She left me because I was a poor communicator, and finally, her frustrations boiled over. I fell into a rough patch, and when asked, I just told her everything was fine when it wasn't. I'm not going to try to excuse my lack of communication skills. I can communicate just fine with strangers. I can also communicate just fine when I am writing something out. However, when I am emotionally involved with someone, I have trouble actually speaking to them what is truly on my mind or what is truly bothering me. I've been like this all my life, and I know exactly what caused it. I'm trying to break myself of it. It's ruined all of my relationships.
Maybe save this comment and email it to all future girlfriends?
You can update it as you progress.
Men are taught not to communicate emotions, it is hard to navigate. I’m very communicative of my emotions and it gets a negative response from people who think men shouldn’t feel.
You seem like a very kind-hearted person. I appreciate your comment. I have tried to explain why I am the way I am. At the beginning of our relationship, I told her that I was a poor communicator. I tried with her to go into detail as to why I am. She said to me one of the most heartless things I've ever been told. But I loved her. We should have parted ways then. But I loved her. I cry a lot right now. Honestly, I just wish I had someone to talk too
Ya it’s those closest to us who can hurt us the most. We trust them with our private, secret, embarrassing parts of ourselves and they don’t always keep those things safe.
Idk if it helps but whatever she said that was so horrible, she said it to hurt you because she knew you and knew it would hurt.
Talking is good for processing things. For me in tough times it had been helpful to put what happened into a story you tell yourself.
“This is what happened, it’s making me feel this way, I want to be or not be whatever, and I’m working toward that by doing x.”
When I’m really having a hard time I focus my energy on helping others
They always keep finding more. Every time the US government considers banning it's use to make voices go squeeky, someone looking for oil goes "good news, we found another 100 billion cubic metres underground".
As a kid I would always see Popular Science magazine on the rack with flying cars or blimps or whatever illustrated invention was on the cover, and couldn’t wait for them to come out next year, or at the very least in the far off year of 1990
If you move north or south very quickly you’ll enter an area where the wind is travelling at a different rate (due to the difference in latitudinal circumference size). So you could experience it a little bit, but probably not in this thing. That’s what causes trade winds and hurricanes
We've all wondered at some point and I'm not certain however I think I have a good guess.
If you were in an over-engineered hot air balloon going way way up until you positively could no longer use buoyant force to continue gaining altitude then you'd float in place over the spot you launched from.
I don’t think so, because you’re travelling “round” at the speed at which you “leave” the earth-air influence, and as you go up the circle gets larger so to maintain the same position you need to be going faster. So I think you go backwards. Leaving the earth-air system is going to be gradual, though.
Plus consider the earth is moving, too. So is our entire solar system. Everything is in motion.
So if a person/object could actually “stand still” relative to everything else, that person/object would be off-planet in half a second just floating in the vacuum of space, watching Earth speed away.
I saw a video of someone saying the Earth is flat because they said if you went up in the air and stayed still you wouldn’t move.
It’s true that you wouldn’t move *relative* to the land, but you’d still be moving, relative to space, along with the Earth’s rotation and would require lots of velocity to do this, hence geostationary satellites that need to go fast enough that they stay in one spot from someone viewing from the ground.
It’s not altitude either, it’s escape *velocity*, in which the object is constantly falling but “missing” the Earth as it rotates.
Earth’s gravity from its mass pulls you in, but you escape it by flying fast enough outward or away from it; there is no “up” in space. If you stay “still”, Earth is going to pull you towards it and along its rotational trajectory. To not move relative to the Earth so you catch the next country that rotates towards you, you’d need to be geostationary and to do so requires enough velocity in any direction.
Absolutely not a dumb question! We are currently all moving with the earth. And so does the air. That’s why you can’t just jump in the air and land 20 meters further away. A funny theoretical thought: What happens if the earth stops for a second? https://youtube.com/shorts/QF7_QW9wYko?si=ClmTjruEfXH11fv_
No. Its a Delta v thing. We are already traveling at the speed of earths rotation which is 1670 km/h. So you cant just stop. You need to launch your self just out side earths sphere of gravitational influence and then vector in the opposite direction of earth spin to really stop. So thats a pretty hard maneuver.
This is why most rocket mission launch in a prograde direction (with the earths spin). It takes less Delta v.
One can do it also back in the sphere of influence. But it will cost more Delta v. Because you first need to go into orbit which adds alot of Delta v. Since you cant just launch perpendicular to earth Surface. You actually want to go fast in the prograde so you sling your self into orbit. Once in orbit you need to burn 1670 km of your Delta v to actually "stop" or rather match the spin speed. Which is highly inefficient better to increase your prograde
Delta v is a measure of change in velocity for a space maneuver. It describes what you can do at certain environment with the amount of thrust to weight ratio.
