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I was talking to the Airlander guys at Farnborough airshow a few years back and they said that they planned to get the Airlander 10 passenger blimp working before they put the Airlander 50 cargo version out.
The thing they were pushing at the show was how Canada has to spend all this money making ice roads every winter, whereas the blimp can move a lot of cargo with minimal infrastructure costs.

Most helicopters have quite small payloads (NH90 for example is around 4 tonne, the big beast Chinook around 10 tonne) and cost a lot to keep in the air, whereas the Airlander 50 will supposedly lift 60 tonne and only expends fuel when it moves.
So if they can get it working (big if at this point as it has been in development for years!) then I think they could have a unique selling point.

Bonus wikipedia quote: The operating cost the NH90 HCV (High Cabin Version) was estimated at 200,000 SEK per hour flown, or about US$24,000, in 2018
You see what I mean about helicopters being pricey to fly!

Helicopters are for the rich, military, government and rescue services.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yeah if they dropped off medical tents/units/equipment I'd agree...but as a floating hospital, I think it'd be far too ineffective for a mass casualty event. I've only taken part in a handful of MCE style drills/practices, but it's bedlam...people in and out constantly, large body counts, etc. Now a smaller disaster? Perhaps? But for a major incident with hundreds if not thousands of injured and triaged people it'd be a tough call.

Well, if it is in an area that doesn't have a hospital its better than nothing. Even a small treatment center would help. At the very least, the airship would allow transport of equipment that could normally not be transported. Like MRI machines, full size surgery suites, etc...

You'd probably not have anything but ICU patients get kept onboard, but the medical facilities could definitely be there.

Problem though is an area that doesn't have a hospital probably wont have infrastructure to support an firstaidcraft close by.

storage for safe non flammable helium and maintenance. that and in a disaster situation how long does it take to deploy an aircraft what is the transit time. would it be better to just invest in infrastructure and a hospital.

An Airship would not need a constant supply of helium or a full maintenance facility if it is in the field conducting an operation. Certainly it wouldn't need those things any more than the aircraft and ships that currently get used would need them. If that was such a crippling problem then we simply wouldn't have any disaster relief efforts at all.

That's kinda the nice thing about an airship. It can hover in place with minimal resource expenditure and just be there with whatever facility it transports. You don't necessarily have to land completely. You can hover a few dozen feet off the ground, or even higher, and take people up to the craft. It can do its thing in areas that don't have infrastructure.

Am i wrong here?. does an airship have an indefinite fly time and doesn't require any maintenance and will always be at a disaster zone right when it needs to be?

Think about it logistically. these things cant be up in the air forever, it will need very specific maintenance as it is a vehicle that transports human life as regulated by many organizations, its going to need specialized infrastructure which at that point its the same thing a as helicopter pad or a small run way anyway which an area that needs something like this probably wouldn't be able to sustain. on top of that to get to remote areas these blimps will need to be within a certain radius of prone areas to get to them in time. otherwise if they were to be deployed from over seas by the time they get there it will be worthless.

 Desubot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yeah if they dropped off medical tents/units/equipment I'd agree...but as a floating hospital, I think it'd be far too ineffective for a mass casualty event. I've only taken part in a handful of MCE style drills/practices, but it's bedlam...people in and out constantly, large body counts, etc. Now a smaller disaster? Perhaps? But for a major incident with hundreds if not thousands of injured and triaged people it'd be a tough call.

Well, if it is in an area that doesn't have a hospital its better than nothing. Even a small treatment center would help. At the very least, the airship would allow transport of equipment that could normally not be transported. Like MRI machines, full size surgery suites, etc...

You'd probably not have anything but ICU patients get kept onboard, but the medical facilities could definitely be there.

Problem though is an area that doesn't have a hospital probably wont have infrastructure to support an firstaidcraft close by.

storage for safe non flammable helium and maintenance. that and in a disaster situation how long does it take to deploy an aircraft what is the transit time. would it be better to just invest in infrastructure and a hospital.

An Airship would not need a constant supply of helium or a full maintenance facility if it is in the field conducting an operation. Certainly it wouldn't need those things any more than the aircraft and ships that currently get used would need them. If that was such a crippling problem then we simply wouldn't have any disaster relief efforts at all.

That's kinda the nice thing about an airship. It can hover in place with minimal resource expenditure and just be there with whatever facility it transports. You don't necessarily have to land completely. You can hover a few dozen feet off the ground, or even higher, and take people up to the craft. It can do its thing in areas that don't have infrastructure.

Am i wrong here?. does an airship have an indefinite fly time and doesn't require any maintenance and will always be at a disaster zone right when it needs to be?

Think about it logistically. these things cant be up in the air forever, it will need very specific maintenance as it is a vehicle that transports human life as regulated by many organizations, its going to need specialized infrastructure which at that point its the same thing a as helicopter pad or a small run way anyway which an area that needs something like this probably wouldn't be able to sustain. on top of that to get to remote areas these blimps will need to be within a certain radius of prone areas to get to them in time. otherwise if they were to be deployed from over seas by the time they get there it will be worthless.

Of course not. You're being obtuse. Of course the airship will operate from a facility that has all of those things, and then it can go to where it needs to go that doesn't necessarily have all of those things. Much like helicopters and aircraft who fly places without repair facilities all the time. The advantage of the airship is that it can simply remain in one position, and the act of staying in one location does not incur large maintenance or fuel costs like other aircraft.

