I recall that, because I though to myself that today's news would not have shown all the gruesome details, specially with such sensational commentary. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jshHDM93PSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jshHDM93PSE

bombcar 5y ago
Today's news wouldn't - but news back then was more akin to the wild-west of YouTube.

marcodiego 5y ago

https://youtu.be/AkCF0m2IKP8?t=249 https://youtu.be/AkCF0m2IKP8?t=249 Working safety was a joke at the time. I wonder how many people died building this thing.

ortusdux 5y ago

This reminds me of Amazon's patent # 9,305,280 for flying warehouses. IIRC, they were working on using them as mobile drone delivery hubs. I think there was talk of using them at sporting events and the like.

Linda703 5y ago

[dead]

mysterydip 5y ago

Is there a reason airships end up being round? I would think more of a saucer shape would be easier to move through the air and less subject to crosswind whims.

rich_sasha 5y ago
They aren’t negligibly slow. Hindenburg had a cruise speed of 120kph, certainly a speed where you optimise the aero design for going forwards. Some new designs of airships shape the hull as an airfoil, so it generates lift, supplementing the lighter-than-air-ness.
- mysterydip 5y ago
  Thanks for the info, looks like I have more reading to do!

mech987 5y ago

It's a bit tangential, but the role of small disposable drones in warfare will only increase in the coming years. They're one of the more terrifying (non-WMD) weapons in terms of capabilities in my mind.

pault 5y ago
I believe weaponized drone swarms should be categorized with chemical weapons, cluster munitions, etc. A few thousand drones carrying shrapnel explosives and trained to recognize humans is basically a mobile minefield. It’s terrifying, really. I expect they will be used heavily if WW3 comes around, with devastating effect. Much like horse mounted cavalry encountering machine guns for the first time at the beginning of WW1. I’m not a weapons expert, so I could be wrong, but it seems so cheap and practical I can’t think of a scenario where it doesn’t happen eventually.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  Chemical weapons aren't banned because they're effective, but because a) the way they kill is so cruel b) they kill indiscriminately. Cluster munitions are banned by some countries (notably not including the US, China, Russia and India) because they leave UXO that is likely to explode later, killing or maiming civilians. Just like the other examples (e.g. machine guns), I don't see drone swarms getting banned. Slaughterbots will be a documentary one day.
  - pault 5y ago
    That’s exactly it; I don’t expect the technology to be sufficiently discriminate.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

UberFly 5y ago

I was first introduced to the fact that zeppelins launched aircraft when Indiana Jones and his father escaped in one in the Last Crusade. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm6pFf9XX64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm6pFf9XX64

aceazzameen 5y ago
My first thought also!

tinybrotosaurus 5y ago

As long as hydrogen is (ignorantly) banned, airships will never make a comeback. LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, using hydrogen as lifting gas, flew 1.7 million km safely. [1]. Built in the 20's, without polymers or hydrogen sensors or electronics of any kind. The real problem, however, is not the lifting gas. It never was. Airships biggest nemesis is the wind. Luckily we have it solved today with radar and satellite imagery. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Graf_Zeppelin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Graf_Zeppelin

singingboyo 5y ago
I'm not sure wind and weather are solved. Planes, ships, and to a lesser extent cars/trains are still lost to weather quite frequently. Yes, we can track it better, but people still have to go about their lives in inclement weather. Knowing where it is does not mean we never have to deal with it. Also, as others have noted elsewhere, hydrogen is still an absolute pain to work with. It's better than it was, but that doesn't make it safe. In-flight fires are still a nightmare on planes - it'd be much worse if the only thing keeping you in the air is a massive hydrogen balloon. All this is apart from airships being slow, unwieldy, relatively low altitude, etc.

pm90 5y ago

Kirov Reporting

Aperocky 5y ago
Maneuver Props Engaged.

jleyank 5y ago

Err, it would be pretty easy to shoot down as it would have a radar or visual cross-section that would be pretty big. And if anything flammable is used for lift, it's already an FAE bomb waiting for an igniter. Zeppelins because way less interesting once AA cannons were developed or fighters could climb quickly. And that was 100 years ago.

simonw 5y ago

If you're in the Bay Area I can thoroughly recommend a trip to the Moffett Field Historical Society museum, which has all sorts of fascinating things relating to the history of the USS Macon which used to operate out of Hangar One right behind the museum. I wrote it up for my website the other day: https://www.niche-museums.com/105 https://www.niche-museums.com/105

BWStearns 5y ago

I've always wondered if we can have void ships (rigid vacuum bladders) with enough advances in materials science. Skip the helium shortage, dodge the hydrogen debate and have lift scale favorably with size.

dmurray 5y ago

> The deep-ring design also accommodated a Navy requirement that all areas of the structure be accessible during flight; the 8-foot deep rings were large enough for a man to climb their entire circumference. How did this work? Weren't they meant to be sealed and filled with helium? Even if you could open a hatch on the bottom without too much leakage, was the plan for mechanics to operate inside the envelope wearing some kind of breathing apparatus?

jbay808 5y ago
Rigid airships are not full of helium (or hydrogen). The outer skin is for aerodynamics, not to seal the gas. Inside, they have a series of gas bags affixed to the rigid structure that can expand or contract according to the pressure at altitude. At full altitude, those gas bags would expand to their full size and take up most of the volume in the airship, but there was still a lot of space around them (and inside the trusses) for storage, maintenance access, walkways, and so on.
mandevil 5y ago
The helium was in bladders (big balloons) inside the structure and the outer skin covering. There were many bladders together inside the metal and the outer skin.

a4isms 5y ago

If flying aircraft carriers of this vintage interest you, "The War in the Air"—written by H.G. Wells in 1907 and published in 1908—is chock full of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air > It is (like many of Wells's works) notable for its prophetic ideas, images, and concepts—particularly the use of aircraft for the purpose of warfare—as well as conceptualizing and anticipating events related to World War I.

Vladimof 5y ago

That's what Amazon should do... "flying warehouses"

ajmarsh 5y ago

I've always loved the AAC concept. https://interestingengineering.com/meet-the-boeing-747-aac-a-1970s-concept-for-flying-aircraft-carrier https://interestingengineering.com/meet-the-boeing-747-aac-a...

cebert 5y ago

I had an opportunity to tour the Akron facility when I was an employee of Lockheed Martin in 2009. At the time, Lockheed was the owner after acquiring it from Goodyear. Visiting the hanger was one of the coolest work trips I have ever had the opportunity go on. It’s a large building, and pictures doesn’t do it justice. I wasn’t able to take any pictures for security reasons. I had an opportunity to test an application I entirely wrote which controlled imaging equipment on PTDS (https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/ptds.html https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/p...). This was my first job out of college and it was amazing to see my code control behavior on such large machines. I coded my part according to design specs and had no idea if it would actually work. Fortunately, it did and was a nice development for my career.

andkenneth 5y ago

Would love to see more details on the launch and recovery ops.

dirtyid 5y ago

Wonder if bragging about having the most naval carriers will be akin to having the most carrier blimps in the coming years.

Tevias 5y ago

We have swimming aircraft carriers. Now get ready for: Flying seacraft carriers.

Melatonic 5y ago

New ones being tested right now at Moffett Field in the bay area. No idea for exactly what purpose, however.

onion2k 5y ago

The time between the first powered heavier-than-air flight of the Wright Flyer to the launch of these airships that can launch and recover planes was 27 years, 7 months, and 22 days. The rate of technological change in the early part of the 20th century was incredible.