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@FharishAhmedPortfolio

2 ай бұрын

I don't know.... Can we get electric generators, generating electricity first? 😆

@suggesttwo

2 ай бұрын

Batteries will wipe out what little payload capacity this vehicle has.

@trickywoo5165

2 ай бұрын

The attack on the airship industry was an obvious op, you & i would each have our own private floating condominium with outdoor smoke deck included to view penguin’s in Antarctica 🇦🇶 if not for the commie sneaking that bomb to destroy the “Knot 🪢 sea’s” Hindenburg, notice how they added over dramatized rhetoric after the fact which most people still believe was during the event 🙄 we’ve all been robbed of many things & airships was just one but nothing about it was organic.

@tomholroyd7519

2 ай бұрын

Since the US privatized the helium reserve (The US had been storing helium for decades) the price has increased significantly. There are more helium wells (Helium is MINED from the same places that natural gas is, it's all alpha particles from radioactive decay in the crust) in the world that remain untapped, but the concentration is lower than existing sources. After that, there is no helium on Earth. It takes billions of years of radioactive decay to produce helium on Earth. Now, if we could go to Saturn to mine gas ...

@ExiledGypsy

2 ай бұрын

One of the biggest issues with Airlander type aircrafts is controlling their bouyencies. One possible way is to change the volume of the hellium in them but it needs to be done very quickly which is not easy. However the British developed an engine that used a type colling system using hellium by passing it through a radiator type piping. Tha Sabre engine seems to have disappeared after it was soled to U.S. as British engineering inventions usually do. It is probably sitting is area 51 or some other DARPA secret warehouse because it was initially designed for a space plane that would used ramjet to burn hydrogen while lfying within atmosphere and then liquid oxigen it leaves the atmosphere. I think the same system could be used to swallow huge amount of hellium/hydrogen out of the aircrsft very quickly. So, ballasts are not the only solution if you can convince the U.S security appartus to let you use the propriority Sabre engine. It is probably just lying there doing nothing now.

"Are zeppelins the first step in the stairway to heaven?" - okay, before the rest of the video plays, gotta start by saying that this was a great opening.

@PeregArBagol

2 ай бұрын

I came to the comments for this quote 😂👍

@JazzGuitarScrapbook

2 ай бұрын

“Here too, the song remains the same”. There must be more….

@JazzGuitarScrapbook

2 ай бұрын

‘Instead of Rambling On…’

@jackdavids2723

2 ай бұрын

to me it works on three levels: The zeppelin's actual ability to fly you up, the Led Zeppelin song pun, and also the metaphor that zeppelins could very likely kill you and take you right away to heaven

@yakwabbit

2 ай бұрын

Yeah, Matt has really raised the number of dad jokes/puns to a whole new level.

I remember when blimps were popular for a little while when I was a kid. It was a goodyear.

@markojotic

2 ай бұрын

Every football game.

@user-zf4uz3hy8z

2 ай бұрын

Those were the days. 😂

@MonkeyJedi99

2 ай бұрын

What a tire-d pun! (I kid.)

@leandersearle5094

2 ай бұрын

@@MonkeyJedi99 He certain wore some rubber on that one.

@tsmackenzie9065

2 ай бұрын

"same old story, boy meets girl, they fall in love, girl dies in tragic blimp accident", "Goodyear?"... the worst..

I’m about to undertake a 22hr total flight back home to Australia from Canada. If I had the option to take, say a 3-5 day airship voyage that let me walk around, have a cabin with a bed, eat in a restaurant at a table and generally have more comfort at a slower speed (but faster than a ship) I’d seriously consider it if it was somewhere in the price range of say premium economy/business class/cruise ship range.

@carlosandleon

2 ай бұрын

dream on, that would be expensive af

@mso82

2 ай бұрын

I could imagine doing something like that across a continent, or on something like a cruise, but spending 3-4 days over open water, with nothing to see but the vast, deep, dark expanse of inhospitable ocean doesn't sound better then a "quick" 22 hour flight.

@user-fm6ns5nb4j

2 ай бұрын

Presumably these things are intended for shorter trips - but apart from tourist flights I can't think of a case where I'd be willing to trade the time & convenience offered by a short haul jetliner for one of these things. So unless it was a very short hop (the 90 odd miles from Scotland to NI for instance) or across the Cook Strait in NZ - essentially the kind of things that we use short passenger ferries for now who is going to use it? Whats the use (except for very specific situations) of a vehicle that is slower than a car? Even the cargo versions would seem to have little utility other than for specialist large loads.

@Ibecrimedog3

2 ай бұрын

Amen

@go4thetop

2 ай бұрын

Have you priced up business or first class trans pacific flights lately or North America to Australia cruises? They are pretty costly too. If you have the money for them then this could be an alternative. It may not work out but I’m just saying if they could price it in that sort of range and comfort level then it might be possible.

They've been singing the Airship song for 30 years, and they are just like fusion energy, always right around the corner. I hope they finally make that turn into reality.

@leosmith848

2 ай бұрын

Nothing changes the fundamental problems of airships. They need to be large to lift anything and they need to be light and strong. Large light strong structures cannot exist. That's why the biggest bird is an albatross.

@andreirachko

2 ай бұрын

In the same way that “solid state battery has just been discovered” and “there’s only enough crude oil in earths crust for another 50 years.” It’s been decades and the numbers are never changing

@hubertnnn

2 ай бұрын

The issue is that with airships people are just barking at the wrong tree. Instead of making large safe human transporting zeppelin, they should have made them small, remote controlled and cargo only. This will utilize all advantages of airships without taking the risks. In worst case scenario just release the balloon and activate parachutes. Even if statistically you will have 1 airship failure per year out of a 10.000 unit fleet, with a proper safety system nothing bad will happen.

@markojotic

2 ай бұрын

I'm born in 1960 and there were always airship concepts coming out.

@coreytaylor5386

2 ай бұрын

@@leosmith848 just have thrusters push the airship down when it drops off cargo and then throttle them down to ascend

I have a letter by one of moms 1st cousins, Lane, who was under the Hindenburg when it went down ... it exploded and they were trained to run upwind .. the guy in front of him fell and began running on all fours, Lane was astounded that he couldnt pass a guy running on his hands and feet.

@Biggles732

2 ай бұрын

It looked spectacular but was a fairly slow motion explosion . Some wouldn't call it an explosion even . There appears to have been survivors .

@matthiuskoenig3378

2 ай бұрын

@@Biggles732 there were tons of survivors, it had a 64% survival rate for those onboard.

@Jeff55369

2 ай бұрын

@@Biggles732 It wasn't an explosion, they coated the outside skin with what became the base for rocket fuel for the purpose of dealing with the static charge on the outside skin. When it failed to dispel the charge, the skin caught on fire and the airship burned. Hydrogen is lighter than air and wouldn't cause the sort of fire you see on the Hindenburg.