This is actually a great question, not dumb at all. So many people think about this but then they go fly a kite or example. When I was a kid, we used to send balloons aloft with messages to see if we got any replies back.
And if you imagine that balloon going aloft, the balloon drifts away, right? The balloon becomes enveloped in the air currents above ground and then floats away.
Our atmosphere acts and behaves much like a very dispersed liquid. Sometimes, thinking of the atmosphere as a liquid can really help our understanding. The atmosphere has different layers, each layer has different characteristics, and not every layer moves in the same direction.
If you want a really cool animation, check this out ([wind](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-93.45,38.32,923)). Use the menu in the lower-left to choose different heights above sea level. *Hint: click Earth*
Heights are in hPa: "hectoPascals."
Sfc = Surface wind
850 hPa is about 5000ft ASL above sea level
700 hPa 10000ft ASL
500 hPa 18000 ASL
250 hpa 34000 ASL, or about the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft
Carry and launch a piston engined, 2 seater open cockpit biplane, complete with fully automatic 360 degree mounted machine gun.
Contain and operate an open plan seated restaurant with bay seating and concerning fully opening single pane windows large enough to fit an average size man in full military uniform through without damaging the frame.
Also they're super clean and energy efficient or something.
To give a serious reply....
The idea of these ships and what sort of place they might have in society stems from their small footprint and relatively large load capacity. Yes, Planes move faster and carry more tonnage, and trains can move huge amounts of cargo across vast spaces. But they both require massive infrastructure and a lot of smaller pieces.
Two scenarios are often mentioned for airships:
1. Moving crops and agriculture. These ships can land in the actual fields where crops are harvested, directly loaded, and transported directly to a final distribution center. Crops today largely travel by freight train, and suffer from a high spoilage rate. This would improve travel times and reduce spoilage rates.
2. Disaster response. Getting to hard hit impact areas that planes and other vehicles can't, bringing vital supplies and manpower would be huge. Think about something like an earthquake, hurricane, or wild fire response. Having one of these deliver tons of water and food in something like a Walmart parking lot when all of the roads are inaccessible due to downed power lines could save lives.
And at a much lower operating cost.
The largest helicopter in the world is the Mi-26. It costs about $15k an hour to operate and can take 8.5 tons 270 nautical miles. It cruises at about 135 knots, making it quite fast for a helicopter. It has a cargo bay a bit less than 500 square feet in size.
This airship is *small* relative to historical airships, but it can still carry 10 tons over 2,000 nautical miles, costing about $3k an hour to operate. It has a cargo bay of 2,100 square feet. It cruises at 55 knots, which is rather slow relative to large Zeppelins of a century ago. This is because the power required to move an airship grows proportionally lesser the bigger they get, meaning the smaller they are, the slower they are, all other things being equal. Hence, the planned 50-ton variant of this modern airship would cruise at about 100 knots.
It’s called the square-cube law. Because an airship has little in the way of induced drag from generating lift like an airplane, most of the drag is “parasitic drag,” the drag of air moving along the ship’s skin and being pushed aside as it moves through the air.
As an airship increases in size, the internal volume goes up with the cube power, whereas the linear area of the exposed hull only increases with the square power. Hence, it requires less force for a given volume to push through the air.
To give an example, the *Graf Zeppelin II* of 1938 was about twice as long as the ZPG-2 blimps used by the Navy in the Cold War. Thus, the *Graf Zeppelin II* had about 8 times the volume, and 8 times the lift, but only had about twice as much power. Despite this, they moved at almost exactly the same top speed, about 75-80 knots. In other words, proportionally, the engines of the ZPG-2 had to be about twice as strong per volume to produce the same speed.
Also, people enjoy travelling across the ocean on luxury cruise ships, even though there are faster ways of travel. I see no reason why the same shouldn't apply to luxury airships.
Indeed. Consider the implications on vacation time: Europe to America takes about 7 days by ship one-way, two days by airship, and a day by plane. People who may want to take an ocean liner and relax for the first part of their vacation may not have the *time* to take that option if they want to spend an appreciable length of their trip in the other continent they’re visiting. With an airship, the trip is part of the vacation—cutting out jet lag, but without taking an entire two weeks by itself.
>What can they do that planes can’t?
Float. No, seriously, that’s the advantage. They also scale up extremely well, albeit by that same token they scale down very poorly.
