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Spanish airline reserves 10 Airlander airships
- CalRobert 4y agoSome mention of how dwindling Helium supplies play in to this would be helpful.
- eej71 4y agoI believe its mostly a myth that helium supplies are dwindling. Its a byproduct of natural gas production which is something the USA should be using more of anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_Unite...
- rippercushions 4y agoIt's a dwindling resource in the sense that it's not renewable (on human timescales, anyway) or reusable: once it's in the atmosphere, it's effectively gone.
- horseAMcharlie 4y agoWould expanded civilian nuclear power provide some kind of sustainable helium production as a side effect or do the numbers not work out?
- dsr_ 4y agoOnly if we change to fusion power, which is just fifty years away.
- skykooler 4y agoEven nuclear fusion doesn't produce helium in large amounts; a large fusion plant would produce about 2000 liters / day, meaning you'd need 136 years worth of output from one station to fill a single airlander airship.
- moffkalast 4y agoSame goes for fossil fuels, but that doesn't stop us from burning billions of tons of them per year like we have an infinite supply. And unlike fossil fuels that are (likely) only found on Earth, Helium is the second most common element in the universe and can be found literally everywhere once you're off planet. Plus we can technically manufacture it from radioactive decay.
- roelschroeven 4y ago> can be found literally everywhere once you're off planet In the vacuum of space, not enough to be harvested. Presumably the same for asteroids, moons and planets. Stars have lots and lots of helium, but good luck mining it.
- SamBam 4y agoAgreed. This doesn't seem to be a long-term solution, unless they're relying on continually discovering new helium wells.
- krisoft 4y agoThere are no "helium wells". Helium is extracted as a byproduct of natural gas extraction. Meaning it comes up mixed with natural gas and if the production facilities have the right equipment can be separated from it.
- bombcar 4y agoI mean a hole in the ground that has helium in it is kind of a helium well, even if it's polluted with natural gas.
- njarboe 4y agoNot all natural gas wells have the same percentage of helium in them[1]. "Helium wells" generally refer to wells that have a high amount of Helium relative to others. Those are the ones you would extract Helium from first. [1] https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/609e8fe1d34ea221ce3f39e6 https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/609e8fe1d34ea221ce3...
- SamBam 4y agoYes, sorry, short-hand. Natural gas comes out of wells, and with it helium. Since we're focussing on the helium, I called it a helium well. Indeed, sometimes helium itself is the target, not the natural gas: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-found-huge-reservoir-much-needed-helium-180959592/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-found-h...
- bryanlarsen 4y agoIIRC, the price of helium was artificially suppressed for a long time because the US was getting rid of its strategic helium reserve. Now that they've stopped liquidating the reserve, price signals are starting to work again and helium is again being captured.
- mario_kart_snes 4y agoWill flights be cancelled in cases of moderate/heavy wrong-direction winds?
- Retric 4y agoCruse speed is 148 km/h so they should be fine outside of extreme wind conditions. I suspect turbulence to be a significantly larger issue vs fixed wing aircraft.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rob74 4y agoAccording to Wikipedia, Air Nostrum "currently operates as a franchisee of Iberia as Iberia Regional [...]. Air Nostrum operates 91 domestic and international routes to 51 destinations, and charter flights. Its main base is Valencia Airport, with hubs at Barcelona Airport and Madrid-Barajas Airport". Decarbonizing short haul flights is great, but wouldn't trains be better suited for this purpose? Especially if you consider the extra infrastructure that needs to be built at airports which will be served by these airships - concrete production also generates a lot of CO2...
- sofixa 4y agoEspecially considering Spain already has a serious high speed rail network.
- arethuza 4y agoThey fly to a lot of places outside of Spain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Air_Nostrum_destinations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Air_Nostrum_destinatio... Even within Spain the Balearic islands and Canary islands are very popular destinations and probably not going to be on any high speed rail network any time soon. :-)
- _visgean 4y agoHmm according to this https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/our-aircraft/faq/ https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/our-aircraft/faq/ the max speed is 130kph, distance from valencia to palma is about 270km so its about 2 hour flight. Its 7:40 by ferry and 55m by plane... So this seems like a very good route for this type of aircraft. They also have good comparisons here: https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/news-and-media/overview/insights/airlander-10-will-provide-a-new-option-for-regional-travel/ https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/news-and-media/overview/in...