First, the ground-level wind issue wasn't discussed. A key airship metric is the amount of headwind and side wind it can overcome, including the base wind as well as gusts. Associated with this is the amount of prepared ground support needed at the destination. Is a dedicated tower needed? Can impromptu anchors be deployed? Each method must not overload the airship structure while simultaneously keeping the ship safe during higher ground winds. Second, physical compression isn't the only way to reduce gas volume. Condensing it to a liquid is also possible. While this is highly energy-intensive, the actual equipment needed is relatively compact, including the insulated liquid storage tank. Physical compressors with high-pressure storage tanks may need less energy, but lightweight COPVs may have more risks than smaller cryogenic dewars. Third, ballast can be minimized by using bags of rocks and soil for dead weight. These can be readily gathered at a most drop-off sites, then cleanly substituted for the cargo by exchanging places while the cargo lift is lowered. The cargo and dead weight together can also serve as anchors, the combined weight tethering the airship during cargo operations. Finally, the hydrogen vs. helium issue isn't an either-or situation. Helium can be "extended" using small amounts of hydrogen (perhaps in separate ballonets). While this complicates gas handling, it can eliminate the need to carry helium reserves, instead using hydrogen as a replacement lifting gas as helium slowly leaks away. Alternatively, a dual-gas system is possible, where helium is used to make the hydrogen less flammable near the ground, then stored away (to prevent loss) at higher altitudes, where hydrogen may be safer to use. One advantage of helium is it can be heated to permit less gas to do more lifting, a key reserve capability hydrogen alone may lack. Clearly, it seems clear that airships will be energy-intensive vehicles, but the ability to cover their upper surfaces with thin and lightweight solar cells could go a long way toward mitigating that issue, along with a small "range extender" fossil-fuel electric generator aboard for backup and augmentation. The key optimization will be to minimize battery weight (size isn't a problem). Given all the above, there is certainly hope for airships, but they will be extremely complex systems in order to be both safe and efficient while also being competitive.

@mx.olivia

2 ай бұрын

Wow, this was by far one of the most helpful comments I've ever read

@solarissv777

2 ай бұрын

To be honest I really like the idea of the hybrid helium-hydrogen airship. With most of lift coming from the hydrogen, in, potentially, collapsible/soft ballonettes, that are inside of helium ones. Thus in case of a leak, hydrogen will go into inert helium envinronment and won't interact with oxygen. Also, potentially, helium can be heated by the sun for a little bit of free lift. As for ballast, why not just consume H2 from the ballonettes? The idea is to have a hybrid electric propulsion with hydrogen fuel cells. When flying, it would use comressed hydrogen from the COPVs or even cryogenic dewars, but just before landing/offloading cargo would switch to hydrogen from ballonettes to reduce the bojancy, while preserving the fuel. The water from the reaction can be used as an additional (small) ballast, and later expelled on the liftoff. And for lifting the possible added weight, hydrogen from huel tanks can be released into ballonettes. I mean: instead of trying to comress an expensive gas, why not have a cheap one, already compressed, and also use it as a fuel? The advantages of such an airship would be: 1. much less helium requirement 2. higher safety than pure hydrogen blimps 3. unification of both ballast and fuel management as lifting gas can be used as a fuel 4. zero emissions as an added bonus P.S. Also, potentially, maybe, fuel cells could be used to remove hydrogen that may have leaked into helium by pumping helium through the fuel cells, in this case, H2 molecules will react, and exit on the cathode side as water, and purified helium will just return back to ballonettes. This would remove the potential fire hazard of accumulating hydrogen in the outer (helium) layer, and then contacting with air (as it is incredibly hard to securely contain H2).

@mandernachluca3774

2 ай бұрын

Really, all i see is complaining, nothing you just said can't be solved. Just the load exchange problem and the lifting gas problem have been solved numerous times. The only thing that really could worry engineers is the the ground wind. But even that has been solved, you simply monitor the weather and link the airship on a tower. Why ? I hear you say, simple, the airship can rotate into the wind and thereby decrease the strain on the hull greatly. Using airships properly is not even close in complexity to running a nuclear power plant, flying an aircraft or rocket. People nowadays just seem to be to dumb to think for themselfs and quickly jump on a bandwagon when it's convenient. That's basically the problem right there, ... people are just dumb and easily manipulated.

@grn1

Ай бұрын

@@mandernachluca3774 If you're responding to OP then you seem to have read their comment quite different to how I read it. They listed complications that need to be addressed and ended by saying that there's hope but the systems will be fairly complex (which isn't all that damning considering all the other super complex tech we use). @solarissv777 The solar heating aspect is a good point. I just recently watched a video by NightHawkInLight that talked about solar fliers. The one he built was basically a large bag with soot and air, he used a wood burning fire to fill the bag initially and the soot helps it absorb heat, the bags still had lift even after the heat dissipated meaning they were absorbing heat from the sun (and they lost height when during overcast). Using a mostly transparent outer layer with a dark inner layer could provide quite a bit of lift and be augmented by electric heat sources (or by burning hydrogen). In this way something closer to a hot air balloon might actually be feasible. What I'd really love to see is a vacuum based design but from my understanding making the outside durable and rigid enough currently requires super heavy materials that completely offset the lift (I imagine with the square cube law there's got to be some point where the lift is greater but perhaps those sizes just aren't feasible).

Imagine Eco-tours over the Amazon, a slow passage the length of the Grand canyon, endless choices.

My only concern is the high use of really precious Helium, which already is really expensive and rare and needed for many medical applications.

@elijaholing

2 ай бұрын

Enter moon mining

@The_Hagseed

2 ай бұрын

So precious that we fill balloons with them for birthday parties so kids can pop them! What a wonderfully idiotic time we're living in.

@CaedenV

2 ай бұрын

Helium is everywhere... its just bonded to other stuff and expensive to release. It isn't that we will ever run out of helium... just a question of the cost to get at it. Because humans have this weird fascination of remaining alive, I don't think we will ever see the amounts needed for medical uses be in danger at any cost.

@owenmartell4923

2 ай бұрын

@@CaedenV you are very confused about something

@Mike.The.Jeweler

2 ай бұрын

​@@CaedenVhelium is a noble gas who's only current source is byproduct from oil mines, and there's limited reserves that are sold every year.

The helium supply issue is what's holding back the revival of airships. If they can crack the safety issue with the use of hydrogen gas, airships could really make a comeback.

@rjthomasindyusa

2 ай бұрын

NASA is the biggest consumer of helium.

@Nexus9_KD6-4.8

2 ай бұрын

Agreed. Helium isn't exactly abundant on Earth. In order for airships to truly make a comeback we need to make a system based on hydrogen safe. With modern technology I'm sure there is a way to do this somehow that just hasn't been discovered yet. Either that order we figure out a way to efficiently produce helium.

@PaulG.x

2 ай бұрын

Yes! Bring on the nonexplody hydrogen! 🙄

@raullasvegas

2 ай бұрын

Helium is being produced constantly as alpha particles in nuclear decay throughout the mass of the earth. The principle sources are naturally occurring uranium and thorium and their decay products. This helium then transits through the earth and may collect in natural gas deposits. It then passes through the atmosphere and into space. We temporarily use some of this helium as it passes through... So, helium is already being naturally manufactured, and for free...

@thorin1045

2 ай бұрын

not really, not helping, but the main issue is that helium is barely providing enough lift. even hydrogen not providing much. so it must be huge and still carry almost nothing.

Here in Germany, I had the possibility to go on a 45min flight with an airship, because my grandpa wanted to do this and asked me. For one person, this flight costed 470€. This is not suitable for any travel use. The price of the air ship there was about 17 Mio. € if I remember it correctly. Furthermore it is very much affected by the weather. The wind speeds on the ground AND in the height have to be below a value, that especially in coast like environment is not given most times. The pilots at my flight had a hard time controling the airship so we could enter. Another big influence is the temperature. The hotter it gets, the less of a load you can take with you. To not just list downsides: the ride was very enjoying (for touristic purpuses) and smooth, but I see it very far away from helping solve any near future logistic problems.

