Is the world really better off without hydrogen airships?

In summary: East Coast.) The journey would be faster, but not quite as fast as the hypothetical trip (assuming you have the resources), as the airship would have to make a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the way.In summary, the dream of using airships to travel long distances has been largely replaced by more efficient and safer means of travel.
  • #1
Evanish
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An airship is any powered, steerable aircraft that it is inflated with a gas that is lighter than air. Hydrogen isn't the only gas usable for airships, but it is the only gas that really makes sense. That is because it has good lift to volume, is relatively inexpensive and is common as dirt. Sure there is the odd helium blimp trying to sell us tires, but that is a novelty more than a useful technology. For all practical purposes the death of hydrogen airships has been the death of any major use of airships at all.

Once people had great expectations of airships.
51hDnFlWctL._SY450_.jpg

Now when most people think about airships they tend to think of this.
hindenburg.jpg

Basically the dream is dead, and most people feel that it is a good thing. As someone who enjoys questioning common conventions like this I've spent some time thing about weather or not I think it really is a good thing. In the end I'm not sure it is. That is because hydrogen makes for energy efficient air travel. For most aircraft keeping them in the air requires constant energy, but airships don't need that thus making them more efficient. More efficient air travel seems like a really big boon to me.

Now I'm sure that there are people right now thinking that the danger hydrogen airships posses renders all other arguments for them a moot point, but I have a few counter argument in regards to this.

1. Things are much different now then when the Hindenburg was a thing. People of the modern world have much better abilities engineer things to be safe, and effective.

2. People don't need to be exposed to the danger. Vehicles can be automated now, and the airships can be used to transport things other than people. Just think of all that shipping taking place over the oceans. The hydrogen airships could be automated to do that as well. The cost of the hydrogen needed to lift a ton isn't very high, plus there is the added bonus that airships won't need to rely on ports and the ocean can't catch fire if there is an accident. If hydrogen airships prove safe, and people become more accept of them, maybe later automated hydrogen airships could be used inland and/or even to deliver packages direct to peoples houses saving the huge amounts of fuel used by delivery trucks.

Another thing to consider is the possibility of solar powered airships. There is a great deal of space that on airships that could be covered by solar panels, and hydrogen airships won't have the same issues with weight that traditional aircraft have.

3. Danger is relative. People often talk about danger of one thing without thinking of the bigger picture. Any major endeavor done by people involves some danger, but to be fair you have to compare that to the costs, and dangers, of the alternatives. For example what is the danger to the world of continue to burn huge amount of fossil fuels?

At any rate those are my thoughts on the topic at this time. I'd like to read other people's thoughts on the matter.
 

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  • #2
By all means, put your money where your mouth is and start a company to build hydrogen filled air ships. Please let us know how it turns out.
 
  • #3
Dr.D said:
By all means, put your money where your mouth is and start a company to build hydrogen filled air ships. Please let us know how it turns out.
Lol, I have no money (not even a $20 right now) so no can do. At any rate thanks for sharing your thoughts.
 
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  • #4
I suppose a leisurely trip has its advantages. Let's see, air distance between your home town, San Jose, CA, and New York City is 2550 miles.

Google reports an airline flight time of 5 hours 30 min.

That tire company airship has a top airspeed of 75mph (Google again). Running at wide open throttle, and due to tail winds, you would spend a bit under 34 hours in the air, plus maybe a few stops for refueling. The return trip would be a few hours longer because of the head wind. That's assuming you can avoid bad weather in both directions. About half of a one week vacation would be spent looking down on the geography, which can be interesting the first few times.

Still, that is about twice as fast as a car trip with two or three drivers to trade off driving, sleeping and making-the-sandwiches duties.

If I recall correctly, bringing the newly built airship from the East coast (Florida?) to Long Beach, California was a four or five day trip. (To Long Beach Airport because the upgrading at the home base in Carson, CA was not yet ready.)

Cheers,
Tom
 
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  • #5
Tom.G said:
I suppose a leisurely trip has its advantages. Let's see, air distance between your home town, San Jose, CA, and New York City is 2550 miles.

Google reports an airline flight time of 5 hours 30 min.

That tire company airship has a top airspeed of 75mph (Google again). Running at wide open throttle, and due to tail winds, you would spend a bit under 34 hours in the air, plus maybe a few stops for refueling. The return trip would be a few hours longer because of the head wind. That's assuming you can avoid bad weather in both directions. About half of a one week vacation would be spent looking down on the geography, which can be interesting the first few times.

Still, that is about twice as fast as a car trip with two or three drivers to trade off driving, sleeping and making-the-sandwiches duties.

If I recall correctly, bringing the newly built airship from the East coast (Florida?) to Long Beach, California was a four or five day trip. (To Long Beach Airport because the upgrading at the home base in Carson, CA was not yet ready.)

