Shape-changing dirigible electrical generation/transmission

[Donald Yanzick]

Has anyone considered using a hydrogen lifted and powered airship to generate and transmit high voltage DC electrical power ?

 

[Donald Yanzick]

Recently obtained a patent on a shape-changing dirigible and am looking to use this craft for that purpose, and many other applications if the hydrogen safe usage testing comes back with positive results. Could use any and all help in hydrogen powered vehicle design and usage Please ?

 

[russ_watters]

This is a very broad and vague request. Do you have any specific questions? Otherwise I feel like what you need is venture capital funding to hire an engineering team.

Also, I can't think of an obvious way a dirigible might be connected to power generation and transmission. Can you explain that?

 

[jedishrfu]

There are many examples of solar powered aircraft that you could study for the weight and lift ratios.

Here's one such vehicle:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a25101375/odysseus-solar-powered-aircraft/

I remember seeing a NOVA show on a solar powered plane, the Solar Impulse 2, that flew around the world starting from a point in the middle east.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-impossible-flight/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse#Solar_Impulse_2_(HB-SIB)

You can learn a lot about engineering difficulties that you might face on you project.​

Another issue is:

What will happen when your aircraft is buffeted by strong winds?

Large surface areas will make it very difficult to maintain control of your craft.

A few years ago, in 2015, the US Army lost control of their surveillance blimp and it caused havoc in the nearby localities knocking out power lines by dragging its tethering lines all over.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/28/us-army-blimp-breaks-free​

Lastly, you might learn something from blimp use during WWI:

https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-zeppelin-terror-attack/

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to the PF.

Recently obtained a patent on a shape-changing dirigible

Link?

 

[jedishrfu]

I searched but couldn't find a link. Perhaps its still in the process of being patented.

 

[berkeman]

I searched but couldn't find a link. Perhaps its still in the process of being patented.

Yeah, the OP's name is unique enough. I didn't find anything in US patents either. I didn't search other countries though...

 

[berkeman]

Yeah, the OP's name is unique enough. I didn't find anything in US patents either. I didn't search other countries though...

I did find this from a couple years ago, though...

https://contest.techbriefs.com/2016/entries/aerospace-and-defense/6425

 

[jedishrfu]

Yes, I saw that too. I also saw the several companies have posted similar designs. These may affect how the USPTO will rule as they will ask: Now tell me how is this different from X?

 

[jedishrfu]

Recently obtained a patent on a shape-changing dirigible and am looking to use this craft for that purpose, and many other applications if the hydrogen safe usage testing comes back with positive results. Could use any and all help in hydrogen powered vehicle design and usage Please ?

@Donald Yanzick What patent number?

 

[Tom.G]

I just ran a search at the US Patent and Trademark site. They found nothing with 'Donald Yanzick' or with 'Yanzick' in either the Applicant or Assigned To fields. Search covered from 1976 thru today.

 

[jedishrfu]

I’m inclined to think that @Donald Yanzick has decided to abandon this thread because of this issue of patents not found.

 

[Klystron]

I used to ride my bicycle through the dirigible Hangar One when working at Ames.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield

The photographs of lost naval flight crews attest to storm danger and other hazards.

 

[anorlunda]

Moffett Field is the best know, but the complete history is even more interesting.

At the beginning of World War II, Naval Air Station Lakehurst, established in 1921, was the only active lighter-than-air (LTA) naval air station operated by the US Navy.[1] In 1940, the US Navy proposed to the US Congress the development of a lighter-than-air station program for anti-submarine patrols of the coast and harbors. This program proposed, in addition to the expansion at Lakehurst and the reestablishment of NAS Moffett Field as a naval LTA station, the construction of new stations in the Boston, Cape May, Cape Hatteras, southern Florida, southern Georgia, Louisiana, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Puget Sound, and Hitchcock near Galveston TX areas. The original contract included a steel hangar, 960 feet (290 m) long, 328 feet (100 m) wide and 190 feet (58 m) high, helium storage and service, barracks for 228 men, a power plant, landing mat, and a mobile mooring mast.[1] In June 1941, shortly before Congress completed action on the Navy's proposed LTA program, work began at NAS Lakehurst on a project which included the construction of two airship hangars
...
As finally developed in 1943, LTA facilities (with wooden hangars built) in addition to NAS Lakehurst (2) and NAS Moffett Field (2), included NAS South Weymouth (1), NAS Weeksville(1), NAS Glynco (2), NAS Richmond (3), NAS Houma (1), NAS Hitchcock (1), NAS Santa Ana (2) and NAS Tillamook (2). In the initial program, accommodations were provided for six airships at each station. This was later increased to twelve at seven of the stations and to eighteen at NAS Richmond as a result of an increase in the authorized strength to 200 airships
...
The US Navy started the construction of the Weeksville LTA air station on August 6, 1941, which lasted until 1942.[1][2][3] It is the only remaining steel airship hangar built during World War II and is based on the Goodyear Airdock in Akron Oh designed by Karl Arnstein.[citation needed] Due to steel rations, an additional hangar was built out of wood, which would in following decades become known as the world's largest wooden structure [4][5]before its destruction by fire in 1995.

The remnants of that burned hanger are still visible from the Pasqutank River in NC.