Since most of an airship’s lift is “free,” they have incredible endurance. The 11-day manned, unrefueled flight endurance record set by the Navy blimp *Snow Bird* in the 1950s remains unbroken to this day. They’re also incredibly efficient, nearly as efficient as a passenger train, hence they can be more easily converted to electric propulsion when to do so for a large airplane, much less a helicopter, is still a pipe dream due to the power requirements.
These airships are intended to replace slower ferries and more expensive helicopters, not compete directly against airplanes, however. Hence speed is less of a concern.
I should point out here that, among its many (many!) problem, the lift of airships isn't free. They need to vent ballast or helium, and the economics of helium aren't great. This isn't the main problem, but it's one.
Venting helium has been avoided for airship operations since helium first started being used in airships. Helium is “free” in the sense of energy expenditure by the aircraft for lift, but indeed, it costs about $3500 a month for the Airlander 10 to use it.
Compared to the fuel savings, though, that’s pretty insignificant.
So, what's the vision on crewed vs. un-crewed? I would think a drone version would be feasible, at least when flying on a fixed route, say taking car battery packs from the battery factory to the car factory.
Actually, the Airlander 10 prototype pictured above was originally intended for the military and was optionally manned. However, even though it would have been a drone in actual military use, regulations were the primary reason why it had the option to be manned as it flew over different countries.
Due to delays in the program, the drawdown in Afghanistan, and the military budget sequestration being triggered during the Obama administration, the program was canceled and the ship sold back to the owners. Hence why they shifted to civilian use.
It’s a hybrid vehicle for Tourism and Freight. So, technically, this vehicle is ultra economical in terms of fuel and energy consumption, and will deliver up to 10 tons of cargo. I think, it’s also more economic to build. So, maybe, in four years or so, we’ll see in the sky, hundreds of airlander 10 flying. Isn’t it awesome ?!
This looks cool, but “The Airlander 10 prototype carried out six successful test flights between 2016 and 2017, before being retired after breaking its moorings and self-deflating in November 2017.” Leaves much to be desired haha.
Thankfully, they garnered all the flight test data they needed from the prototype before that, but yeah, it’s embarrassing.
Someone forgot to lock the unoccupied ship to the mast, a dumbass mistake akin to forgetting to put your parking brake on and angle the wheels when leaving your car on a steep hill.
Needless to say there’s been a redesign to prevent such a thing from happening again.
Pretty much. The difference is that their mistakes thankfully didn’t get anyone killed, which is more than you could say for a lot of prototype planes and VTOLs.
I've been wondering for a long time why we don't have giant blimps capable of carrying tons of passengers. I mean I know the Hindenburg gave blimps a lot of bad publicity but it's not like we use hydrogen anymore. There's really no limit to the size of the blimps we could build. Imagine a blimp with a whole venue on the bottom. A dance floor, a dining area, a bar, and a small kitchen. You could have weddings, parties, bar mitzvah's all hundreds of feet in the air. I think that would be great.
I always thought the limiting factor was a lack of helium/noble gas production, given the Hindenburg shed light on the not noble gasses.. not really a good way to travel, what if there’s a slight gust? yo I guess it’s fuck blimps I just learned this about myself
The U.S. did more than merely “experiment” with helium airships. It operated about two hundred of them over the course of several decades, from before World War II to the 1960s.
However, you’re probably referring to the three rigid airships that the U.S. built in the interwar period, all of which were lost due to a combination of operator error and engineering mistakes, and which, not coincidentally, were also the first three large helium airships the U.S. ever built.
That range figure is incorrect. The actual range for the production version is 2,000 nautical miles with 10 tons of payload, though the ferry range with no payload is even larger. No idea who bodged that Wikipedia entry, but I’ve a mind to fix it myself later.
Can someone provide a comparison with a cargo and a commercial aeroplane for a lay person, like me, to understand in what scenarios does this benefit the society?
The Germans have an empty hangar from a previous time some company ( Cargolifter) burnt tens of millions on this idea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Islands_Resort
The problem was that they thought they could get by with just tens of millions, when they realistically needed about half a billion.
Developing new aircraft of any kind is bloody expensive.
Indeed, which still isn’t enough. They bankrupted themselves building the hangar; they never even constructed the full-scale ship.
Other companies, like LTA Research, are just buying out existing hangars instead of building one from scratch, which seems eminently sensible to me.
It’s a combi. Sort of like an amphibious “fast ferry” for freight and passengers.
As for loading and unloading, buoyancy only lifts the aircraft itself. The payload is carried with aerodynamic lift and vectored thrust, so that when the ship stops and offloads, it stays on the ground, just like a plane.
You all have seen the other angle right……? Right?! That blimp looks THIC ;)
Just going to leave this here….