Cheers,
Tom
That sounds like a lot of fun. I wonder if it would be legal. At any rate I'm afraid it's outside my abilities at the moment.
 
  • #6
Evanish said:
Basically the dream is dead, and most people feel that it is a good thing. As someone who enjoys questioning common conventions like this I've spent some time thing about weather or not I think it really is a good thing. In the end I'm not sure it is. That is because hydrogen makes for energy efficient air travel. For most aircraft keeping them in the air requires constant energy, but airships don't need that thus making them more efficient. More efficient air travel seems like a really big boon to me.
Do you have any numbers to back-up that airships can be more energy or cost efficient than airplanes (or trains?).

Beyond the cost/fuel efficiency, can you think of any "pros" for airships in practical terms? They seem slow, cumbersome/overly large, weather dependent, space inefficient, inflexible, dangerous, etc. to me.

I don't think airships went out of favor because of the Hindenburg, I think they went out of favor because airplanes rendered them obsolete.
 
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  • #7
Dreaming of airships is popular. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Modern_airships
But in reality, when all things are considered the dreams are usually dropped.

I would love the idea of crossing the continent at an altitude about 1000 feet AGL, leisurely looking out the windows. I would consider it more entertainment than transportation. But only on warm sunny days when everything is green. Bring in bad weather, winter, thunderstorms, trees without leaves, or the rising stink of fresh manure on the farmlands, and my interest vanishes.
 
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  • #8
russ_watters said:
Do you have any numbers to back-up that airships can be more energy or cost efficient than airplanes (or trains?).
I don't know if they would be more cost effective. I guess that would depend a lot on how they where made, and any regulation involved.

Edit: I've gotten some more information through google so I'd like to change my answer.

As for energy efficiency...
Transport Airships
In 2002, Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) Centre for Aviation Transport and the Environment carried out a feasibility study of the potential environmental and operational benefits of airships for freight conveyance. The study concluded that using airships to carry freight has the potential to significantly reduce the fuel consumed per FTK. In addition to the associated reduction in actual emissions, the lower cruise altitude of airships confers substantial climate change benefits, with greenhouse gas emissions reduced by over 80% [15].
http://www.isopolar.com/sustainable-transportation-airships-versus-jet-airplanes/

So about 5 times more efficient then conventional aircraft. Next is some information comparing different forms of transport.

Even so, there’s a reason all this stuff travels by boat. Aside from being the cheapest mode, it’s also the most carbon-efficient method of shipping: A big ship will emit about 0.4 ounces of carbon dioxide to transport 2 tons of cargo 1 mile. That’s roughly half as much as a train, one-fifth as much as a truck and nearly a fiftieth of what an airplane would emit to accomplish the same task.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/future-freight-more-shipping-less-emissions

Combing the two sources you can get that big ship produce roughly half as much as trains, one-fifth as much as a truck, one-tenth as much as an airship (hypothetically) and nearly a fiftieth of what an airplane would emit to accomplish the same task. It all kind of ruins my argument for airship freight, but what can you do. Perhaps there's room for airship improvement?

Below is my answer before the edit:
I don't know if they would be more cost effective. I guess that would depend a lot on how they where made, and any regulation involved. As for the energy efficiency idea, I base that on them not needing to expend energy to generate lift. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most air craft need to expend energy just to hover in place, while lighter then air vehicles don't need this. Here is a quote from another thread on the topic.

The energy used by the helicopter is the force times the distance that the air moves.

10000 toy helicopters keep their 5000 kg mass suspended in the air more effectively than 1 real helicopter that has a mass of 5000 kg. Air moves faster - less efficient, air moves slower - more efficient.
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/energy-required-to-keep-a-mass-in-the-air.638518/

So instead of needing energy to provide lift, and counter drag, you'd only have to deal with drag. Airships would have a lot more surface area then normal aircraft which would increase drag, but airships would likely be going much slower reducing drag (As drag increases exponentially with speed).

Because drag I can't be completely sure it's be more energy efficient per mass carried then normal aircraft, but I think it's a reasonable guess. I suppose I should have tried to work out the math before posting. As for comparing them to trains or ships I'm even less sure. I'm guessing with ships water has a lot more drag then air, but the airship would have a lot more surface area per mass of cargo. I'm not sure how much friction, and drag, trains have to deal with. I'll try to see if I can work out the math of it later.

Next question...

russ_watters said:
Beyond the cost/fuel efficiency, can you think of any "pros" for airships in practical terms? They seem slow, cumbersome/overly large, weather dependent, space inefficient, inflexible, dangerous, etc. to me.
Edit: Changes made for new ideas.
In comparison to land transport you wouldn't have to spend as much building or maintaining roads, bridges and tracks.