@stianberg5645

2 ай бұрын

those airships (I'm guessing those flying over lake Konstanz) are not like those presented in this video, which have more lift capacity and ability to operate in windy / changing environments. That is also why there is a need for R&I. That said, airships may have more use cases in places less prone to storms, such as inland rural areas. Those areas often have very dispersed economies, and therefore lacking the road and rail infrastructure. Airships definitely could solve logistical problems there.

@snowstrobe

2 ай бұрын

The price will come down with economies of scale. But the wind issue will def affect usability, I didn't know about that.

@Jjames763

2 ай бұрын

The airship you’re talking about, the Zeppelin NT, costs about as much as a small charter plane of a similar passenger capacity. Chartering private aircraft flights is expensive, full stop, and the Zeppelin NT is a fairly small airship, thus more expensive and limited in passenger capacity.

@nntflow7058

2 ай бұрын

That's not entirely true if you want to travel short distance between island. Logically speaking, ferry would be a logical choices. Until you realises that you actually need to travel by land vehicles to the closest port that could handle a ferry ship, and then spending lots of time on a slow ships, and then drive from the nearest arrival port to your final destinations. This process could take up to half a day. Airplane is expensive and you have restrictions on payload that you could carry with you. So no heavy bags or you would be paying hundreds of dollars for checked in bags. This is the goldilocks zone for Air ship. Faster than boats, slightly slower but way cheaper than typical plane. It would work on the British isle. Hawaii, Indonesia, Philippines, Caribbean, etc.

@user-mc5oh2pl7t

2 ай бұрын

@@Jjames763 But small planes are faster, often have longer range and require much less space and smaller (cheaper) hangars and maintenance.

that cost for helium is amazing, never realized just how much it takes to float one Goodyear blimp

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

so we have to get away from using Helium. hydrogen would be one option H2O would be an other it has 2 disadvantages against Helium and Hydrogen but also one giant advantage.

@jaesaces

2 ай бұрын

@@MusikCassette I do prefer my airships to be non-flammable, though

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

@@jaesaces does that mean you want to know about how to use H2O air ships. And you are not interested into how to make hydrogen air ships safe?

@jaesaces

2 ай бұрын

@@MusikCassette I mean even hydrogen would certainly be safer now than in the past

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

@@jaesaces absolutely. We can use non flammable material for the hull. we can build it in a way that even with a leek there is no place for hydrogen to accumulate. we can have sensors. that detect a leek. And protocols ready in case there are leeks. We could even do a double hull and fill the inbetween wit nitrogen. you just need to avoid mixing the hydrogen with the oxygen.

10:48 Load exchange problem. - * Use anchors, They always had anchors. * Load new cargo for new destination. while unloading cargo. * If there is no cargo and they need to return to the home port. It will be the fastest way up.

@carllelendt5452

20 күн бұрын

All aircraft weight must be very accurately monitored, just as is the case with conventional aircraft. Weight differences and adjustments could be accommodated by use of water ballast systems. It is also possible to recover water ballast, weight, while underway. I don't recall if the Akron had ballast recovery. But the Macon did (1 gal water to 1.4 gal. diesel, per engine). Water/atmosphere condenser tech. now exists which would easily allow for weight-gain (adding water ballast) while underway, and probably still have a surplus for utility and passenger use. Early 20th century large rigid airships flew heavy for stability.

The main advantage of hydrogen being cheaper to release when dropping a load matters less for passenger airships. You could have helium passenger airships and hydrogen cargo airships.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

there is however hardly a use for passenger airships. passengers mostly want to get fast to their destination. and if you move fast aerodynamic lift is the better option. the real niche (and it is not a small niche) for airships, is to bring cargo to places you ohterwise just could not.

I've been reading "Are Airships Making a Comeback?" stories since the 70s.

@Gwallacec2

2 ай бұрын

They are not period

@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus

2 ай бұрын

On the cover of Popular Mechanics about once per year back then, even an article August of last year.

@matthiuskoenig3378

2 ай бұрын

its mostly government restrictions that is holding it back.

@Gwallacec2

2 ай бұрын

@@matthiuskoenig3378 nope it’s science

@AlbertaGeek

2 ай бұрын

@@matthiuskoenig3378 Ah yes, the ever-nebulous "government restrictions" boogeyman. Exactly which restrictions of whose government, though? We're never told. They're just _there,_ don'cha know!

for the load offset problem, why not just use a ground anchor? just auger a big spike into the ground where the airship is going to be loading and unloading, and then connect it to the airship with a cable. You can then use the tension in the anchor line to control the buoyancy adjustment, using whatever method you like (ballast, compressor, etc). The benefit is that the buoyancy adjustment no longer has to be perfectly real time as you load and unload; the anchor is holding the difference between the new load and the current buoyancy while it's adjusted, making the process a lot more flexible.

@WayneJohnsonZastil

2 ай бұрын

got to let go of the anchor at some point right?

@trikepilot101

2 ай бұрын

@@WayneJohnsonZastil Yes, after your compressor/ballast has neutralized the load.

@SuperBiologe

2 ай бұрын

@@trikepilot101 i see your point but that would need again additional infrastructure which you probably dont have in a natural disaster region, somewhere in the forrests or while building wind turbines.

@Zahlenteufel1

2 ай бұрын

​@@SuperBiologe For those instances, spikes connected to chains/cables could be shot into the ground, e.g. using railguns. With enough of them it should hold.

@SuperBiologe

2 ай бұрын

@@Zahlenteufel1 Why tf would you use specifically rail guns for that?

1:43 sails still exist and they still function, yes the ship needs to be designed to handle them but you dont have fuel costs other than the backup engine.

@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus

2 ай бұрын

Having owned a couple of sailboats (and I do love sailing) I don't think its any less expensive than just buying fuel. Sails are expensive and need constant maintenance, repair, and replacement.

@deltacx1059

2 ай бұрын

@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus you must be putting your boat through the wringer because sail replacements are not supposed to be frequent.

@jamesburleson1916

2 ай бұрын

Sails work on boats because the boat is getting it's stability and footing (for lack of a better word) from the water. Thus when the wind blows, the boat takes advantage of the velocity difference between the water and wind to move. An airship, on the other hand, is the same density as the air in which it floats. This means that it is entirely at the mercy of the air around it. The only thing sails would do on an airship is help it change velocity faster in gusty conditions. In steady wind, the airship would effectively be a part of the body of air.

@deltacx1059

2 ай бұрын

@@jamesburleson1916 never said they would be on a airship, the context is cargo ships hence the timestamp.

@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus

2 ай бұрын

@@deltacx1059 I'm sailing almost constantly (liveaboard cruiser), sails last me about 5 years, some more, some less.

The only thing missing from the Airlander is a sign that says 'Thunderbird 2' on the side.

@BALANCEDPORTFOLIO

Ай бұрын

Would love to see one in Olive Green!

There was some noise a couple years ago about building a home-grown airship here in Manitoba, mainly because of such high demand for alternate forms of transportation to the remote communities in northern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, and the northern territories. Right now, freight is either flown in or trucked in on ice roads, or during the summer, floated in by boat courtesy of SeaLift, who doesn't seem to be able to move freight into the coastal communities if someone's spilled a drink with more than two ice cubes in it on the beach, let alone into the harbor. Several of the Indigenous groups here were trying to partner up with several companies, including Airlander and I think HAV, to build them in Winnipeg to serve that remote community market, but I haven't heard anything past about 2021 on that partnership.