- arethuza 4y agoI've flown between Tenerife and La Gomera and El Hiero a few times - I was curious if they did the inter island flights, which I don't think they do. Edit: I suspect the idea of flying around in airships looking up a huge volcano is just reminding me of Red|Green|Blue Mars.
- eb0la 4y agoI believe the best use for this Airships is for cargo. Cargo routes from Valencia to Palma are beyond full capacity during peak vacation season (summer holidays, christmas, semana santa). If you plan to board a Ferry to Palma, you must be ready to suffer from delays in departure (arrivals are usually on time). If they can use their airlanders with just 20-30% cargo, they have a sound busines case since ferrys are a huge bottleneck to get cargo into Balearic islands.
- dmix 4y agoApparently the problem with lifting heavy cargo is that all weight that gets released must be replaced in some way when it's not being used. Otherwise the airship won't be able to land or maintain a lower altitude. Helium, unlike Hydrogen, is too expensive to simply release into the atmosphere when you need to go lower, so it needs: a) gas compression b) exchanging the cargo with water or weights at the transfer point https://youtu.be/h0hpcpnWAsQ?t=796 https://youtu.be/h0hpcpnWAsQ?t=796 Airlander makes an appearance too^ Transporting people is easier simply because they are lighter. The video projects it's still a 5-10yr R&D project to solve the weight exchange issues via gas compression (which usually means 10-20yrs in practice).
- gxt 4y agoTransporting people in airship has never been made safe, and I don't think it can ever be. Anybody with a rifle can deflate an airship, where as planes can resist these low skill attacks. The only business case to be made for airships is cargo.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago>Anybody with a rifle can deflate an airship But in fact: >If the vehicle does find itself in a flashpoint, Metzger’s confident that the its skin – a blend of Vectran, Kevlar and Mylar – will be able to cope with a reasonable amount of small arms fire. ‘It’s a woven fabric and has a lot of redundancy in it to mitigate tears, if one was to experience a bullet hole it’s not going to propagate the length of the hole. You may lose a little bit of helium but the pressure between the inside of the hull and the outside is not very great so a small anomaly like that is not going to cause any significant damage.’[1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190415183800/https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/12-july-2010/meet-lemv-the-first-of-a-new-generation-of-advanced-military-airship/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190415183800/https://www.theen...
- vintermann 4y agoThis is slightly odd. As far as I know, the company has only made the prototype, which was damaged on its first flight, and not long after damaged beyond repair. The only airship company that I know of that has actually been able to fulfill a "big" order like this is Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, which produced the three "Wingfoot" airships for Goodyear. That took 7 years. And they already had a ton of experience, and a fleet of three airships already.
- ameister14 4y agoI don't think it was damaged beyond repair by flights - I think it automatically deflated after slipping its moorings in high winds.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThe rip-away panels were meant to prevent the airship from getting blown god knows where by the wind. But the airship was wrecked in the process and was subsequently written off. https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/11/18/19/467A500900000578-5095481-image-a-3_1511032823386.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/11/18/19/467A5009000005...
- duxup 4y agoI wish they had some details on routes, cost, time and etc where they plan to use them. This reads like a press release and it's not clear they know exactly what they're going to do with these things.
- helsinkiandrew 4y ago> Airlander generates up to 40% of its lift from aerodynamics by the passage of air over the hull At a max speed of 130kph that does surprise me - they don’t look very aerodynamic.
- FabHK 4y agoRemember that the MCAS system had to be built into the 737 Max because the jet engine nacelles developed too much lift... so maybe the lift generating capacity is not that easy to judge from aerodynamic look.
- helsinkiandrew 4y agoThat's true - I guess if the length of the airship frame on the top is greater than the bottom (which from the photos it looks like) it will create lift no matter how blunt it is and how much drag it also produces.
- FabHK 4y agoFWIW, it is not necessary for a surface to be asymmetric (“longer” above than below) to create lift. This can be seen from the fact that (some) aircraft can be flown upside down.
- margalabargala 4y agoOn the other hand, I have up to 100% confidence in the accuracy of their claim.