For small drone deliveries you wouldn't have to have to transport a big massive vehicle to deliver one little package. There are some problems with Amazon's delivery drone idea involving efficiency which I think maybe could be solved with hydrogen airships. Not likely to be acceptable to people though.
https://www.wired.com/story/would-delivery-drones-be-all-that-efficient/

I like they idea of maybe powering them with solar which would make their bulkiness serve a purpose, but I'm not sure how practical that is.

At any rate it's not perfect, but it seems like it might have some applications. Maybe worth looking into for someone who has the ability to judge the idea more accurately then me.

russ_watters said:
I don't think airships went out of favor because of the Hindenburg, I think they went out of favor because airplanes rendered them obsolete.
Maybe (edit: probably?) hydrogen airships in the modern age is stupid, maybe they really do deserve their death but I still find it fun to think about. Thanks for your interesting reply.
 
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  • #9
anorlunda said:
Dreaming of airships is popular. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Modern_airships
But in reality, when all things are considered the dreams are usually dropped.

I would love the idea of crossing the continent at an altitude about 1000 feet AGL, leisurely looking out the windows. I would consider it more entertainment than transportation. But only on warm sunny days when everything is green. Bring in bad weather, winter, thunderstorms, trees without leaves, or the rising stink of fresh manure on the farmlands, and my interest vanishes.
Good point, I didn't really consider the whether that much. That's a pretty big thorn in the idea side.
 
  • #10
There is no doubt
 
  • #11
russ_watters said:
I don't think airships went out of favor because of the Hindenburg, I think they went out of favor because airplanes rendered them obsolete.

And cars.

It's 12 hours by car and 2 hours by plane between Chicago and DC. An airship looks like it can do this in 11 hours. All the inconvenience of air travel combined with the speed of a car.
 
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  • #12
Given what I read in the following article I think that airships could only be viable for local air transport specifically for tourists, although I am know wondering why it would need to expend helium to land since I would think if it uses electricity to contract it could become heavier than air solely by increasing the density of its tank without intake or outtake, but wouldn't that be very electrically wasteful?

Edit: I forgot to add the link, here it is https://www.citymetric.com/transpor...died-out-and-how-they-might-make-comeback-722
 
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  • #13
If you get the chance to visit Elizabeth City, NC, USA you can see the country's only airship factory. The people there are probably well informed in all aspects of airship technology.

http://www.tcomlp.com/aerostat-manufacturing/
 
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  • #14
When I think of a hydrogen airship the large volume of the flammable gas they have is what most concerns me about their safety. A number of years ago the idea of CNG, not LNG, super tankers became popular and some shipping companies began to study their design, but, to my present knowledge none have been built. My reaction to the idea of those vessels was pretty much the same. It is not flammability of the gas; but, the consequences of an accidental, or intentional, ignition of such a huge volume contained in a tanker or airship in and out of populated areas that is my main concern.

I can still remember seeing pictures not long after the total devastation of Texas City, TX from the explosion of the cargo ship loaded with ammonia nitrate fertilizer docked at the port there in 1947. According to Wikipedia, is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record.
 
  • #15
JBA said:
I can still remember seeing pictures not long after the total devastation of Texas City, TX from the explosion of the cargo ship loaded with ammonia nitrate fertilizer docked at the port there in 1947. According to Wikipedia, is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record.

I lived about 180 miles away from Texas City, and I can still remember seeing the cloud from the explosion and fire at that time. It was frightening.
 
  • #16
This thread has been really interesting. After leaning more about it I don't think airships are likely to be able to compete against traditional freight options at their own game, but there may be a few niche applications where they could be useful. This would mostly be places where infrastructure is a problem. After thinking about it some more here is the best application of hydrogen as a lift gas that I could think of.

Installing giant metal structures where little (if any) in the way of decent infrastructure is present.
maxresdefault.jpg

Here is something I found about the installation of wind turbines.

FPL Energy also says, "although construction is temporary [a few months], it will require heavy equipment, including bulldozers, graders, trenching machines, concrete trucks, flatbed trucks, and large cranes." Getting all the equipment, as well as the huge tower sections and rotor blades, into an undeveloped area requires the construction of wide straight strong roads. Many existing roads, particularly in hilly areas, are inadequate. For the Buffalo Mountain project, curves were widened, switchbacks were eliminated, and portions were repaved. The weight of the material has damaged existing roads. Many an ancient hedgerow in England has been sacrificed for access to project sites.
http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html

Rather then building new roads all over the place surely it would be much less costly, and better for the environment, to just float the wind turbines (and equipment) in. At any rate after thinking about it for a few days this is the best use I could come up with. I'm interested in seeing what others think of it.
 

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  • #17
JBA said:
When I think of a hydrogen airship the large volume of the flammable gas they have is what most concerns me about their safety. A number of years ago the idea of CNG, not LNG, super tankers became popular and some shipping companies began to study their design, but, to my present knowledge none have been built. My reaction to the idea of those vessels was pretty much the same. It is not flammability of the gas; but, the consequences of an accidental, or intentional, ignition of such a huge volume contained in a tanker or airship in and out of populated areas that is my main concern.