@russellzacharias3535

2 ай бұрын

Several other comments are about it "always being right around the corner" so I will just add to your Manitoba specific mention. I am now into my 60s and recall that this "conversation" for the exact reasons you list was being held just after graduating high school, so in nearly 45 years right next to nothing has actually been done/accomplished. I remember thinking it seemed like the perfect solution, needless to say I am glad I did not hold my breath. IMO, ditch the "green" part of the idea (it will only add another unnecessary layer) and have two separate streams, one for passenger craft and one for freight.

@dgthe3

2 ай бұрын

The Canadian North feels like an excellent market for airships. They'd be great for bringing in mining equipment, building infrastructure, and supplying the people that live up there.

@davydatwood3158

2 ай бұрын

Quebec signed a Memorandum of Understanding with FLying Whatles, and kicked in 50$ million (not sure if that's CAD or Euros) in 2022, with a rider that anything used in Quebec would be built in Quebec. Canadian North, the Inuit-owned airline that services (wait for it) the North, also signed an MoU with Flying Whales, in 2023, that agreed to exchange knowledge about actual needs and conditions. I expect that both those agreements won't have any further news until Flying Whales starts actually building something. I hadn't heard about the Airlander deal, but it's probably in a similar position - waiting for the commecial projects to reach the point where Airlander is ready and able to expand.

It's one of my bucket list vehicles to go on atleast once. Went on a submarine recently and that was one

I did a costing on airships about 15 years ago, which I still think is valid. Here, you raise some valid points regarding the economic feasibility challenges facing airships for commercial freight transportation; however, you did not discuss many commercial problems, and for airships, these are the major headaches. Although the technical issues are big, I think they are solvable. The commercial, I doubt. The big competitors to an airship for most proposed routes are not planes and ships, as you state, but conventional trucks. If I want to transport something quickly, I use a plane; if I can wait, I will use a truck. Firstly, airships entail much higher capital expenditures to develop and construct the aircraft. Operational costs such as fuel, maintenance of airship infrastructure like hangars, and crew salaries contribute substantially to total outlays. In contrast, trucks benefit from lower fixed costs; they require only simple garaging and are cheap to fix and use the existing global road network. Plus, the trucking industry is a well-established mode of transportation that serves many short- and medium-haul freight routes that airships might target. It is likely difficult for airships to capture enough market share from the entrenched trucking sector. Secondly, the longer trip durations typical of airship voyages mean crew salaries, comparable to planes, comprise a significant proportion of per-trip expenses. Maintaining highly-trained airship personnel and facilities to house them long-term would prove quite expensive. Because of the longer trip duration, I calculate that planes are often cheaper, too. Finally, regarding the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, the evidence indicates the hydrogen gas escaped rapidly and did not primarily fuel the ensuing fire. Instead, the combustion of the airship's metal infrastructure and other combustible materials onboard is now understood to have been the primary factor. Therefore, the use of helium may not have prevented the tragedy. In summary, there are meaningful economic challenges for airships to viably compete directly with existing truck and air transport systems for widespread commercial freight duties over most routes due to unfavourable cost comparisons. Niche military, emergency or remote applications where truck access is impractical may present airships' most promising use cases. Substantial cost reductions are necessary for broader commercial freight viability. In the medium term, say 20 to 30 years, I doubt that technological advances could help address these hurdles.

PV = NkT. You don't necessarily need to compress the gas. Deflating the airship for off-loading could be done by onboard solar-powered heat-pumps to just drastically cool the helium. A multi-10's of tons (btu's) heat pump is far lighter than even a basic high-volume/high-pressure compressor. The compressor also needs massive cooling itself. Would be a hell of a Phd dissertation to compare practical airship buoyancy control via compression vs cooling.

@alanfriesen9837

Ай бұрын

I really like this idea.

@grn1

Ай бұрын

Another possibility I thought of is to use a ballonet and an air compressor. Filling the ballonet with regular air should have the effect of compressing helium a bit while filling the gap with regular air which is of course the same weight as regular air. So long as the outer shell can handle the force without breaking or expanding then that combined with the weight of other components may or may not be enough to get the airship all the way down but if it isn't then you could also use a crane to lower a small crew and equipment to setup a temporary anchor (assuming you aren't at a hub that has permanent anchors).

Personally I think that we need to develop away from Helium for things like this because that is going to be a massive cost for the operation of airships and will severely limit their adoption. I also dont really think that solar electric will work nearly as well in commercial operation as people hope, I think that with modern safety and storage standards Hydrogen is the way to go, better lift with same volume, abundant and relatively cheap to produce, can be vented if needed, can also be burned to create electricity meaning you can use your lift producing gas as your fuel as well simplifying storage. If used with a hybrid airship and a "home base" initial loading you could teather and load when you have your highest volume of gas (and thus most lift) load your cargo and fly where you need to drop the cargo burning some of your fuel on the way reducing your total lift but being able to rely on aerodynamic lift from the craft itself then when you drop off the cargo you vent what you need to to equalize (if needed you could potentially rely on the propellers for lift while static so you would potentially need less lift since while at speed you could rely on aerodynamic lift) then fly back, Hydrogen airships would be perfect for the cargo market. Theres public perception to deal with for the travel market but realistically the cargo market is what needs to be captured to actually make it viable and make money.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

I am pretty sure we an build a safe hydrogen air ship. we can have sensors, that can detect a leak before a dangerous mixture builds up. we can have a double hull with Nitrogen in between. and we can just do proper engineering and use the right materials. However, have you ever thought about using H2O as a lifting gas?

Thank you for returning to this topic. I first came across your channel watching the 2021 video.

You never mentioned they are making Zeppelins again and they have been flying for several years. One flew over Texas, AZ and Calif. about 10 years ago!

Sure, you talk about the Hindenburg before mentioning the Goodyear Blimps. Why not mention the safety record of their blimps?

@criticalevent

2 ай бұрын

Somehow the Goodyear blimps have a worse safety record than the Hindenburg-class airships.

@Jjames763

2 ай бұрын

@@criticalevent What? No they don’t. Where are you getting your numbers? The 154 blimps Goodyear built for the Navy during World War II only had a fatal accident rate of 1.3 per 100,000 flight hours, which is just as good as a modern helicopter.

@criticalevent

2 ай бұрын

@@Jjames763 Uh, only one Hindenburg Class airship ever crashed, Goodyear blimps that have crashed or been destroyed by weather: Wingfoot Air Express (1919) Mayflower (1978) Columbia (1990) Spirit of Akron (1999) Stars and Stripes (2005) Spitirt of Safety (2011) ALL of the US Navy's rigid airships were destroyed by weather. The US Navy only had ONE airship enter action in WWII and it was shot down by a U-boat, so spare me your bullshit statistic. A critical thinker would ask himself why there's not a single one of them left.

@Jjames763

2 ай бұрын

@@criticalevent Again, _where_ are you getting this info? It’s complete and total nonsense. >“Uh, only one Hindenburg Class airship ever crashed, Goodyear blimps that have crashed or been destroyed by weather”… When talking about a _rate,_ such as the number of accidents per 100,000 flight hours, it matters that there’s only been TWO _Hindenburg_ class airships, whereas Goodyear has built and operated more than 300 airships in its history. >”ALL of the US Navy's rigid airships were destroyed by weather.” Tell that to the ZMC-2 or the USS _Los Angeles,_ both of which were decommissioned due to age, not lost in weather accidents. >”The US Navy only had ONE airship enter action in WWIl and it was shot down by a U-boat, so spare me your bullshit statistic.” What are you even talking about? America went into World War II with 10 airships, and built a further 154 during the course of the war. You’re talking about the _only one_ of those airships conformed to be lost to enemy action. >“A critical thinker would ask himself why there's not a single one of them left.” A critical thinker would do even a modicum of research before begging the question. Goodyear alone operates three airships today. Right now. Not counting other airships and operators.