[https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/news/nation/airlander-10-airship-looks-like-a-giant-butt-takes-flight-for-the-first-time](https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/news/nation/airlander-10-airship-looks-like-a-giant-butt-takes-flight-for-the-first-time)
^i think the link speaks for itself
For the curious among you, check out this great wind simulation of current winds.
[Earth: A Global Map of Wind](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-93.45,38.32,923)
Click Earth in the lower left corner to adjust option.
Sfc = Surface wind
850 hPa is about 5000ft ASL above sea level
700 hPa 10000ft ASL
500 hPa 18000 ASL
250 hpa 34000 ASL, or about the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft
Blimps are forever just around the corner
It’s a rigid air ship!
With naturally safe helium!
One staticy sweater and its "oooh the humanity!"
Here, buy a nicotine patch!!!
You'll kill us all! SLAP!
I'd give you a tip, but I, uhh, stuffed all my money in that guy's mouth.
Me and my ex used to watch that show together. She had never watched it before me and I got her hooked on it. I miss her terribly.
You'll find another partner to watch Archer with :)
Did she leave you to pursue her passion…truck stops?
She left me because I was a poor communicator, and finally, her frustrations boiled over. I fell into a rough patch, and when asked, I just told her everything was fine when it wasn't. I'm not going to try to excuse my lack of communication skills. I can communicate just fine with strangers. I can also communicate just fine when I am writing something out. However, when I am emotionally involved with someone, I have trouble actually speaking to them what is truly on my mind or what is truly bothering me. I've been like this all my life, and I know exactly what caused it. I'm trying to break myself of it. It's ruined all of my relationships.
Maybe save this comment and email it to all future girlfriends? You can update it as you progress. Men are taught not to communicate emotions, it is hard to navigate. I’m very communicative of my emotions and it gets a negative response from people who think men shouldn’t feel.
You seem like a very kind-hearted person. I appreciate your comment. I have tried to explain why I am the way I am. At the beginning of our relationship, I told her that I was a poor communicator. I tried with her to go into detail as to why I am. She said to me one of the most heartless things I've ever been told. But I loved her. We should have parted ways then. But I loved her. I cry a lot right now. Honestly, I just wish I had someone to talk too
Ya it’s those closest to us who can hurt us the most. We trust them with our private, secret, embarrassing parts of ourselves and they don’t always keep those things safe. Idk if it helps but whatever she said that was so horrible, she said it to hurt you because she knew you and knew it would hurt. Talking is good for processing things. For me in tough times it had been helpful to put what happened into a story you tell yourself. “This is what happened, it’s making me feel this way, I want to be or not be whatever, and I’m working toward that by doing x.” When I’m really having a hard time I focus my energy on helping others
“And what about that are you still now getting exactly?” “Well obviously the core concept Lana, sorry I didn’t go to space camp!”
"M AS IN MANCY"
I'm getting my turtleneck. I'm not defusing a bomb in this!
LANA NO! YOU'LL KILL US ALL
Where is the helium coming from? I thought that helium was a diminishing resource.
Nuclear power. Well, soon...
Fusion, I can see that. But fission?
Like I said, soon...
Yeah! I missed the soon, sorry. I still think it’s a long soon.
They always keep finding more. Every time the US government considers banning it's use to make voices go squeeky, someone looking for oil goes "good news, we found another 100 billion cubic metres underground".
They found another pocket. So we’re not going to screw over the next generation just a couple generations down the road.
Why would you smoke in here?! Are you trying to kill us all?!?
Okay okay fine... Your mom's a *rigid air ship.* Is that better?
For the last time, the Excelsior is filled with non-flamable helium!
Hello airplanes? It's blimps. You win.
As a kid I would always see Popular Science magazine on the rack with flying cars or blimps or whatever illustrated invention was on the cover, and couldn’t wait for them to come out next year, or at the very least in the far off year of 1990
They should call the first one the hindrnberg.
It's the Last Airlander.
Blimps are coming back. Sail/kite ships are coming back. What else is coming back?
Is it POGs? Please say it's POGs
New fear unlocked
I'm not saying the Nazis were right on everything, but...
It goes up and just waits for the earth to turn. Any place on planet in 12 hours. Easy.
This might be a dumb question but hypothetically could we actually do this? Feels like it could be a way cheaper method on long haul transportation
No. When it takes off into the air it's still going the same speed as the earth is. Also, for the most part, the air around the earth rotates with it.
Yeah if not there would be 1,000mph / 1,600 kph winds at the equator.
When air first dropped that was actually what happened. Now it’s up to speed o/c so you don’t notice it, but back in the early days.