I can still remember seeing pictures not long after the total devastation of Texas City, TX from the explosion of the cargo ship loaded with ammonia nitrate fertilizer docked at the port there in 1947. According to Wikipedia, is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we still transport large amounts of flammable substances around (e.g. oil, coal, ammonia fertilizers of various types, etc.). Are you saying we should stop doing this?
 
  • #18
I don't see why a discussion of airships should get bogged down in the hydrogen versus helium issue. Helium is available. Helium is safer. Why consider hydrogen at all?

The picture in post #16 is a good example of a case where airships might have advantages. Airships can lift heavier cargoes than helicopters. That advantage has value in some circumstances. A heavy lift can afford to wait for a day when weather is good. The commercial question though is if those special cases are frequent enough to make a profit for the owner. I suspect that the reason we don't see airships doing that is exactly that profitability calculation.

Imagine if a giant airship could have lifted the Costa Concordia wreck. It would have been so much simpler than the actual 12 month $300 million salvage project. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster#Salvage) The wreck weighed at least114000 tons; more than 100 times bigger than the payload of the largest airship ever imagined (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship). It is a fun fantasy. But wise businessmen don't make businesses based on fantasy.
 
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  • #20
Evanish said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we still transport large amounts of flammable substances around (e.g. oil, coal, ammonia fertilizers of various types, etc.). Are you saying we should stop doing this?

Yes, we still transport many variations of potentially dangerous substances; but, we still have accidents in recent years as well, crude transport train derailments such as occurred in Canada, Fertilizer Storage facility explosions in West Texas, Offshore drilling platform blowout and fire in the Gulf, and several more I could list. I am not proposing we stop producing and transporting these substances, but doesn't mean we shouldn't be aware of the risks we are taking and work to minimize the damage that results when there is an accident.

At the same time, replacing these potentially dangerous substances used for energy production with safer and cleaner methods of producing energy and finding methods of farming that do not require dangerous chemical fertilizers and are polluting our water sources and air isn't a bad idea either.

I don't know what your background is; but, I spent 40 years in the petroleum industry and have spent time in all types of facilities, offshore production platforms refineries, petrochemical plants, etc. and spent the last 20 years developing and designing high performance ASME Section 8 certified pressure relief valves for just such facilities so I am well aware of the risks involved.
 
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  • #21
anorlunda said:
I don't see why a discussion of airships should get bogged down in the hydrogen versus helium issue. Helium is available. Helium is safer. Why consider hydrogen at all?

Good question. I'd say the best reason is it is cheaper, and more plentiful. I spent some time looking into how much cheaper. From these three sources I got this.

Hydrogen Cost --- 0.7 $/kg
Helium Cost --- 17 $/kg in 2013
Air Density --- 1.293 kg/m3
Helium Density --- 0.1785 kg/m3
Hydrogen Density --- 0.0899 kg/m3

I tried to use these numbers to calculate the cost of the gases needed to lift a ton.

Hydrogen Lift (air-hyd) 1.203 kg/m3
or 0.831 m3/kg
or 831 m3/ton
74.7 kg Hydrogen to lift a ton
$52.31 --- $ to buy gas to lift a metric ton

Helium Lift (air-hel) 1.115 kg/m3
or 0.897 m3/kg
or 897.3 m3/ton
160.2 kg helium to lift a ton
$2,722.75 --- $ to buy gas to lift a metric ton

So if I didn't make any mistakes Hydrogen is 52 times cheaper to do the same thing. That is a pretty big difference, and the price of helium isn't stable. Here is something about that.
Helium shortage looms
Qatar blockade cuts 30% of global supply and threatens price increases for scientific instrument users

Volume 95 Issue 26 | p. 11 | News of The Week
Issue Date: June 26, 2017 | Web Date: June 22, 2017
By Marc S. Reisch

The blockade of Qatar that started on June 5 has shut down the source of 30% of the world’s helium, threatening another round of shortages and price increases for scientific instrument users.

Helium is used to cool nuclear magnetic resonance magnets and as a carrier gas for gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. The element is also used in medical imaging and electronics manufacturing, as well as to float dirigibles.

Supply limitations and maintenance projects in the U.S. and overseas led to a quadrupling of helium prices and even scientific instrument shutdowns between 2011 and 2013. Some helium users may be better positioned to cope this time because they installed recycling equipment during the most recent shortage.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i26/Helium-shortage-looms.html

Helium supply isn't stable, it's expensive, and it has many other more important usages. That is why I'm thinking in terms of hydrogen, and also I think maybe there are some usages of airships which would only be financially viable with it.