@Jjames763

2 ай бұрын

@@criticalevent Pretty much everything you’ve just said is completely wrong. The Navy didn’t lost the rigid airships ZMC-2 or the _Los Angeles,_ it had 164 blimps during World War II, not one, and Goodyear alone is operating three airships today, not zero. Where are you even getting this misinformation?

Rigid Vacuum zeppelins are possible in theory, needing no gas. New materials are needed though.

@KingHamster3

2 ай бұрын

Then you could ballast really easily by just letting air in then pumping it back out when you need more lift!

@Biggles732

2 ай бұрын

But those rigid structures would entail greater weight .

@Biggles732

2 ай бұрын

But those rigid structures would entail greater weight .

@SkepticalCaveman

2 ай бұрын

@@Biggles732 carbon nano tubes weight nothing as an example.

@AlbertaGeek

2 ай бұрын

@@Biggles732 Yes, that is why the OP specifically said, "New materials are needed though."

Hi Matt, I was thinking about airships and their obvious advantages just 1 day ago. Given the right weather which is most predictable these days, that machine has to be ideal for so many apps.

Dear Matt, thank you for the well-done video. I have been following airship development for the last 15 years, because of understand AIRSHIPS to be part of LOGISTICS (I do educate innovations). The war stopped the development of the biggest airship in Russia and in China. I would like to mention one new project which you have not mentioned and this is the transportation Gass with Airhips, where the gas is not just the "fuel, but the cargo as well

Using helium seems really impractical overall. When sustainable technologies depend on unsustainable resources they come back around to being unsustainable.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

true, we should get away from Helium the alternatives are H2 and H2O H2O has the disadvantages that it has only about half the lifting power of helium and hydrogen and that you have to keep the interior of the lifting body above 100°C But it would be inherently save*, and solve the ballast exchange problem * not that hydrogen could not be save.

It seems like liquid hydrogen could be easily stored in a dewar, and it doesn't hurt that the fuel could be used as buoyancy if it was legal to do so. Also at liquid hydrogen temperatures, superconducting electric motors become a possibility.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

that is one option an other one would be to use H2O as lifting gas.

Had to comment, great videos I get a lot out of them. The music references, priceless. ;)

Hydrogen + no passengers and highly automated with limited/no crew feels like the sweet spot for airship practicality.

As an ignorant layman, just wondering... the whole part about helium and ballast and the airshup shooting up into the air and needing compressors, etc. Could they create a 'dock' for the airship that pumps the helium out before unloading the ship? Or would landing itself be a problem? I kinda imagine that (as a totally ignorant person) that this would mean you wouldn't need to carry compressors around, etc. Just have them as part of a docking system?

@JNArnold

2 ай бұрын

I think thats a pretty solid idea, but that basically limits logistics to places/ships that are already equipped to receive them, and thus loses some of the big advantages of the airship being able to reach locations that can't be reached by most other forms of transportation. It works pretty well for a logistics center though, plus they could also exchange cargo that equals close to the weight of whatever was being dropped off.

@dgthe3

2 ай бұрын

@@JNArnold Yeah. If you're using them to import goods to a city, or between cities it might work. But taking cargo to or from remote areas needs another solution.

@theword7268

2 ай бұрын

@@JNArnold Makes sense. Guess you would need different types for different usages. The vast majority could be dockable and for remote areas have a few that have compressors on them. OR create a docking system that isn't hard to buiild in remotre areas. I dont know how big compressors are or how big they would need to be.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

if your goal is to provide cargo capacity to or from a remote place needing that much infrastructure on the ground kind of defeats the purpose.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

If we used H2O as a lifting gas we could just use surrounding air as ballast.

Airships covered with solar panels! Can you mix hydrogen with helium and it's less explosive? Eh no, probably not much. But helium is super expensive these days, the price has quadrupled in the last 2 decades

@hubertnnn

2 ай бұрын

A solar airship is a good idea, especially if it will be using hydrogen in its balloon, since you can add a hydrogen cell and hydrogen generator combo to convert water and hydrogen between each other for managing buoyancy. And with a large surface area you will be producing more than enough power for the rotors.

I have been hearing this since the 80s. I keep hoping the numbers and tech will be economical. I hope this time we get them.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

it wont, as long as we are stuck with using Helium

The original Zeppelin company is actually still in business and produces airships. From about$500 you can take an airship tour around southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. They also operate in a few other areas. The hydrogen thing is interesting. People are quite happy to sit in a 747 with over 200 tonnes of highly inflammable fuel underneath them, or in a car with 50 or 60 litres of highly inflammable petrol near them. Modern Kevlar balloon systems are a lot less likely to leak than Hindenburg era gas balloons. Hydrogen is also a slightly larger molecule than helium so less is wasted by diffusion.

I wished you had expounded more on the humanitarian/emergency services that airships can provide in times of natural disasters. You mentioned their ability to ferry supplies and people both into and out of remote and dangerous locations. What you didn't say is could these airships be used in similar ways US Coast Guard uses helicopters in rescues. The advantages should include that airships can be bigger and include more services than just "a flying ambulance". By their design, they might be more stable and create less turbulence over helicopters. (I'm guessing here.) If you have a ship that's sinking, something like the Flying Butt would be advantageous, as it can stay over the ship longer lifting people up because it doesn't need to head over to it's support ship to offload people as often as helicopters do. Likewise, outfitting them with all sorts of sensors would allow them to fly over large swaths of land for extended periods of time in search and rescue missions.

@hubertnnn

2 ай бұрын

An airship with solar panels could stay in air infinitely. Even one without them could stay afloat a lot longer than helicopter, since an airship only uses power/fuel to move itself and maybe counter winds. It does not need power to stay afloat. So in theory you could even make a flying hospital that will stay in air for days helping people.

@criticalevent

2 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, we already know how this goes. The US Navy and Coast Guard had many airships, nearly all of them crashed. Unless the disaster is an earthquake on a calm day, they are more trouble than they are worth.

@gerardvila4685

2 ай бұрын

@@criticalevent I'm not surprised. If the weather is bad enough to cause shipwrecks, I definitely wouldn't like to be out in an airship!

I made the same comment on Veritasium's video. Part of that French company's pitch is that they can use the air ships to access old growth forest that has previously been inaccessible. It makes no sense for that company to pitch their product as a climate solution while planning to cut down old growth forests.

@growtocycle6992

2 ай бұрын

Source? Are they cutting the trees down, or harvesting fallen trees??

@qtheplatypus

2 ай бұрын

⁠@@growtocycle6992fallen trees are a part of the a forest ecosystem. They are important habitats for animals and their decay return nutrients used by the forest.

First, I want to thank and applaud your commitment to the pun. Second, I love the idea of airship freight or travel. I worry about the expense/efficiency for general use and some of the logistic issues (helium loss, cargo transfer, and crashes from strong winds).

Thank you sir, I enjoyed the video as always!

The Hindenburg burned so bad because of a mostly wood interior and more importantly the outer shell was coated in rocket fuel. The outer coating was basically a variation on the formula used for the propellent in the Solid rocket boosters used with the Shuttle.

@leonmusk1040

2 ай бұрын

Yeah painting your canvas with thermite is not really a great idea unless you want fire that is.

