The airship cometh again...

[MoreAviation]

No not the pigeon fancier at TOP but cargo carrying, helium filled, partially flying bodied, nonrigid aircraft capable of flying potentially hundreds of tonnes of freight point to point at over 100 hundred miles an hour across all terrains to simply prepared fields with cargo handling facilities.. Sounds like fantasy, well think again as there are a number of companies and state militaries that are in the advanced stages of producing or acquiring such aircraft and the potential of the renewed airship design has never been higher and even a UK company has seen fit to go with the new wave......

Read all about it here...

New Generation of Airships

If the winner of the airship race is simply the craft that flies first, grandly and for the public, then it will likely be the Airlander 10, which is being built in Bedford, England, by Hybrid Air Vehicles. The Airlander, a two-lobe, nonrigid ship, three hundred and two feet long (about fifty feet longer than a Boeing 747), is the world’s largest aircraft of any kind, and is designed to lift twenty tons of cargo and fly for days. Its maiden flight is set for late March.

“You want to put a hospital into Africa?” Bruce Dickinson, the company’s lead investor, said to me. “You put the whole hospital in the inside of this—whoosh. Start the generator. ‘Here’s your hospital, buddy!’ Job done. You know? You can just plunk the vehicle straight down on the farm, load it with fifty tons of green beans or whatever, and twenty-four hours later you land right next door to the processing plant. It’s a global conveyor belt. And water! With these vehicles, you could drop off a twenty-ton slab of water that is clean, drinkable, to an African village. It’s astonishing what you can do that you just can’t do with anything else.

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMdIijWIE_A[/bbvideo]

[Ex-Ascot]

This is great news I have been following progress with interest. My thesis for my MBA was, 'The Commercial application of Airships'. Indeed, I was invited to present part of it to the Royal Aeronautical Society. Met some very interesting people there.

I opted for slides instead of power point - too much room for error. Mrs Ex-Ascot operated the OHP. Think the chaps were more interested in the short skirt suspenders and black stockings than what I had to say.

As an eco-tourism consultant I would like to see one over here for airborne luxury safaris. Small number of people, live on board for a few days. Zero impact on the environment and a great viewing platform.

[Alisoncc]

Does this mean there is still hope for the big hangar at RAF Cardington. Must be all of fifty seven years since I got to wander around that place.

Alison
PS.

My thesis for my MBA was, 'The Commercial application of Airships'.

Might be interested Ex-A. Mine was "Transfer pricing within the context of currency controls". Wits GBS.
In an African context. How to run a profitable business when you can't get your money out of a country.

[Ex-Ascot]

Alison, please tell us. As you know we run a business in Greece but can't get dosh out. Same here we can only get a limited amount out. Not a problem here as we deal through our UK account.

To get back to the thread. I have limited research access here. How have they got around the problem of dropping off a load and the aircraft not whizzing up to the heavens?

[MoreAviation]

To get back to the thread. I have limited research access here. How have they got around the problem of dropping off a load and the aircraft not whizzing up to the heavens?

One method that is being trialled takes its cue from the submarine displacement principle and allows for the helium to be compressed and replaced with oxygen as the cargo is unloaded. This has disadvantages in that the compression process is power hungry and the equipment is heavy (thus reducing the load carrying capacity of the airship).

The biggest challenge in using lighter-than-air technology to lift hundreds of tons of cargo is not with the lifting itself—the larger the envelope of gas, the more you can lift—but with what occurs after you let the stuff go. “When I drop the cargo, what happens to the airship?” Pasternak said. “It’s flying to the moon.” An airship must take on ballast to compensate for the lost weight of the unloaded cargo, or a ground crew must hold it down with ropes.

Pasternak has thought about this problem for decades, studying submarine technology and the swim bladders of bluefish. Eventually, he invented a system he called COSH, for “control of static heaviness,” based on an obvious principle: a helium-filled airship goes up, so an airship filled with air (which is heavier than helium) should go down. The trick is to swap out one gas for the other on command. With COSH, helium is compressed and sent to storage tanks inside the airship. To ascend, the pilot lets the helium fill the main chamber; to descend, the helium is compressed and sent back into the tanks, enabling the chamber to fill with air.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/ ... ps-is-born

[Ex-Ascot]

Thanks MA. Interesting article. I was corresponding with the late Roger Munk. Yes, at the time we were looking to balance up with water or sand.

The other problem is wind speeds on landing, take off or even docked. This may limit their operations. Especially in remote locations where a tempoary docking rig has to be established before arrival. Let us also not lose sight of the fact that they talk about operating into remote locations but a ground crew has to be pre-positioned. The result of my research was unfortunately that this mode of transport is very limited.

[MoreAviation]

As an eco-tourism consultant I would like to see one over here for airborne luxury safaris. Small number of people, live on board for a few days. Zero impact on the environment and a great viewing platform.

A bloody good idea and one that would find seed funding more easily these days if the initial infrastructure could be identified or built out there in Botswana or even South Africa.