Here is a fun fact I found while research this topic.
Around 99% of the balloon shops in the Philippines use Hydrogen because of its abundance, price and lift.
http://www.cebuballoons.com/hydrogen-or-helium-gas-used-for-flying-balloons/
 
  • #22
JBA said:
Yes, we still transport many variations of potentially dangerous substances; but, we still have accidents in recent years as well, crude transport train derailments such as occurred in Canada, Fertilizer Storage facility explosions in West Texas, Offshore drilling platform blowout and fire in the Gulf, and several more I could list. I am not proposing we stop producing and transporting these substances, but doesn't mean we shouldn't be aware of the risks we are taking and work to minimize the damage that results when there is an accident.
I agree being aware of risk is very important. As for minimizing the damage I also think it's important to be aware of the price payed for every new additional safely, and then decide if it's worth it. I think this is best illustrated by thinking to the extreme. All the risks could be avoided if we stop doing everything that is at all dangerous, but the devastating price we would have to pay for this safety would vastly outweigh the increase in safety gained.

I guess I'm just worried that people have, or will, because too risk adverse for our own good, and this will lead use down a less the ideal path in the future. My impression is that people are always becoming more risk adverse over time, and I fear this might go (or has gone) to far. Of course I acknowledge my fears may be totally baseless.
 
  • #23
Evanish said:
I guess I'm just worried that people have, or will, because too risk adverse for our own good

I don't think this is the example you want to use. As has been pointed out, airships are a solution looking for a problem.
 
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  • #24
Evanish said:
Rather then building new roads all over the place surely it would be much less costly, and better for the environment, to just float the wind turbines (and equipment) in. At any rate after thinking about it for a few days this is the best use I could come up with. I'm interested in seeing what others think of it.
At first glance, it would seem like it should be cheaper to use an airship than build a new road, but it strikes me that helicopters are already used for lifts of mundane things like air conditioners in big cities, so why aren't they used here? Then it struck me that maybe its cheaper to use a helicopter or airship instead of a road to build one turbine, but it may not be cheaper when building a hundred turbines.
 
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  • #25
Evanish said:
So if I didn't make any mistakes Hydrogen is 52 times cheaper to do the same thing.
Good for you. Discussions like this are much better quality when facts and calculations are included.

Check out the article linked by @Tom G in #19. It is a $480 million dollar project to build 12 airships that can lift 20 tons each. I invite you to do the same calculations you did in #21 to calculate the cost difference in buying the gas and to compare that with $480 million.

What I have in mind is an often overlooked principle in cost calculations, namely Ahmdal's Law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law

Then try to think like an insurance actuary. How much should the insurance premium be for a hydrogen airship or for a helium airship?
 
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  • #26
Evanish said:
Hydrogen is 52 times cheaper to do the same thing. That is a pretty big difference

Yes, but this only matters if the gas drives your cost. Using those numbers, an airship might use $20,000 worth of gas per flight, assuming no helium recovery. If your airship costs $10,000,000, the capital costs dominate until your 500th flight.

I found this graph on the Scientific American web site.

05-26-What-Price-Speed.jpg


I think this points out the problem.
 

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  • #27
JBA said:
When I think of a hydrogen airship the large volume of the flammable gas they have is what most concerns me about their safety. A number of years ago the idea of CNG, not LNG, super tankers became popular and some shipping companies began to study their design, but, to my present knowledge none have been built. My reaction to the idea of those vessels was pretty much the same. It is not flammability of the gas; but, the consequences of an accidental, or intentional, ignition of such a huge volume contained in a tanker or airship in and out of populated areas that is my main concern.

I can still remember seeing pictures not long after the total devastation of Texas City, TX from the explosion of the cargo ship loaded with ammonia nitrate fertilizer docked at the port there in 1947. According to Wikipedia, is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record.

The huge problem with the German airships (Hindenburg) is that they basically coated the entire craft in thermite. The paint materials they used contained iron oxide and aluminum. Hydrogen burns with a nearly invisible flame. Different coatings would be used today and safety would be orders of magnitude better.

Airships also require almost no infrastructure for landing/take off. You don't need square miles of concrete for runways and the noise issue is a lot better.

Modern aircraft weren't designed with fuel efficiency in mind, speed was a major factor. A jet or propeller aircraft requires a lot of energy to stay airborn.
 
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  • #28
anorlunda said:
I don't see why a discussion of airships should get bogged down in the hydrogen versus helium issue. Helium is available. Helium is safer. Why consider hydrogen at all?

The picture in post #16 is a good example of a case where airships might have advantages. Airships can lift heavier cargoes than helicopters. That advantage has value in some circumstances. A heavy lift can afford to wait for a day when weather is good. The commercial question though is if those special cases are frequent enough to make a profit for the owner. I suspect that the reason we don't see airships doing that is exactly that profitability calculation.