@dgthe3

2 ай бұрын

@@leonmusk1040 Doping the skin with thermite would also add countless tons to the overall weight -which is why they didn't do it, in addition to the fact that it standard aluminum dope would work better for tightening the skin than thermite ever would.

@kaseyboles30

2 ай бұрын

@@leonmusk1040 IIRC the goal of the coating was to prevent solar heating from over expanding the gas resulting in to much/uncontrolled lift. They apparently didn't count on their being a strong enough electrical spark to ignite it. The mixture doesn't ignite without some effort to set it off, it's even possible they tested it with common sources of flame at the time and failed to ignite it and decided it was safe. Either way once a strong enough spark from the charge build up during flight occurred and set it off, it burned hot and fast.

@leonmusk1040

2 ай бұрын

Yeah already knew that but nice of you to point it out for others cheers :) @@kaseyboles30

@leonmusk1040

2 ай бұрын

Aluminium dope was mixed with a ferous additive to give it its colour to lower heat absorption I.E. thermite @@dgthe3

Matt, you're subtle punnage is literally killing me. Keep it up.

This reminds me of Cargo Lifter. Founded 1996 to ship 160tons of cargo. Bankrupt in 2002. Their massive shipyard hall in Berlin is now a tropical resort style waterpark.

A 60/40 mix of helium/hydrogen remains non flamable but is much cheaper. Also the Airlander's hybrid lift design means it is less vulnerable to the off-loading problems.

zeppelins for moving around turbine blades is a cool idea. i hope they make it happen.

@hubertnnn

2 ай бұрын

I would love to see zepelins move prefabricated building components or even work on building sites instead of cranes.

@ReadersOfTheApocalypse

2 ай бұрын

Zeppelin and turbine blades are mutually exclusive. One doesn't like wind the others need it.

@user-mc5oh2pl7t

2 ай бұрын

@@ReadersOfTheApocalypse Wind turbines are also don't like when there is too much wind, cause they are also can be damaged by too strong winds. On other hand, problem is that wind turbines are in places with mostly constant winds...

@dgthe3

2 ай бұрын

@@ReadersOfTheApocalypse Airships are fine in the wind, so long as the speed and direction aren't changing too quickly. This also applies to standard cranes, which are currently used to construct wind turbines.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

@@ReadersOfTheApocalypse if you can do something literally no other solution can, waiting for the right whether conditions to do it is not a deal breaker.

could be useful in reducing noise pollution in the oceans plus I imagine birds would have an easier time dodging a blimp than a marine animal a freighter

@Jacob-W-5570

2 ай бұрын

huh? Basically every marine animal is faster and more agile then a modern freighter.

@null4174

2 ай бұрын

thanks for the clarification.@@Jacob-W-5570

@hubertnnn

2 ай бұрын

Also airships would be flying in a different altitude than planes, so it adds an extra layer of traffic zones instead of congesting existing ones.

@null4174

2 ай бұрын

true@@hubertnnn

@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus

2 ай бұрын

@@Jacob-W-5570 And still whales are getting hit and killed by freighters (and other ships). I guess nobody taught them to look both ways before crossing the ocean.

Sounds very cool. This can easily be used to reach otherwise hard to reach places like a town on a mountain. Maybe its also useful to replace boats/trucks/trains.

Those who decry the airship, saying that its too slow, etc, forget that we have cruise ships today - huge, lumbering, slow moving ocean liners that take thousands of people around the world, simply cruising along with all the time in the world to visit exotic places during the retirement years. They have no need for speed to get to places. I envision airships, sufficiently large enough to be the cruise liners of the skies to take passengers - sightseers - to places that ships cannot reach. Imagine cruising leisurely over Monument Valley or the Valley of the Kings in Egypt or over the Pyrenees or over the Grand Canyon or along the Great Wall from above or the Rockies or any of the lush river valleys, or above the volcanoes or above the African Sahara or the Amazon jungles, far above from harm while sitting in air conditioned comfort. That's my vision of what a modern, well and properly designed and constructed air cruise liner could offer passengers of the near future - if only we are bold enough to grasp the idea instead of looking back at the Graf Zeppelin and dirigibles and their accidents to write off air ships. We have to remember the number of heavier than air aircraft crashes over the years of slowly advancing developments to reach the relative safety standards of today. If however, we continue to be cowards of ourselves, we will surely not make any improvements to the quality of life and would do best to stay locked up in our bedrooms sitting on a rocking chair and never emerge - because it is so "dangerous out there".

Hey, I thought they fixed the problem of dumping helium with a big tank. They just sucked the helium into the tank and then release it back into the balloon when they need more buoyancy.

@pootinhammer

2 ай бұрын

that would require a compressor powerful enough and fast enough to work on a practical schedule while also not adding too much weight to the aircraft. eventually that will probably be the solution

@GordonGordon

2 ай бұрын

Yeah... Helium is hard to compress and manipulate.

@CaedenV

2 ай бұрын

Thus the section about the compressors. It is a solved problem... just too heavy and expensive to be worth doing yet. It is a solved problem today, but wont be practical for another 5-10 years. Another consideration is the speed at which those compressors need to operate. If you are dropping a multi-ton log, how quickly do you need to suck in multiple tons of helium to absorb the weight difference? Yes, having vertical props can absorb some of this change more quickly... but why not use or design larger helicopters at that point, which can deal with dynamic load changes much more quickly than a compressor sucking in or releasing a gas?

@clydecox2108

2 ай бұрын

Good question.

@clydecox2108

2 ай бұрын

I remember seeing a video or two about some billionaire that’s building a big airship and has already got the helium compressors all sorted out and installed. It’s here on KZread somewhere.

Just securely anchor the airships to a building or ground while unloading until new load can be loaded up. Or, the helium compressors can be installed on the ground, at places where the airship will load or unload cargo. This way, excess helium can be transferred via a flexible conduit to the ground storage as the unloading is done. More helium can then be refilled depending on load requirements.

Airships have a lot of potential and if done right could replace a significant portion of large sea ships, airliners, and helicopters. The currently public developments are underwhelming as the engineers are merely replicating and tweaking earlier designs to play it safe with the financial investment required. Of course there's no telling what is being worked on privately. In my opinion it will take a complete redesign from the ground up for airships to be a better option than the alternatives.

@hubertnnn

2 ай бұрын

As long as governments are against hydrogen and citizens are afraid of Hindenburg 2.0 progress will be very slow.

@user-mc5oh2pl7t

2 ай бұрын

Ships are superior in their lifting capacity, for which there is no match in airships.

11 seconds damn

Heat or cool the helium / hydrogen to change the lift. You can also compress the gas back in cylinders to decrease buoyancy and release back into the bladder(s) to increase it again. Further you can use propellors to compensate for shits in lift.

Interesting video! I’d love to see more development on these alternatives. I have a piece of the Shenandoah’ fabric, and my grandfather had part of a spar. The crash site was just a few miles from his home.

Cool topic! Thank you.

Great video 👍 It’s interesting to see companies try to breathe life into old technology with new technology to hopefully establish something that’s better in the long term

Regarding the ballast an option that I am not certain would work but might work well. Having a bio methane chamber in the centre of the main balloon surrounded and shielded by the component helium balloons. Since methane is less likely to leak and less likely to combust then hydrogen and if shielded by a wall of helium balloons it should be considerably safer. Once the freight has been dropped off the methane can be burnt bellow the main cabin far away from the main balloon and the rest of the methane, additionally this would produce additional electricity. This also has the advantage that the ballast can be easily made in biogas reactors, you could even fill additional bio methane chambers to counter act any minor helium loss as well.

You are a blessed man and you are a blessing to me. Thank you.

