5 ms·

"While Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in addition to its crew, water ballast and fuel, future humanitarian airships will need much larger capac

"While Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in addition to its crew, water ballast and fuel, future humanitarian airships will need much larger capacities." For context, a C130 can airdrop 21 tons of cargo. So if the use case is delivery of humanitarian aid in zones without landing strips, Pathfinder is still really far from a viable replacement of current aircraft.

bertil 3y ago
Dirigibles benefit from the square-cube law, so as long as you have a hangar large enough to build them, larger is overall better. There are probably some questions about those 3,000 titanium hubs, so it might not be trivial to make it bigger, but it feels more manageable to scale than an airplane.
- krupan 3y ago
  "as long as you have a hangar large enough to build them" seems to be doing a lot of work in your reasoning here
  - throwaway4aday 3y ago
    Not really, Pathfinder 1 isn't even close to using the capacity of its current hangar https://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/cms/brand/CW/2023-CW/1023-cw-FOD-LTA-4.jpg https://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/cms/brand/CW/2023-CW/1... Hangar One at Moffett (where Pathfinder is) is 348,964 sqft while the largest airship hangar ever built was the Aerium hangar at 851,500 although they didn't wind up building the big airship that was supposed to go along with it and converted it into an indoor rainforest resort and waterpark.
  - bertil 3y ago
    I don’t think larger hangars than what we have now are that hard to build – not compared to, say, buildings like the Burj Kalifa. We can do tall. The biggest issue would be to have a wide span without columns. But those are long shapes: if you can make a gate 50 m tall (18 floors) and 50 m wide (the Golden Gate bridge has a 1,280 m span between each tower), you can build 10 gates in a row and have enough room for a dirigible with a 45 m diameter and as long as you need, but 300 m seems doable. This prototype is 20 m wide and 124.5 m long, so if you scale it to 45 m x 45 m x 300 m, you might get something that can carry about twelve times more than this one.
    - krupan 3y ago
      Now I'm totally picturing a hollow Burj Kalifa with airships stacked vertically inside :-)
  - flashback2199 3y ago
    You underestimate the amount of land there is in this country lol
sorokod 3y ago
And that is on the lower side of the scale, il76 and c17 lift 60-70 tons, while the big boys do over 100 tons.
noughtme 3y ago
And a typical US 53ft trailer can carry 22 tons.
everybodyknows 3y ago
Helicopter, payload 10 tons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
kumarvvr 3y ago
If the overall carbon footprint is less, then I guess its worth it? I would imagine that they have plans to tether a few of these together, load up the cargo, and fly it around un-populated areas to build a distribution network. Perhaps tethering them can also mean overall stability and resistance to wind effects, something like an air train. Maybe, a small aircraft can lock-in to the first one and simply pull it along at higher speeds? Assuming they can fly at about 50 MPH, can be automated and can fly day and night with minimal energy consumption, companies like Amazon and FedEx would be interested. Not to mention tourism applications, surveying, etc.
_8j50 3y ago
If it can make constant dropoff and pickup it can compete with planes that need costly fueling and landing strips.

bertil 3y ago

Dirigibles benefit from the square-cube law, so as long as you have a hangar large enough to build them, larger is overall better. There are probably some questions about those 3,000 titanium hubs, so it might not be trivial to make it bigger, but it feels more manageable to scale than an airplane.

krupan 3y ago
"as long as you have a hangar large enough to build them" seems to be doing a lot of work in your reasoning here
- throwaway4aday 3y ago
  Not really, Pathfinder 1 isn't even close to using the capacity of its current hangar https://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/cms/brand/CW/2023-CW/1023-cw-FOD-LTA-4.jpg https://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/cms/brand/CW/2023-CW/1... Hangar One at Moffett (where Pathfinder is) is 348,964 sqft while the largest airship hangar ever built was the Aerium hangar at 851,500 although they didn't wind up building the big airship that was supposed to go along with it and converted it into an indoor rainforest resort and waterpark.
- bertil 3y ago
  I don’t think larger hangars than what we have now are that hard to build – not compared to, say, buildings like the Burj Kalifa. We can do tall. The biggest issue would be to have a wide span without columns. But those are long shapes: if you can make a gate 50 m tall (18 floors) and 50 m wide (the Golden Gate bridge has a 1,280 m span between each tower), you can build 10 gates in a row and have enough room for a dirigible with a 45 m diameter and as long as you need, but 300 m seems doable. This prototype is 20 m wide and 124.5 m long, so if you scale it to 45 m x 45 m x 300 m, you might get something that can carry about twelve times more than this one.
  - krupan 3y ago
    Now I'm totally picturing a hollow Burj Kalifa with airships stacked vertically inside :-)
- flashback2199 3y ago
  You underestimate the amount of land there is in this country lol

sorokod 3y ago

And that is on the lower side of the scale, il76 and c17 lift 60-70 tons, while the big boys do over 100 tons.

noughtme 3y ago

And a typical US 53ft trailer can carry 22 tons.

everybodyknows 3y ago

Helicopter, payload 10 tons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane

kumarvvr 3y ago

If the overall carbon footprint is less, then I guess its worth it? I would imagine that they have plans to tether a few of these together, load up the cargo, and fly it around un-populated areas to build a distribution network. Perhaps tethering them can also mean overall stability and resistance to wind effects, something like an air train. Maybe, a small aircraft can lock-in to the first one and simply pull it along at higher speeds? Assuming they can fly at about 50 MPH, can be automated and can fly day and night with minimal energy consumption, companies like Amazon and FedEx would be interested. Not to mention tourism applications, surveying, etc.

_8j50 3y ago

If it can make constant dropoff and pickup it can compete with planes that need costly fueling and landing strips.