Imagine if a giant airship could have lifted the Costa Concordia wreck. It would have been so much simpler than the actual 12 month $300 million salvage project. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster#Salvage) The wreck weighed at least114000 tons; more than 100 times bigger than the payload of the largest airship ever imagined (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship). It is a fun fantasy. But wise businessmen don't make businesses based on fantasy.

Helium is non-renewable! It's actually a byproduct of the nature gas industry.

Build an industry around a non-renewable resource that has half the lifting capacity of an abundant and inexpensive alternative.

As for safety, my previous post pointed out that the Hindenburg was coated in thermite. You couldn't paint that on a modern aircraft with today's safety standards, so use the correct reference. At a high enough temperature aluminum itself will burn quite readily.

Jet aircraft are also loaded with tons of highly flammable jet fuel which falls to the ground/down quite readily as opposed to hydrogen that heads away from the ground, infrastructure and people.
 
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  • #29
I think your point about safety is a good one. We should be able to build hydrogen airships much safer than The Hindenburg. But (analogous to nuclear power) hydrogen airships suffer from perceived safety risks higher than actual risks.

Airships, hydrogen or helium, don't consume gas with each flight. They recapture via compression and store it in tanks. Only leaks need to be replaced.

Helium that seeps from the ground or brought up with natural gas must be used or else it escapes into space. You can't put it back into the ground. As the following Wiki article says, helium is not strictly non-renewable. It is continuously generated in the Earth's Core. So it is a case of use it or lose it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium#Extraction_and_use said:
On Earth it is relatively rare—5.2 ppm by volume in the atmosphere. Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements (thorium and uranium, although there are other examples), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations as great as 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation. Previously, terrestrial helium—a non-renewable resource, because once released into the atmosphere it readily escapes into space—was thought to be in increasingly short supply.[11][12][13] However, recent studies suggest that helium produced deep in the Earth by radioactive decay can collect in natural gas reserves in larger than expected quantities,[14][15] in some cases having been released by volcanic activity

But the place for you to do research is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Modern_airships and the reference links at the bottom of that article. Why have so few modern airships chosen hydrogen? Surely those engineers were well aware of the advantages. With a bit of digging, you may be able to find published papers documenting how and why the designers made their choices. If you find more information, please return here and post it.
 
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  • #30
Evanish said:
Good point, I didn't really consider the whether that much. That's a pretty big thorn in the idea side.
No thorn! lousy weather generally can be very beautiful from high up. The first time I saw Norway was from an aircraft in February. Coming in over the leafless forests, black peaks and white snow, was surreal. Like being in a black-and-white photo. And 300 metres up you don't generally run into much earthbound pong! Anyway, even at 50 mph airspeed you would have the windows closed as a rule
 
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  • #31
Jon Richfield said:
No thorn! lousy weather generally can be very beautiful from high up.
Blimps have very limited service ceilings due to their fixed volume. Unlike planes, their carrying capacity drops rapidly with altitude from takeoff.
 
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  • #32
Eric Bretschneider said:
Modern aircraft weren't designed with fuel efficiency in mind, speed was a major factor. A jet or propeller aircraft requires a lot of energy to stay airborn.
This is a very problematic statement. Airplanes speeds have changed very little over the past 50 years. Efficiency is one of the most important design considerations.
 
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  • #33
russ_watters said:
At first glance, it would seem like it should be cheaper to use an airship than build a new road, but it strikes me that helicopters are already used for lifts of mundane things like air conditioners in big cities, so why aren't they used here? Then it struck me that maybe its cheaper to use a helicopter or airship instead of a road to build one turbine, but it may not be cheaper when building a hundred turbines.

I've tried to find some information about the cost of the different items. Here is what I got.

Helicopter:

According to this, the Russian-built Mi-26 helicopter apparently is the biggest and can transport up to 44,000 (22 short tons) pounds of cargo.

According to this info

How much do wind turbines weigh?

In the GE 1.5-megawatt model, the nacelle alone weighs more than 56 tons, the blade assembly weighs more than 36 tons, and the tower itself weighs about 71 tons — a total weight of 164 tons. The corresponding weights for the Vestas V90 are 75, 40, and 152, total 267 tons; and for the Gamesa G87 72, 42, and 220, total 334 tons.

So I think it's safe to say most wind turbine components can't be lifted buy a single helicopter. As for using multiple helicopters together I found this.

The newly developed MI-26 helicopter of the weight-lifting capacity of 26 tons was offered for delivery by helicopter. According to this project, bulky cargoes of high mass (airframe and rocket bays) tied with cables had to be carried by 2 or 3 helicopters, and such ‘bundle’ had to move along the route, at the best fit height and flying speed. As the basis for such version the example of helicopters application for ‘crane’ operations was brought, but there was still no experience of flights ‘in bundles’.

Test flights with mock-up cargo having the configuration of a tank section of the rocket were carried out at LII. The tests revealed a complexity and risk of such kind of delivery. During one of the flights at a suddenly arisen weak turbulence of atmosphere, a ‘pendulous’ swing of cargo on the cables started which caused a disturbance of the helicopters flight stability, owing to what the crews were compelled to dump the cargo.

