Why blimps fly

Hunt has proposed using the jet stream to propel airships at far greater altitudes than something like the Airlander plans to fly. In , the most infamous airship that ever flew exploded midair and crashed in front of photographers and filmmakers, killing 36 people.

Powered by flammable hydrogen, the crash was a PR disaster that contributed to the demise of airships as a popular mode of transport. That was over 80 years ago, however. It has an unfortunate reputation due to past accidents [but] we have learned a lot over the years about how to handle hydrogen, especially in transportation settings, and it is now being used to propel cars, trucks, and aircraft.

The cabin has a lot more volume per passenger. Clarke and Hunt both doubt that airships offer a viable alternative to short-haul flights, citing issues like wind variability and logistical issues, but Durham remains optimistic. The human race is going to have to come to terms with the fact that we cannot spend our time rushing and tearing about the place, ignoring the planet. Lighter-than-air travel has a part to play to support that drive to become greener.

It seems likely that airships would have been phased out anyway due to improvements in aircraft technology that allowed for much shorter travel times — but the Hindenburg disaster ended the era of passenger airships virtually overnight. The R, moored at Cardington, Bedfordshire, Photo by Wikimedia Commons Since then, the use of airships has been extremely limited, as technological advances have allowed aircraft and helicopters to dominate aviation. Though blimps played a useful surveillance role in the Second World War, airships today are mostly used for overhead photography at sports events, and as massive flying billboards.

Today, the Van Wagner group, an airship organisation, estimates that there are only 25 blimps currently operating around the world; there are even fewer zeppelins. But all this is about to change, if Igor Pasternak has his way. The COSH — Control of Static Heaviness — system works by rapidly compressing helium into storage tanks, making the airship heavier than air.

While conventional airships take on air to descend, they must still dedicate most of the space in the helium envelope to actually storing the helium itself. That makes the landing process more difficult and dangerous, and means they can only land at larger landing areas much larger than the size of the airships themselves, and that come with specialised ground teams. By contrast, the COSH system allows much more of the envelope to be emptied of helium during landing, making the airship much heavier.

This could potentially allow airships to land on any flat area large enough for them to enter without the need for ground teams, increasing versatility and reducing costs. The contract was axed a year later. In , it broke loose from its mooring and drifted haplessly through Pennsylvania , trailed by fighter jets, before crashing in a field. A similar program in Afghanistan, which became notorious among Kabul residents , saw even worse results. The tethers that kept the Big Brother balloons in place were notorious for snaring helicopter blades—one incident killed five American and British service members.

An aerial visualization of the Ocean Sky airship. The market for military airships and commercial blimps remained limited thanks to past failures, though not dead entirely. The cruise company OceanSky is forging ahead with plans to send a passenger airship to the Arctic , using a ship originally designed under the U.

In the vast expanses of the Canadian north, there has long been a need for reliable transportation. Many communities are only accessible by road when winter rolls around and the ground and lakes are solid enough to drive on, if they are accessible by road at all.

That means basic goods need to be stockpiled when the weather is cold or flown in by cargo plane—never mind supplies to build long-term infrastructure. Many of these remote communities are reliant on gas generators and are facing shortages of reliable housing stock. In , a junior mining company in Quebec inked an agreement with U. That plan went belly-up when the minerals company went bankrupt, although Straightline is forging ahead with plans to offer commercial and tourism flights. The interior of the Ocean Sky airship.

Stranded resources and communities are a policy concern in Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Russia, and elsewhere. Flights are expensive and carbon dioxide-intensive, and they require airport infrastructure. Shipping is more viable as Arctic ice melts, but that often requires deep-water ports and can have damaging impacts on marine life.

The opportunity is also caveated with an array of risks and problems. The cone shape of the blimp also helps to generate lift. As the blimp rises, outside air pressure decreases and the helium in the envelope expands. The pilots then pump air into the ballonets to maintain pressure against the helium.

Adding air makes the blimp heavier, so to maintain a steady cruising altitude, the pilots must balance the air-pressure with the helium-pressure to create neutral buoyancy. To level the blimp in flight, the air pressures between the fore and aft ballonets are adjusted. Blimps can cruise at altitudes of anywhere from 1, to 7, ft to m.

The engines provide forward and reverse thrust while the rudder is used to steer. To descend, the pilots fill the ballonets with air. This increases the density of the blimp, making it negatively buoyant so that it descends.