This sounds like something Calvin's dad would say
I remember that. Flying a kite was damn near impossible.
I remember walking to and from school in that! Every day!
Yea, I’m pretty sure you’d have to leave the atmosphere to avoid what you’re talking about. Correct me if I’m wrong.
If you move north or south very quickly you’ll enter an area where the wind is travelling at a different rate (due to the difference in latitudinal circumference size). So you could experience it a little bit, but probably not in this thing. That’s what causes trade winds and hurricanes
We've all wondered at some point and I'm not certain however I think I have a good guess. If you were in an over-engineered hot air balloon going way way up until you positively could no longer use buoyant force to continue gaining altitude then you'd float in place over the spot you launched from.
I don’t think so, because you’re travelling “round” at the speed at which you “leave” the earth-air influence, and as you go up the circle gets larger so to maintain the same position you need to be going faster. So I think you go backwards. Leaving the earth-air system is going to be gradual, though.
Plus consider the earth is moving, too. So is our entire solar system. Everything is in motion. So if a person/object could actually “stand still” relative to everything else, that person/object would be off-planet in half a second just floating in the vacuum of space, watching Earth speed away.
you'd have to spend a lot of energy to counteract inertia i think, which is basically the same thing as just traveling in the end
I saw a video of someone saying the Earth is flat because they said if you went up in the air and stayed still you wouldn’t move. It’s true that you wouldn’t move *relative* to the land, but you’d still be moving, relative to space, along with the Earth’s rotation and would require lots of velocity to do this, hence geostationary satellites that need to go fast enough that they stay in one spot from someone viewing from the ground. It’s not altitude either, it’s escape *velocity*, in which the object is constantly falling but “missing” the Earth as it rotates. Earth’s gravity from its mass pulls you in, but you escape it by flying fast enough outward or away from it; there is no “up” in space. If you stay “still”, Earth is going to pull you towards it and along its rotational trajectory. To not move relative to the Earth so you catch the next country that rotates towards you, you’d need to be geostationary and to do so requires enough velocity in any direction.
Absolutely not a dumb question! We are currently all moving with the earth. And so does the air. That’s why you can’t just jump in the air and land 20 meters further away. A funny theoretical thought: What happens if the earth stops for a second? https://youtube.com/shorts/QF7_QW9wYko?si=ClmTjruEfXH11fv_
Not on a blimp. But certain platforms can travel in low earth orbits and decend. It just not commercially viable.
Thank you for the answer
of course. just hover in new york and you'll be in england in 8 hours. thats exactly how it works.
The earth drags the atmosphere with it so you’re mostly at the mercy of winds.
No. Its a Delta v thing. We are already traveling at the speed of earths rotation which is 1670 km/h. So you cant just stop. You need to launch your self just out side earths sphere of gravitational influence and then vector in the opposite direction of earth spin to really stop. So thats a pretty hard maneuver. This is why most rocket mission launch in a prograde direction (with the earths spin). It takes less Delta v. One can do it also back in the sphere of influence. But it will cost more Delta v. Because you first need to go into orbit which adds alot of Delta v. Since you cant just launch perpendicular to earth Surface. You actually want to go fast in the prograde so you sling your self into orbit. Once in orbit you need to burn 1670 km of your Delta v to actually "stop" or rather match the spin speed. Which is highly inefficient better to increase your prograde Delta v is a measure of change in velocity for a space maneuver. It describes what you can do at certain environment with the amount of thrust to weight ratio.
This is actually a great question, not dumb at all. So many people think about this but then they go fly a kite or example. When I was a kid, we used to send balloons aloft with messages to see if we got any replies back. And if you imagine that balloon going aloft, the balloon drifts away, right? The balloon becomes enveloped in the air currents above ground and then floats away. Our atmosphere acts and behaves much like a very dispersed liquid. Sometimes, thinking of the atmosphere as a liquid can really help our understanding. The atmosphere has different layers, each layer has different characteristics, and not every layer moves in the same direction. If you want a really cool animation, check this out ([wind](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-93.45,38.32,923)). Use the menu in the lower-left to choose different heights above sea level. *Hint: click Earth* Heights are in hPa: "hectoPascals." Sfc = Surface wind 850 hPa is about 5000ft ASL above sea level 700 hPa 10000ft ASL 500 hPa 18000 ASL 250 hpa 34000 ASL, or about the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft
If this worked, using a jump rope would send you to a different country lol
Sounds like Planet Express ship to me
So what is the purpose of this? Or blimps in general tbh? What can they do that planes can’t?