So it seems that there are some challenges with the idea of using multiple helicopters to lift them. As for the cost of operating MI-26 http://www.hovercontrol.com/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi?s=84ffa7008f16c1cc36488a0c4b90a545;act=ST;f=1;t=22330;&#top someone who made this estimate.

Doing a bit of digging I have found a couple of places that give anecdotal information that the rough operating costs of the Mi-26 are 50% that of the CH-47E. Although this could be total bunk and they just assume that because it has half the main rotor number of a CH-47E. Being as the Chinook is listed with average operating costs for NATO forces at $3,500 (as of 2009), I would feel comfortable in saying that the Mi-26 would be around $2000-2500 per hour. I think the main issues with real world operating of the Mi-26 is the distance from production. If you are in Russia or Eastern Europe the shipping costs for spares/parts would be manageable; however, since there is no licensed production of the Mi-26, the further away you are the higher the price gets.

From an insurance perspective, in the US using it as a pure Part 91 pleasure aircraft, your insurance would be "manageable" compared to aircraft cost. Using AOPA's insurance and an acquisition price of $15 mil, having one rate pilot with 2,500 hours in type the price would be about $385,000 / year. This goes up about $20K for each pilot added. Changing it to a Part 135 (charter) operation nearly doubles that rate though to $630,000 / year. The above were done with a general helicopter with the stated costs above. In reality, the insurance company will be looking at at many factors and the cost could go up or down by about 10%.

Finally, to operate an aircraft like that in the U.S (only place where I am familiar with the regulations enough to offer information) you would have to be type rated in the aircraft since it is very much over the 12,500 lb MTOW. From the FAA standpoint, you would need to be Helicopter PPL with High Performance endorsement and the type rating. To get that you will likely be around ATP mins anyway at 1500 hours, though legally you could do it as soon as you got your license. The real limiting factor is always the insurance companies. They may not cover the aircraft unless it is being PIC'd by someone with a couple of thousand hours in type, no matter how much money you are willing to throw at them. This is why John Travolta is only the SIC on his 707, he just doesn't have enough time to be PIC under the insurance policies.

Breakdown of costs above:

Acquistion of Mi-26TC ~$15 million

Insurance for 1 pilot, pleasure craft: $385,000

Operating costs for 500 hr / year ($2K / hr): $1 million

Roads

As for roads there seem to be a lot of complicated factors. Here is something I found that talks about estimating forest road construction unit costs for anyone interested.

Airship

From what I've read the LZ 129 Hindenburg could carry 2,798 passengers and 160 tons of freight and mail.

As for the cost to build it I found this.

As to the cost of building the Hindenburg in today’s currency… that would be quite a task even for a highly qualified cost accountant.

Even determining how much it cost to build Hindenburg in the 1930’s is a challenge; which expenses do you include? And do you take the expenses in 1930’s Reichsmarks and just try to convert those figures into a modern currency?

Or are you asking how much it would cost to build the Hindenburg today? And if so, do you mean an exact reproduction — using obsolete technology despite the passage of time? Or do you mean a modern-day functional equivalent, where the Echolot is replaced by a Radar Altimeter?

But to simplify — Charles Rosendahl wrote that the Hindenburg cost $2,600,000 to build. (See, Rosendahl, What About the Airship?, p 154.)

Of course, converting that figure to current dollars is itself tricky, since different economists use different approaches to inflating prices; you can visit http://eh.net/hmit or http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ to learn more about the various approaches. But using Rosendah’s figure of $2.6 million, and the various calculators at measuringworth.com, that yields a range from $43 million to $657 million in 2009 dollars.

As for operating costs I have no clue.

My own thoughts on it...

Why thinking about all this I had an interesting idea although it goes outside the category of airship.

Why not think of it in terms of using multiple whether balloons since I can find information about them at least.

So according to this page you can buy a 8246 2,000 gram Weather Balloon for $249. According to them this has a burst diameter of 30 feet. I assume that means that is the maximum it can be filled to. Since we aren't planning to doing a lot of changes in altitude we can probably fill it pretty close to it's burst diameter. Let say we are filling it to 28 feet, or 8.5 meters. Since it's basically round that gives us a volume of 325.47 meters square

From earlier we know that the most massive of the three discussed types of wind turbine weighs 334 tons assembled (I'm assuming they are metric tons here). From information I have in a previous post we know that 334 tons would take 277,616 meter square of hydrogen to lift, or 299,686 square meters of helium. That would come out to needing 853 of these balloons filled with hydrogen to lift the whole turbine with hydrogen gas, which would cost $212,397 in balloons, and $17,470 in hydrogen. For helium it would come out to needing 921 helium filled balloons to lift the whole turbine with helium, which would cost $229,329 in balloons and $909,397 in helium. These costs are remarkably low, especially for hydrogen. Someone please tell me if I'm making some kind of mistake here.
 
