I love the ideas of airships, and appreciate that this goes into good detail on the concepts. It does mention, but somewhat gloss over, just how big some of the issues facing them are though. I've...
I love the ideas of airships, and appreciate that this goes into good detail on the concepts. It does mention, but somewhat gloss over, just how big some of the issues facing them are though. I've always wondered just how badly weather could cause issues for an airship, especially the larger ones, and was disappointed they didn't go into it more.
The ballast issue is pretty interesting as well. Makes me wonder if you could "leave" some portion of the ship, essentially anchoring it to the ground to have it transported back later. This also falls under the issues mentioned where now moving cargo to remote area's is a problem.
Either way i'm happy to see some development of the tech, but i'm really skeptical of if they're going to find any mass use. It'd be nice if they could find some niche for the novelty and so they can get more research into the actual limitations, but I'm not going to be shocked if they all wind up going under.
Weather is one of the concerns I was hoping to be addressed, especially since they touched on the often overlooked part of ballast/weight issue. Per Oceansky (the $200k vacation airship company),...
Weather is one of the concerns I was hoping to be addressed, especially since they touched on the often overlooked part of ballast/weight issue.
Per Oceansky (the $200k vacation airship company), their airship tops out at 10,000ft. Rainclouds top out around 25,000ft, thunderclouds (and therefore lightning strikes) are 60,000ft up, so the airship is going to be below the weather it seems.
Airplane cargo generally flies above rain and goes around thunderclouds, ships can handle rain, wind, and waves. Airships over a choppy ocean seems like it wouldn't work well, can't get out of the way of a fast moving storm, and can't handle the weather.
I suppose this won't be a huge issue since I'm guessing there's not a big overlap of freight that doesn't need the overnight capabilities of airplanes, but does need to be somewhere faster than a ship, so the airship option of be-there-in-a-week can have the asterisk of good weather permitting and extend delivery to wait for the storm to pass.
Also, while there is the issue of ballast and that is perhaps insurmountable at present for things like emergency delivery of a pre-fabricated hospital in the middle of a disaster zone, in the case of regular cargo deliveries to a regular place, I'm curious if you could just create an anchoring system at the airship port that can handle the upward lifting while being unloaded, assuming the airframe could also handle being pulled down at those points. Airship arrives, gets anchored, starts compressors to liquify helium, unloads, stays in place until helium levels are back to the correct buoyancy level, release anchors, continue.
As I'm spitballing these ideas: This could even seemingly be done while anchored instead of trying to get a compressor large enough on the airship to handle compressing the helium while also being light enough to be economically feasible. Anchor airship, hook up hose to ship, start sucking the helium out of the ship to lower lifting power while unloading. Sure compressing it back to a liquid (from the searching I've done) takes too long, but with gaseous and liquid helium storage at the airship port, it seems like a no brainer to pull the helium out via a ground based system, compress it back to a liquid, and use it to refill the onboard liquid tanks that are used to create more lift as cargo is taken on. If they can vent it fast enough to resolve the ballast issue, then it's barely an extra step to "vent" it through a hose to a holding tank.
Airship 1 arrives, drops 60 tons of cargo, an equivalent amount of helium is removed to maintain buoyancy, already present liquid helium is pumped up to airship, airship leaves, ground based compressor/liquefier system take the "used" helium and runs to liquefy it for the next airship, rinse, repeat.
One (or even a dozen+) huge compressor/liquefier system(s) per port is cheaper than onboard compressor systems for hundreds/thousands of ships, and weight or how to power it is no longer an issue.
Of course the alternative is to load/unload at generally the same rate. Ships/trucks don't often sail to another destination empty (unless there's a container shortage which is a whole other thing) as a one way cargo trip is twice as costly as round trips full of cargo. So you work to solve the logistics issue of matching inbound and outbound cargo weights.
I love the ideas of airships, and appreciate that this goes into good detail on the concepts. It does mention, but somewhat gloss over, just how big some of the issues facing them are though. I've always wondered just how badly weather could cause issues for an airship, especially the larger ones, and was disappointed they didn't go into it more.
The ballast issue is pretty interesting as well. Makes me wonder if you could "leave" some portion of the ship, essentially anchoring it to the ground to have it transported back later. This also falls under the issues mentioned where now moving cargo to remote area's is a problem.
Either way i'm happy to see some development of the tech, but i'm really skeptical of if they're going to find any mass use. It'd be nice if they could find some niche for the novelty and so they can get more research into the actual limitations, but I'm not going to be shocked if they all wind up going under.
Weather is one of the concerns I was hoping to be addressed, especially since they touched on the often overlooked part of ballast/weight issue.
Per Oceansky (the $200k vacation airship company), their airship tops out at 10,000ft. Rainclouds top out around 25,000ft, thunderclouds (and therefore lightning strikes) are 60,000ft up, so the airship is going to be below the weather it seems.
Airplane cargo generally flies above rain and goes around thunderclouds, ships can handle rain, wind, and waves. Airships over a choppy ocean seems like it wouldn't work well, can't get out of the way of a fast moving storm, and can't handle the weather.
I suppose this won't be a huge issue since I'm guessing there's not a big overlap of freight that doesn't need the overnight capabilities of airplanes, but does need to be somewhere faster than a ship, so the airship option of be-there-in-a-week can have the asterisk of good weather permitting and extend delivery to wait for the storm to pass.
Also, while there is the issue of ballast and that is perhaps insurmountable at present for things like emergency delivery of a pre-fabricated hospital in the middle of a disaster zone, in the case of regular cargo deliveries to a regular place, I'm curious if you could just create an anchoring system at the airship port that can handle the upward lifting while being unloaded, assuming the airframe could also handle being pulled down at those points. Airship arrives, gets anchored, starts compressors to liquify helium, unloads, stays in place until helium levels are back to the correct buoyancy level, release anchors, continue.
As I'm spitballing these ideas: This could even seemingly be done while anchored instead of trying to get a compressor large enough on the airship to handle compressing the helium while also being light enough to be economically feasible. Anchor airship, hook up hose to ship, start sucking the helium out of the ship to lower lifting power while unloading. Sure compressing it back to a liquid (from the searching I've done) takes too long, but with gaseous and liquid helium storage at the airship port, it seems like a no brainer to pull the helium out via a ground based system, compress it back to a liquid, and use it to refill the onboard liquid tanks that are used to create more lift as cargo is taken on. If they can vent it fast enough to resolve the ballast issue, then it's barely an extra step to "vent" it through a hose to a holding tank.
Airship 1 arrives, drops 60 tons of cargo, an equivalent amount of helium is removed to maintain buoyancy, already present liquid helium is pumped up to airship, airship leaves, ground based compressor/liquefier system take the "used" helium and runs to liquefy it for the next airship, rinse, repeat.
One (or even a dozen+) huge compressor/liquefier system(s) per port is cheaper than onboard compressor systems for hundreds/thousands of ships, and weight or how to power it is no longer an issue.
Of course the alternative is to load/unload at generally the same rate. Ships/trucks don't often sail to another destination empty (unless there's a container shortage which is a whole other thing) as a one way cargo trip is twice as costly as round trips full of cargo. So you work to solve the logistics issue of matching inbound and outbound cargo weights.