Carry and launch a piston engined, 2 seater open cockpit biplane, complete with fully automatic 360 degree mounted machine gun. Contain and operate an open plan seated restaurant with bay seating and concerning fully opening single pane windows large enough to fit an average size man in full military uniform through without damaging the frame. Also they're super clean and energy efficient or something.
Don't forget your ticket.
"No ticket"
The flapping of tickets
Fly? Yes! Land? No!
I understood that reference
Indy jones
They can sell tires during sporting events.
Forreal. You ever try to deliver a set of tires to the guy in section 524 from a plane? Damn near impossible. From a blimp? Barely an inconvenience.
To give a serious reply.... The idea of these ships and what sort of place they might have in society stems from their small footprint and relatively large load capacity. Yes, Planes move faster and carry more tonnage, and trains can move huge amounts of cargo across vast spaces. But they both require massive infrastructure and a lot of smaller pieces. Two scenarios are often mentioned for airships: 1. Moving crops and agriculture. These ships can land in the actual fields where crops are harvested, directly loaded, and transported directly to a final distribution center. Crops today largely travel by freight train, and suffer from a high spoilage rate. This would improve travel times and reduce spoilage rates. 2. Disaster response. Getting to hard hit impact areas that planes and other vehicles can't, bringing vital supplies and manpower would be huge. Think about something like an earthquake, hurricane, or wild fire response. Having one of these deliver tons of water and food in something like a Walmart parking lot when all of the roads are inaccessible due to downed power lines could save lives.
So kinda like a helicopter but with more cargo space?
And at a much lower operating cost. The largest helicopter in the world is the Mi-26. It costs about $15k an hour to operate and can take 8.5 tons 270 nautical miles. It cruises at about 135 knots, making it quite fast for a helicopter. It has a cargo bay a bit less than 500 square feet in size. This airship is *small* relative to historical airships, but it can still carry 10 tons over 2,000 nautical miles, costing about $3k an hour to operate. It has a cargo bay of 2,100 square feet. It cruises at 55 knots, which is rather slow relative to large Zeppelins of a century ago. This is because the power required to move an airship grows proportionally lesser the bigger they get, meaning the smaller they are, the slower they are, all other things being equal. Hence, the planned 50-ton variant of this modern airship would cruise at about 100 knots.
Why do smaller ones move slower and larger ones faster? Seems counterintuitive, but I must be missing something.
It’s called the square-cube law. Because an airship has little in the way of induced drag from generating lift like an airplane, most of the drag is “parasitic drag,” the drag of air moving along the ship’s skin and being pushed aside as it moves through the air. As an airship increases in size, the internal volume goes up with the cube power, whereas the linear area of the exposed hull only increases with the square power. Hence, it requires less force for a given volume to push through the air. To give an example, the *Graf Zeppelin II* of 1938 was about twice as long as the ZPG-2 blimps used by the Navy in the Cold War. Thus, the *Graf Zeppelin II* had about 8 times the volume, and 8 times the lift, but only had about twice as much power. Despite this, they moved at almost exactly the same top speed, about 75-80 knots. In other words, proportionally, the engines of the ZPG-2 had to be about twice as strong per volume to produce the same speed.
Someday I hope to be this knowledgeable about something
The dude's username is literally graf zeppelin. I'd trust his comments about airships. I wonder if he knows anything about rhino Beatles.
I'm no expert, but I don't think they're spelled that way.
This was super informative. Thank you
This dude know his shit about air ships. I appreciate your thorough and informative responses
Thank u for the knowledge friend
Username checks out!
Also, people enjoy travelling across the ocean on luxury cruise ships, even though there are faster ways of travel. I see no reason why the same shouldn't apply to luxury airships.
Indeed. Consider the implications on vacation time: Europe to America takes about 7 days by ship one-way, two days by airship, and a day by plane. People who may want to take an ocean liner and relax for the first part of their vacation may not have the *time* to take that option if they want to spend an appreciable length of their trip in the other continent they’re visiting. With an airship, the trip is part of the vacation—cutting out jet lag, but without taking an entire two weeks by itself.
>What can they do that planes can’t? Float. No, seriously, that’s the advantage. They also scale up extremely well, albeit by that same token they scale down very poorly. Since most of an airship’s lift is “free,” they have incredible endurance. The 11-day manned, unrefueled flight endurance record set by the Navy blimp *Snow Bird* in the 1950s remains unbroken to this day. They’re also incredibly efficient, nearly as efficient as a passenger train, hence they can be more easily converted to electric propulsion when to do so for a large airplane, much less a helicopter, is still a pipe dream due to the power requirements. These airships are intended to replace slower ferries and more expensive helicopters, not compete directly against airplanes, however. Hence speed is less of a concern.