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  • #34
Big subject, but a lot of the objections are far out of context. Consider speed. The speed arguments would kill trains, trucks, ships and helicopters. Are there trains that can travel faster? Sure, but none of those are goods trains, and few of them can operate far from tracks or good roads to take crow-flight shortcuts. Most freight doesn't mind being sidelined for a few hours, but most passengers tend to get itchy. Take weather. Some weather isn't good news for airships, but most of that isn't good for other forms of transport either and would ground non-emergency aircraft of other types too. Fuel consumption is potentially very competitive and clean, and could be tempting for anti-greenhouse dosing of the atmosphere if we had enough airships.

Aesthetically the craft are far more beautiful than most rivals, just as wind turbines are far more attractive than any other power generation equipment that springs to mind, so that is not a good argument.

As for the lifting medium, I have long wondered about alternatives to helium-4. The waste of He horrifies me, though I suppose we could get plenty from Jupiter, or, more rationally, from the sun. 3He anyone?

But not all that cheaply... People waste helium just because it is available; last time I looked, He was cheaper than H2;

Actually, modest differences in the density of the lifting medium have surprisingly low relevance. Ratios of its density to air density are more important. Replace your 4He with H2, and you have decreased your dead weight only by the half the weight of the He you carry. Not all that much compared to your cargo.

There actually are quite a few ways of making Hydrogen more attractive. Adding a few % of NH3 +H2O to your hydrogen drastically reduce its explosiveness without greatly affecting its lifting power (look at it in terms of dead weight). Also, who said all your lifting power has to be H2? An airship isn't just a shapely balloon with a cabin below, any more than a submarine is a simple steel tank; there are sophisticated internal structures for many reasons. One could have internal cells of hydrogen separating it or its leaks from atmospheric oxygen. Outer cells still could contain helium or less flammable gas mixes.

Don't write opportunities off just because they look like problems. Piet Hein spoke of experts getting expert fun ex cathedra telling one just how nothing can be done, and Arthur C Clarke agreed.

Think of that next time you turn on an electric light.
 
Last edited:
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  • #35
russ_watters said:
Blimps have very limited service ceilings due to their fixed volume. Unlike planes, their carrying capacity drops rapidly with altitude from takeoff.
Perfectly correct, but by "high up", I meant like above skyscraper height, not above weather height. Say 1000 metres or less. Quite acceptable for a practical airship.
 
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<h2>1. What are the advantages of using hydrogen airships?</h2><p>Hydrogen airships have a higher lifting capacity than traditional helium airships, making them suitable for carrying heavy loads. They also have a longer range and can travel at higher speeds.</p><h2>2. Why was there a shift away from hydrogen airships?</h2><p>The Hindenburg disaster in 1937, where a hydrogen airship caught fire and crashed, caused a shift away from using hydrogen due to safety concerns. Helium, which is non-flammable, became the preferred gas for airships.</p><h2>3. Are there any potential risks associated with using hydrogen airships?</h2><p>There is a risk of fire or explosion if the hydrogen is not properly contained or if there is a leak. However, with proper safety measures in place, the risk can be minimized.</p><h2>4. In what industries could hydrogen airships be used?</h2><p>Hydrogen airships have potential applications in transportation, such as cargo and passenger transport, as well as in scientific research and military operations.</p><h2>5. Are there any current efforts to bring back hydrogen airships?</h2><p>Yes, there are ongoing research and development efforts to improve the safety and efficiency of hydrogen airships. Some companies are also exploring the use of hybrid airships, which use a combination of helium and hydrogen, to take advantage of the benefits of both gases.</p>

1. What are the advantages of using hydrogen airships?

Hydrogen airships have a higher lifting capacity than traditional helium airships, making them suitable for carrying heavy loads. They also have a longer range and can travel at higher speeds.

2. Why was there a shift away from hydrogen airships?

The Hindenburg disaster in 1937, where a hydrogen airship caught fire and crashed, caused a shift away from using hydrogen due to safety concerns. Helium, which is non-flammable, became the preferred gas for airships.

3. Are there any potential risks associated with using hydrogen airships?

There is a risk of fire or explosion if the hydrogen is not properly contained or if there is a leak. However, with proper safety measures in place, the risk can be minimized.

4. In what industries could hydrogen airships be used?

Hydrogen airships have potential applications in transportation, such as cargo and passenger transport, as well as in scientific research and military operations.

5. Are there any current efforts to bring back hydrogen airships?

Yes, there are ongoing research and development efforts to improve the safety and efficiency of hydrogen airships. Some companies are also exploring the use of hybrid airships, which use a combination of helium and hydrogen, to take advantage of the benefits of both gases.

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