The Hindenburg can't be that much of a factor. Firstly, it happened 87 years ago - I can't help but wonder how many people are still alive that even remember it, and as the youth of today, anyone 30 years old or younger have shown me in my experiences - they aren't even aware of things like the Hindenburg. Secondly, the Titanic was also a huge disaster, but that hasn't stopped people from getting on Ocean liners and cruise ships which tend to be even larger. Thirdly when you asked what the first thing was someone thought of when hear the word Airship and thought it might be the Hindenburg...well the first thing I thought of was the Snoopy Blimp. Flying Whales has a very interesting concept, as are some of the other applications from other companies. Thank you Matt for keeping me informed about technology I was not yet aware of. I look forward to progress reports on this topic, although I don't know if I'll still be alive when and if affordable air travel becomes available. Love your channel.

The "supply chain" issue with Helium is not only real, it's historical - the HIndenburg was designed to use Helium but forced to adapt to hydrogen when the US refused to export helium to Germany in the 1930s. Also worth noting that the fire was caused by the *paint* on the Hindenberg, Though of course once the fire started, the big bag of hydrogen deflagrated very, very quickly.

There's a Well There's Your Problem episode about the Hindenberg and airships in general that goes into some of the problems inherent in big balloons that aren't addressed here

in addition to the ballast problem - also wonder how well they'd deal with wind, especially for some of these cargo-drop ideas. They are essentially huge balloons, I'd imagine it takes a decent amount of thrust to hold position well

Thank you for a fair and load-balanced examination of modern airship technology. I really like the way you explained the load-exchange problem. That, and the ever present issues that come from different choices of lifting gas, seem to be the biggest obstacles for airship development. This is probably just sci-fi thinking, but I've always wondered if it would be possible to use hot air as a lifting gas, essentially combining the airship with a hot air balloon. Another more out there idea is to use vacuum instead of a lifting gas. That is, have a giant void with no air. That would be cheaper to maintain (just pump air out of the void instead of paying for gas that has to be pumped in) and free of potential safety problems. But it comes up against the limitations of modern materials technology. Vacuum airships would need to be made from something very strong and very cheap.

The Hindenburg disaster had a disproportionate negative effect on the image of lighter than air conveyances. My favourite positive attribute is the ability to load and unload just about anywhere. I imagine that ferral camels could be collected from the outback ( we have a huge oversupply ) and delivered to the Middle East much more quickly than the present system. Lots of other uses too of course.

Interesting and well done. These airship expectations have remained about the same going bsck to the 1960s.

Was the line about airships and being in an alternate universe a reference to "Fringe” TV series? Haha, I loved that show! 😉

Important to note, if an airship is specifically designed to use hydrogen as a lifting gas it's also safe. In fact it can have benefits of using it as fuel instead of wastefully venting it to land. The Hindenburg disaster was partly because it was in fact designed for helium and the Americans (who had the largest supplies of the gas and thus it was a strategic resource) didn't want to send a balloon full of it to Nazi Germany. It also was absurdly more expensive to just give away so they agreed to run it on hydrogen.

awesome overview

I hope so! My father was working on financing and sorting out the construction plant and storage of airships in Germany over 20 years ago. The project seemed promising but sadly did not make it.

Let's be realistic here: A typical 20,250 TEU large container ship measures 1,445 feet x 195 feet, as opposed to 1,304 feet x 185 feet for other ship classes. Its capacity would be expected to be around 220,000 tons. So no, an airship will not replace ships. We should be concentrating on green hydrogen for ships that reduces weight.

Love airships! Would be cool to have one and go on a world tour!

Matt if you go back and check out the history of airships you will find that it was NOT the Hindenburg disaster that stopped airship use. Air ship builders were well aware that helium is safer. The Germans started using hidrogene because the US actively prohibited export of helium and the Germans couldn't get hold of it from anywhere else. The series of catastrophes that seal the fate of airships were weather-related. The vulnerability of airships is related to the extremely large surface area. Horizontal but much more critically vertical air movements are practically impossible to resist moving the craft around. Wind shear, while it only bumps dynamic aircraft can literally shear these large bodies. However, I am a big fan of airships and really hope these issue can be overcome. When looking into the crashes, all those with helium craft they only had limited fatalities, much less than those of heavier-than-air aircraft. Even in the Hindenburg crash, "only" 35 out of 97 died - in a major aircraft crash today they would call it miraculously good outcome. Plus, airships, when designed so, may be able to rise above weather - much more than commercial aircraft. Plus they can stay there for days if needed. If they drift away they won't inevitable crash into the ground or sea. In the 1920s - over a hundred years ago - regular flights were flown between South-America and Europe. Airship missions were flown down to Africa and back from Europe when an HTA aircraft was proud to fly 4 hours straight.

I've played with making airships economically competitive and viable a few times over my life. I found if you could ensure no loss of gas, they would easily have an place in the economy. The problem is the loss of gas gets expensive, hydrogen/helium escaping. Producing hydrogen is getting more expensive as it's in higher demand right now. People also don't want their airship full of hydrogen. But yes, you could have airships being used to transport goods just like big naval freighters, but they could skip ports and go inland. This would be game changing for places like Africa. It would also change the dynamics of what countries we rely upon for manufacturing. It would also remove the importance of coastal states and their ports. With the loss of gas, the costs climb high enough you can't justify the much slower speed in which they move. Time is money. Doing napkin math from about 7 years ago (last time I looked at it seriously). You could make an airship with the capacity to life a payload of 100 tonnes for roughly 30 million dollars (+/- 10 mil). This would rival what the largest airplane can lift, but for cheaper and much more cost efficient fuel usage. This is using hydrogen which has the best lift of the gases and is cheaper than Helium. It would be the size of a football field. I wasn't using any form of hybrid lift mechanics in those calculations, just a pure zeppelin. This also assumes you aren't flying your airship any higher than 3,000 feet. If you need to go higher than that, your lift efficiency drops. Keep in mind you aren't going to have one large gas bag, as that is begging for disaster. So while the cube law is nice, you will likely have dozens of smaller gasbags inside of the main structure holding your lifting gas. Note all the "we'll go electric or hydrogen fuel cells" is bs virtue signaling. The technology is not feasible for any major economic activity in this area. They are dropping those so people with money who are obsessed with "green" will invest in them or cheer lead for them. That's why they are all "10 years away". Notable areas where Airships could be beneficial: Bypassing Ports Intermediate between naval freight and airplanes (both for speed and weight capacity) Emergency Relief Fighting Fires High Altitude Observations (almost like low orbit satellites) Communication relays Cheap Passenger Transport, though the slower speed might make this non-usable outside of regional or hard to reach locations. There are many problems for airships, but either cheaper lifting gases (generating hydrogen) or finding a means to stopping the loss altogether without massive weight added to airship is the economical aspect that will hold it back.

shocked to see this kind of episode from you, Matt. Wow.