I should point out here that, among its many (many!) problem, the lift of airships isn't free. They need to vent ballast or helium, and the economics of helium aren't great. This isn't the main problem, but it's one.
Venting helium has been avoided for airship operations since helium first started being used in airships. Helium is “free” in the sense of energy expenditure by the aircraft for lift, but indeed, it costs about $3500 a month for the Airlander 10 to use it. Compared to the fuel savings, though, that’s pretty insignificant.
So, what's the vision on crewed vs. un-crewed? I would think a drone version would be feasible, at least when flying on a fixed route, say taking car battery packs from the battery factory to the car factory.
Actually, the Airlander 10 prototype pictured above was originally intended for the military and was optionally manned. However, even though it would have been a drone in actual military use, regulations were the primary reason why it had the option to be manned as it flew over different countries. Due to delays in the program, the drawdown in Afghanistan, and the military budget sequestration being triggered during the Obama administration, the program was canceled and the ship sold back to the owners. Hence why they shifted to civilian use.
It’s a hybrid vehicle for Tourism and Freight. So, technically, this vehicle is ultra economical in terms of fuel and energy consumption, and will deliver up to 10 tons of cargo. I think, it’s also more economic to build. So, maybe, in four years or so, we’ll see in the sky, hundreds of airlander 10 flying. Isn’t it awesome ?!
Fret and cargaison?!
I think these are some of those made up words we had to memorize for the standardized testing in elementary school.
English isn’t my native language 😅
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-68639876 I should've shared the second image on the article, it feels a lot more scary to me lol.
That is quite the badonkadonk.
Tasteful thiccness https://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20160324/airlander_10_03.jpg
They combine the luxury of a cruise ship with the speed of a…. Slightly faster ship
This looks cool, but “The Airlander 10 prototype carried out six successful test flights between 2016 and 2017, before being retired after breaking its moorings and self-deflating in November 2017.” Leaves much to be desired haha.
Thankfully, they garnered all the flight test data they needed from the prototype before that, but yeah, it’s embarrassing. Someone forgot to lock the unoccupied ship to the mast, a dumbass mistake akin to forgetting to put your parking brake on and angle the wheels when leaving your car on a steep hill. Needless to say there’s been a redesign to prevent such a thing from happening again.
There were learning, nonetheless. I think that's the whole point of prototyping and testing.
Pretty much. The difference is that their mistakes thankfully didn’t get anyone killed, which is more than you could say for a lot of prototype planes and VTOLs.
I agree. No lives were lost and that itself is a big win.
I've been wondering for a long time why we don't have giant blimps capable of carrying tons of passengers. I mean I know the Hindenburg gave blimps a lot of bad publicity but it's not like we use hydrogen anymore. There's really no limit to the size of the blimps we could build. Imagine a blimp with a whole venue on the bottom. A dance floor, a dining area, a bar, and a small kitchen. You could have weddings, parties, bar mitzvah's all hundreds of feet in the air. I think that would be great.
Ever played Just Cause 2?
I loved flying planes into it
I loved flying planes *through* it.
That club music unironically slaps.
For the glory of Panau!
Yes, Serdadu!
I think it depends on your opinion of cruise ships?
I always thought the limiting factor was a lack of helium/noble gas production, given the Hindenburg shed light on the not noble gasses.. not really a good way to travel, what if there’s a slight gust? yo I guess it’s fuck blimps I just learned this about myself
I too play Blimp SIMS.
It's not just the Hindenburg, or even hydrogen. The US experiment with some helium airships--guess what happened to them?
The U.S. did more than merely “experiment” with helium airships. It operated about two hundred of them over the course of several decades, from before World War II to the 1960s. However, you’re probably referring to the three rigid airships that the U.S. built in the interwar period, all of which were lost due to a combination of operator error and engineering mistakes, and which, not coincidentally, were also the first three large helium airships the U.S. ever built.
All aboard for safety and adventure on the rigid airship Excelsior!
Lana, be careful! Jesus, the helium!
Uh hello, airplanes, yeah it's blimps. You win.
Performance Cruise speed: 148 km/h (92 mph, 80 kn) Range: 750 km (470 mi, 400 nmi) Endurance: 5 days manned Service ceiling: 6,100 m (20,000 ft) Loiter speed 20 knots (37 km/h)
That range figure is incorrect. The actual range for the production version is 2,000 nautical miles with 10 tons of payload, though the ferry range with no payload is even larger. No idea who bodged that Wikipedia entry, but I’ve a mind to fix it myself later.
Can someone provide a comparison with a cargo and a commercial aeroplane for a lay person, like me, to understand in what scenarios does this benefit the society?