[MoreAviation]

Little remarked by the press or the denizens of this fine forum, I am happy to relate that Cardington became, once again, the scene of airship action as the beautiful warm, clear weather earlier this week became the cue for flying the Airlander

Above a field in rural Bedfordshire, a shiny, futuristic craft the size of a football pitch ascends majestically into the evening sky, and gawping onlookers crane their necks for a better view. This could be the trailer for the latest Independence Day film, but it is the maiden flight of the Airlander 10, a helium-filled craft aiming to kickstart a new age of the airship.

It has been a while coming – the first flight had been delayed several times and Wednesday’s takeoff was held up for hours – but once in the air, showing off its curves as it banks and soars for its audience, the Airlander is quite a spectacle.

At 92m long and 43.5m wide, this is the world’s largest aircraft, dwarfing heavyweights such as the Airbus A380 “superjumbo”. It is a bit cheaper, too, with a catalogue price of £25m, compared with $375m (£287m) for an A380.

It can also carry a 10-tonne payload, comparable with military transport helicopters such as the Boeing CH-47 Chinook, the US Air Force’s workhorse of choice.

Dawning of the day of lighter than airius

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlTnSkgqXxc[/bbvideo]

MA

[A Lutra Continua]

Thanks MA. Interesting article. I was corresponding with the late Roger Munk. Yes, at the time we were looking to balance up with water or sand.

The other problem is wind speeds on landing, take off or even docked. This may limit their operations. Especially in remote locations where a tempoary docking rig has to be established before arrival. Let us also not lose sight of the fact that they talk about operating into remote locations but a ground crew has to be pre-positioned. The result of my research was unfortunately that this mode of transport is very limited.

African thunderstorms will make life interesting. I reckon the sound of the crew's arses slamming shut will drown out the peals of thunder.

[MoreAviation]

The Airlander has been damaged during a test flight this morning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-be ... s-37174417

Although looking at this video it appears that the aircraft crashed into the ground...

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg-RPTiVa_Q[/bbvideo]

Weather conditions today are well nigh perfect for flying the beast, CAVOK with winds variable at 5 knots... it appears that on approach to the airfield a line trailing from the airship may have snagged a telegraph pole that destabilised the descent resulting in the cockpit impacting with the ground.

Ex-Ascot's comments about landing the beast (see above) seem remarkably prescient.

MA

[Ex-Ascot]

This is indeed a huge setback. Very sad. They have been flying the sim for 5 years. Obviously the sim didn't have telegraph poles.

My research resulting in the paper that, on request, I presented to the Royal Aeronautical Society was essentially the commercial and business side of the operations not handling. However at the time I was working with a basic airship (Heavy Lift) not a hybrid as we see here. A basic airship is very limited on take off and landing in windy situations. The company claims that this aircraft can land and take off in up to 80 kts. I find this very difficult to belive. Imagine the effect of that on the huge thing with relatively small power units.

[MoreAviation]

HAV are saying that the damage was incurred as a result of a heavy landing which is self evident (and not as some news outlets have claimed an interaction between the craft and a telegraph pole). So the question remains, was this a mishandled approach by either the pilot, the ground crew or both? As to the claimed 80 kt wind take off and landing limit, I find that, like Ex-Ascot, highly unlikely. It seems that flying this beast is a an art that will need a lot more flight testing and work to understand and to perfect.

MA

[500N]

(and not as some news outlets have claimed an interaction between the craft and a telegraph pole).
MA

Well, I was trying to see WTF a telegraph pole was in that video and then I read this on the BBC page.

"The company has denied claims from a witness that a line hanging down from the vehicle hit a telegraph pole
about two fields away from its landing."

Two fields away

[Woody]

A spokesman said: "The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed."

Not an expert, but isn't landing quite important

[500N]

The weather looked pretty benign in the video.

Will be interesting to hear what the reason was.

[MoreAviation]

Two incidents it seems... could have been bad! Thank goodness for helium.

A mooring line attached to Airlander 10 hit power lines before the airship crashed, its manufacturer, Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), has said.
Airlander 10, which is part plane, part airship and the length of a football pitch, was damaged on Wednesday after nosediving at Cardington airfield in Bedfordshire during its second test flight.

UK Power Networks, the firm responsible for maintaining power lines in the area, said five of its customers lost power at about 12.45pm after the world’s largest airship came into contact with high-voltage cables. Supplies were not restored until 2pm.

A statement from HAV said: “Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd can confirm a mooring line attached to the Airlander did contact a power line outside the airfield.
“No damage was caused to the aircraft and this did not contribute to the heavy landing.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... fore-crash

MA

[500N]

Any reason the mooring lines couldn't be on a retractable spool ?

Even if not the whole line, at least to stop it being well below the aircraft ?

[Boac]

but isn't landing quite important

- not, when like Slasher, you can stay up for hours.............

[Boac]

Reports coming in of another 'mishap' with the flying bum. Another 'nose-dive' when a rear mooring rope reportedly came loose.

Aye - ye woodknee get me up in one of dose.

Reliable source http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest- ... dfordshire

[Boac]

According to the company it was a 'normal' arrival. PLEASE do not make me go in the cockpit for one of those...............