- Nifty3929 4y agohttps://xkcd.com/870/ https://xkcd.com/870/ Up to 15% - OR MORE!
- narrator 4y agoAirspeed is a blistering 92 mph[1]. I'd also like to see how this bad boy operates in high winds. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_Airlander_10 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_Airlande...
- bell-cot 4y agoWorth noting: Airships are far more weather-sensitive than pretty much any other form of long-distance transportation. Heavy bursts of rain, cross-winds, downdrafts, etc. that a train would never notice and a commercial airplane easily compensate for can easily crash an airship.
- capableweb 4y agoAlso worth noting: weather doesn't appear out of nowhere usually, airplanes can see the weather around them on radars and other instruments, airships would probably be equipped with similar instruments in order to avoid bad weather.
- bell-cot 4y agoIt's nice if you can pay close attention to the weather, play it safe, and never actually crash. But it's also nice if you don't lose too many potential customers, due to "they always seem to be delaying or canceling flights, due to the weather...".
- LatteLazy 4y agoTop speed of "up to 80mph" (assuming that's very dependant on the wind). Compared to a passenger jet at ~500. So a 1h journey by jet is now a 6h journey? Maybe that works for low-weight cargo?
- jandrese 4y agoOr it is used for island hopping and replacing small turboprop aircraft? Turning what is 15 minute flights on the light aircraft into 30 minute trips by airship.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI don't expect this to succeed because one of the biggest problems with airships a century ago still hasn't been resolved: Where do you put them when the weather turns to shit? Airplanes are smaller, faster, and denser, so they have a lot more options. Airships are big, slow, and light weight, that means hangers big enough to house them are rare and expensive and the wind has greater impact on them than an airplane. Case in point, in 2017 HAV (the airship manufacturer the article is talking about) had their prototype airship destroyed by strong wind while it was moored outside. They haven't solved this problem, they're just ignoring it.
- capableweb 4y agoIs there some reason why you couldn't deflate it and temporarily store the helium in a tank next to a small hangar containing the deflated ship? Or maybe building huge hangars is simply cheaper now that it used to be? Seems weird if a airline would purchase 10 units of something while not having any idea where to store them when the weather gets bad, surely they must have some idea.
- adolph 4y agoMaybe not purchase: The carrier aims to introduce the Airlander fleet over a five-year period, through operational leases, as part of a sustainable mobility project. https://www.flightglobal.com/air-transport/spains-air-nostrum-plots-introduction-of-uk-airships-for-domestic-services/149013.article https://www.flightglobal.com/air-transport/spains-air-nostru...
- MichaelCollins 4y agoMaybe? Pumping the helium out and storing it could be done in principle, but in practice could you do that pumping fast enough to respond to bad weather? Controlled venting of the helium would be faster, but then you'd need new helium to fill it back up. This sort of plan would also require more infrastructure at the ports made to service the airship. I also wonder how fast they can go from deflated to operational; maybe hours but maybe longer, if they have to do inspections each time. It all seems like a lot of additional expense for an airship that already has a razor thin niche (transit that needs to be faster than a train or truck, doesn't need to be as fast as an airplane, and is less versatile than a helicopter.) As for the airline purchasing 10 airships, they didn't. They only reserved 10 and the press release on HAV's website doesn't say how much Air Nostrum Group actually paid for that upfront. Air Nostrum Group may view this as a PR / greenwashing expense, without any real expectation of buying or operating the airships. Similar to GM signing a deal with Nikola.
- hok 4y agoThis reminds me of the CargoLifter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter They wanted to create a fleet of LTA vessels some 20 years ago, but never made it beyond a reduced-scale prototype and eventually had to file bancruptcy after using up all their investors' money. The only thing that remains is an impressively huge hangar in the middle of nowhere near Berlin, which is used as an indoor resort today.
- forgotusername6 4y agoDoes anyone know of a lighter than air project that uses evacuated or at least partially evacuated containers for lift? The use of helium always seems so wasteful at this scale.
- ikrenji 4y agoi guess its not easy to build a container like that. it has to be strong enough to withstand the air pressure trying to buckle it in, but light enough for the vacuum to actually lift it off the ground. maybe there is no such material
- zeristor 4y agoFrom four months ago, it would be interesting what there plans are for it.