I absolutely love the Flying Whales. Being from France, where the band Gojira is from, which have a song with that title. The multiple layers to that name are fantastic lol

Great video Matt, keep up the great job! I do find it odd that it will cost the same to travel on an airship as it does to go to space with Virgin Galactic

1. Absolutely should go for hydrogen. Even in case of the Hindenburg it's still debated whether it was the cause of the fire, or something else. Hydrogen doesn't burn without oxygen, so you need a massive leak for a significant fire, and it can't spread fast unless the skin of the airship is highly flammable. So just make it from something that doesn't burn, make it double layer and fill the gap with nitrogen, and monitor the H2 concentration to catch leaks. 2. Scale solves a lot of problems due to the square-cube law. For example the bigger the airship the stronger you can make the skin. Go big enough and you can use thick steel armor. Nothing stops you from building 3-5 mile long airships. There's plenty of room in the sky, and you don't have to land. 3. Airships have one thing in abundance: volume. Ideal for transporting low density cargo. Or luxury cruising. You are only limited by weight, not size, unlike with planes or even ships. You can have huge open spaces inside and outside for passengers. 4. For adjusting buoyancy I think you could use air balloons inside. Filling them up reduces buoyancy, emptying them increases it. Exiting air could drive turbines to recover some energy. I don't know how feasible it is, didn't do the math yet. And of course this would put oxygen inside of the hydrogen, so have to be careful.

@jojoma4025

2 ай бұрын

They talk like they have the Hindenburg all figured out but I don't buy it, I believe it was sabotage, the most logical cause, as the Germans had an untouchable record for hydrogen airship operations, round the world flight, regular trans oceanic passenger flights. Nobody else came close and this was just to bothersome so it was sabotaged.

I think the best way of dealing with on-the-ground handling of modern large rigid airships would be to not do on-the-ground handling. But instead do as the British had intended to do with their planned airship handling, by using tall mooring masts, so the ship can remain aloft. Water ballast systems can manage airship weight, at the mast and while underway. Those stocky looking tower-masts worked for the R-100!!, to Canada and back, along with a few excursions.

I was in Florida a few years ago and I saw a large airship floating that was a solid color when I was on the Keys. I did some research and it was tethered and part of the Tethered Aerostat Radar System. There are several of them. Some of them are 186 ft long and the other size is 208 ft long. Being so high they increase the radar range and have been in use since 1979 - 1980 different sources list either one of the years.

I love the idea of a city-scale zeppelin, something about a mile wide and proportionally long, complete with rooftop gardens and plastered in solar panels, possibly even forming a city in the sky that never needs to land. Given that scale, even if we approximate it's displacement at 1 cubic mile, that's so much volume that helium is out of the question (we only have something like 0.367 cubic miles of helium), so it would need to be filled with hydrogen. That being said, using hydrogen means it would have something like a half million tons of lift per cubic mile, so lots of budget for everything. Obviously it's more of an idea for a fantasy setting, but it's an idea I like.

i've been hearing about this airship revolution for perhaps a decade now...still waiting for it. I live not too far from the Akron home of the Goodyear blimp, see it a couple of times a year fly over my house coming/going to cover a steelers game. Big, low, slow (ish). Impressive. Would love to see bigger ones put to work!

Something I’d like to bring attention to regarding the Hindenburg is that a rather large number of the passengers and crew survived the initial crash, and only a handful didn’t survive their injuries. Looking at the footage you’d swear that nobody could have survived, but it’s actually pretty impressive.

One partial solution to the balast exchange problem is probably properly anchoring the airship before dropping anything off. That makes the timing of possible balast exchange less critical.

Love that for all our tech, we're coming back to blimps and sail ships

I kindly remind you, that in the infamous Hindenburg disaster, the fatality rate was around 36%, with 23 passengers out of 36 and 39 crewmen out of 61 surviving. The most infamous plane crash KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, March 27, 1977, with one plane having 0 survivors and a 100% fatality rate (248 occupants out of 248) and the second has 61 survivors out of 396 or 84,59% fatality rate.

I fully expect more and more puns with your future videos ❤

Compression seems interesting as a way to “squish” the helium but I wonder if these companies are looking at cryo-pumps to condense/make into a liquid. It would definitely enable the ability to icrease lift and decrease lift within a given bladder/section of the air ship. The only repercussion would be the high amounts of energy it would take. Definitely a great video Matt!!

The squared cube law certainly helps reduce the amount of airship skin relative to the volume of the craft, but you still need proportionally more helium to fill it.

@MusikCassette

2 ай бұрын

yea, we should not use helium for that. it might be ok for a prototype. but there is zero chance for scaling up. we could go back to hydrogen, and just build it better. Or we could use H2O as a lifting gas.

Since the square-cube relation applies to solar power the same as drag, the cruising speed of an airship powered only by the sun is relatively independent of size. The carrying capacity and efficiency still grow with volume. Looking at the horsepower of the Macon's eight engines and ~20% efficient thin film solar panels, a similar cruising speed is plausible in sunshine. With batteries: 24 hour 50 knot travel forever.

What about a giant piston ballast? If the object weighs less than the volume it displaces, wouldn't a giant syringe for a lack of a better term, be able to compress the helium, increasing its density, whilst filling the volume with ambient air reduce the buoyant forces? Thus, when it drops its payload, before detatching, it undergoes a compression sequence before returning. When it picks up a load, it can decompress the helium and expell the air.

Bad idea. Helium is not a renewable resource. Once its released from the ground, it floats on out to space. (Lighter than air, you know.) Its used for such "unusual" devices as MRIs. We've already got a huge shortage of helium (new discovery in MN notwithstanding). Using (and losing) huge amounts of it in airships means it won't be long before we run out. As an aside, helium shortage is also why "Party City" went under. They couldn't afford to waste money in balloons any more.

The Hindenburg fire didn't start with the hydrogen. The fire started with the skin that was highly flammable. They had to coat the panels of the skin so it wouldn't flap in the wind and it wouldn't absorb water. If it started flapping, it would tear apart. If it absorbed water, it would be very heavy. Each of these separate panels were lashed to the frame and supposed to be electrically connected. When the air ship reached its destination, it dropped a grounding wire that would discharge the static electricity generated by the friction of flight. The issue was that not all of the panels were properly connected so when they dropped the cable, an electrical arch jumped between some panels catching the panels on fire. The burning panels caught the structure on fire and burned the bladders holding the hydrogen. This analysis is based on footage taken during the landing and the brightness of the flame in those images. The images started out with a certain brightness that quickly changed when the hydrogen caught fire. Modern materials completely remove the need for highly flammable panels and the need to have separate panels that need to be lashed separately so they can be sufficiently tightened.

The audio AI is mind blowing... Its became easy to understands you even for our childs that doesnt speak english.

If I hear airship today I don't think about the Hindenburg desaster, but the Cargolifter desaster. Cargolifter was a startup, which planed to build a heavy lift airship at the turn of the millennium. It burned a few hundred million €, much of it from airship enthusiasts. No full size airship was ever build, but you the giant hangar still exists. One major problem with airships is ground handling at strong wind. You need either a very large hangar or you must make sure, the airship is never hit by a serious storm.

Air Shipwright. what an excellent job title/description. Cool.

Solar punk is an amazing genre and I want to see more of it.

What's the problem with gas? You can simply use hydrogen. And to prevent its mixing with air into an explosive mix - you just don't pump up the whole hull with hydrogen. Pump the hull with something inert like nitrogen and fill it with smaller bags of hydrogen - like a pomegranate or a roe sack. And if any of it leaks you can easily detect the impurities in, say, nitrogen long before the situation becomes dangerous. You can even mark the gas in various "roe eggs" with various compounds to detect which one had leaked.

Real smooth bit of flub-dubbing on that one. ;)

Loved the video and the topic. Interesting stuff, although scaling things up for shipping won't probably work. A similiar-sized footprint of a cargo ship can carry a LOT more than a similar-sized airship, so I think these would probably be better suited for edge cases (like the delivery of large parts to remote wind farms). And OH MY GOD the puns. Even more than one Led Zeppelin reference, I wonder how many people besides myself and Sean got those.