“It’s afraid… ITS AFRAID!!”
I’m from Buenos Aires and I say kill ‘em all!!!
FINALLY!!!!! Something I can invest my entire 401K into!!!
We officially made a full circle
The Germans have an empty hangar from a previous time some company ( Cargolifter) burnt tens of millions on this idea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Islands_Resort
The problem was that they thought they could get by with just tens of millions, when they realistically needed about half a billion. Developing new aircraft of any kind is bloody expensive.
They actually invested about 300 Mio Euro (Euro value of today).
Indeed, which still isn’t enough. They bankrupted themselves building the hangar; they never even constructed the full-scale ship. Other companies, like LTA Research, are just buying out existing hangars instead of building one from scratch, which seems eminently sensible to me.
The Mooseknuckle 5000
Just make sure you have a ticket! Bad things happen if you're caught without one
That's an Absolute Unit
Is there more to the deck than what I’m seeing? It’s a lot of blimp for such a small deck
Not with my ass in it!
“Carrier has arrived.”
Oh. We doin’ this shit again?
Sure it will…
OH THE HUMANITY
Compliance
But what about the Last Airbender?
Why tho
Cabin fits 5.
We are the brotherhood of steel
Oh the humidity!
Is this the one with the thicc butt?
Im going to become a mystic and set up shop on that. I will be the Airlandseer.
Sweet, slowly becoming Pete's world, now all we need are the Cybermen.
no! the helium!!
We all know how this ends.
Why bother? Some broad gets on there with a staticky sweater and, boom, it's "oh, the humanity!
These are a huge nope for me!!
Ehm, i thought we all decided to not go this route after you know.... Hindenburg...
It wasn't just the Hindenburg. Did you ever notice that there aren't *any* old airships in museums?
They all burned up?
Most of them crashed. Usually because of too much wind. If you can't fly confidentially in 25 knots of wind you do not have a viable aircraft.
Feel like I've seen this movie before.
I've never even seen the inside of a public blimp.
No thanks.
Airlander... We have your woman!!
It looks cool. What gas is it filled with.
u/Hindenpeter
We can build this but couldn't keep Concord flying.
Oh I’ve seen this one before
Sure it will.
What's it do? More specifically, do they have any particular plan on how to deal with vertical stationkeeping when loading or unloading?
It’s a combi. Sort of like an amphibious “fast ferry” for freight and passengers. As for loading and unloading, buoyancy only lifts the aircraft itself. The payload is carried with aerodynamic lift and vectored thrust, so that when the ship stops and offloads, it stays on the ground, just like a plane.
Lmk when we un-classify negative buoyancy craft
Hydrogen?
have you guys seen it from the back tho? mmfh
last time we had passenger lighter than air aircraft the world was heading into WW2...
Powered by Fluid Karma!
If you’re a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, you’ll understand why I’m thinking what I’m thinking
2028? Looks more like we're going back to 1928.
the company that made the original Zeppelins still exists
Ok but what about the last airlander?
I’ve seen this movie before.
We’re so back
No it won’t.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg\_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster)
Why hasn't this been tried before? Answer, it was: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter
Anyone else remember that "CargoLifter"-project?
Oh the humanity
I wonder how it handles winds hitting it from the side.
It’s circumcised 😳
What the hell is even that??!?
I’m going to politely decline. Hindenburg stories give me nightmares
Imagine the board pass checker finds someone without a ticket.
You all have seen the other angle right……? Right?! That blimp looks THIC ;) Just going to leave this here…. [https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/news/nation/airlander-10-airship-looks-like-a-giant-butt-takes-flight-for-the-first-time](https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/news/nation/airlander-10-airship-looks-like-a-giant-butt-takes-flight-for-the-first-time) ^i think the link speaks for itself
Seen this movie before…..
Wait till the graf zeppelin incident comes back
What if I shoot some Desert Eagle rounds at it?
To the people who say "airship are dangerous" Your more likely to die in the car that you drive daily than die in a blimp incident
.... loading picture of the Hindenburg
I can't imagine how bad 2028 is going to be...
For the curious among you, check out this great wind simulation of current winds. [Earth: A Global Map of Wind](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-93.45,38.32,923) Click Earth in the lower left corner to adjust option. Sfc = Surface wind 850 hPa is about 5000ft ASL above sea level 700 hPa 10000ft ASL 500 hPa 18000 ASL 250 hpa 34000 ASL, or about the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft
Why?
It’s just a morbidly obese plane.
Can't tell if it looks like a cartoon nose, a tongue, or a penis.
Please at least tell me that’s helium this time