Airships maintain loft because they are filled with lighter than air gasses. Other aircraft have to expend vast amounts of fuel to stay above the ground. The Airship only needs fuel when it is moving. If you let down some tethers, the airship can stay in one location for an extended period of time. Any airplane that could have an equivalent level of hospital facilities to an airship would need a huge runway, and would probably actually be several airplanes rather than just one, to go anywhere. While the Airship could go anywhere and simply need to be tethered to the ground while it is onsite. This has a benefit in that you could tether the airship over ground that is being used for other things. Like say a tent city or other existing buildings.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Of course not. You're being obtuse. Of course the airship will operate from a facility that has all of those things, and then it can go to where it needs to go that doesn't necessarily have all of those things. Much like helicopters and aircraft who fly places without repair facilities all the time. The advantage of the airship is that it can simply remain in one position, and the act of staying in one location does not incur large maintenance or fuel costs like other aircraft.

This is true with two caveats. Airships are highly vulnerable to storm conditions. Second if use as a portable installation once you add extra mass, either administrators for a command centre or patient and medical staff, plus all the supplies you shipped in for them, it will be firmly on the ground. This is good as the first thing you want to do for an airship set up in a disaster area is to either deflate the gasbag into portage tanks or add lots of ballast. Water bladders will work for ballast.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Airships maintain loft because they are filled with lighter than air gasses. Other aircraft have to expend vast amounts of fuel to stay above the ground. The Airship only needs fuel when it is moving. If you let down some tethers, the airship can stay in one location for an extended period of time. Any airplane that could have an equivalent level of hospital facilities to an airship would need a huge runway, and would probably actually be several airplanes rather than just one, to go anywhere. While the Airship could go anywhere and simply need to be tethered to the ground while it is onsite. This has a benefit in that you could tether the airship over ground that is being used for other things. Like say a tent city or other existing buildings.

True if you decided to use an airship as a command centre and only lightly man it, so it can stay in the air, and no storms are predicted. The main problem is that most disasters an airship would respond to involve or were caused by inclement weather. Hurricane and volcano aftermaths both have poor weather following, and an earthquake zones tend to also be zones with rough weather, with some exceptions. As airships are not useful for relief of human caused disasters being too unsafe for a warzone and not suitable for famine relief, they would be best used as coverage for natural disasters, and would likely be needed on the ground for easy access at least. This is not a problem. I could see a hospital airship needed at the site of an earthquake or tsunami for a month or two afterwards


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One other things not mentioned so far. You can fit a whole lot of solar panel coverage on the upperside of an airship. with newer ultralight solar panels you could afford this and have a sizable range extension based on live solar power. Batteries suitable for purpose however are heavy so live solar power is best, for supplementary engine power under sunlight. Batteries for lights at night and supplementary power for the hospital deck on deployment however is very feasible with more modest battery storage.

nareik wrote:
Games Workshop could use one to deliver their low mass plastic kits!

Think of the kudos if they branded it as a Dwarf airship. Underslung cargo container modelled as a ship hull, and you're set.

 Skinnereal wrote:

nareik wrote:
Games Workshop could use one to deliver their low mass plastic kits!

Think of the kudos if they branded it as a Dwarf airship. Underslung cargo container modelled as a ship hull, and you're set.

The Spirit of Grungni flies again! However GW would have to find someone with a ginger/died mohawk to pilot it! Or a crazy scotsman

 Orlanth wrote:
Helicopters are for the rich, military, government and rescue services.

Yea sure, but everyone has productivity targets to meet and the MoD's budget is always being squeezed. The potential for cost savings is always a good selling point.

It is not so much whether an airship can be built as a technical achievement. In the Aerospace and Defence sectors there is a lot of inertia to new things that don't have an operational history demonstrating safety and which which will require wholesale changes to operating procedures. That's the big issue that Airlander needs to overcome imo.

I wish Airlander well, and there could be a future for airships in a greener world; however, installation deployment is more viable than cargo or passenger transit as things stand IMHO.

We could always use them to patrol the skies of Gotham City.


Seriously though, what abut heavy lift applications? something you'd normally use a cargo helicopter for, but you wouldn't have to deal with prop wash.

 Orlanth wrote:
I met a designer who worked on airships in the early 90's at the time when the UK experimented with the return of airships.
Only one thing came out of that, which was the sculpted hull airships sold the the USAF as long duration AWACS.

Anyway this chappy had a patent on a n idea to maintain level buoyancy in flight, a problem airships have because as they use fuel they lose mass. Normally this is achieved by releasing gas but that is crude and expensive and causers the airship to lose air room (safety margin). His solution was to add a water vapour filter to the engine, as fuel was spent an equal amount of water vapour was condensed and sent into a reservoir as ballast.

Exhaust water recovery system is not a new idea, it has been used in airships since the '30s at least. Other means of dealing with changing lift are ballonets inside the main envelope which inflate with air and thus decrease lift, or rainwater recovery systems in very large airships. Big advantage of the hydrogen airships is that you can just dump gas, which is cheap and can be manufactured on-site if necessary. Can't do that with helium.

Return of large airships pops out every now and then and being quite an airship enthusiast, I have also amassed some skepticism towards the more ambitious projects. Most often hopes are put into hybrid airship concept. However it is a difficult concept to realize. In hybrid airship, part of the lift is created by aerodynamic forces. In fact all airships employ aerodynamic lift to some extent, but in hybrid airship it is signifant part of the carrying capacity. Unfortunately, when you get the advantages of dynamic lift, you also gain disadvantages: basically your airship is an enormous wing with huge lifting surface, not unlike a sailplane. A sudden gust will cause huge aerodynamic forces on the ship and might make it go up, or down, neither which is good for the ship. This tendency was already know and cautioned against by master German airship captains of old. With a hybrid airship it becomes much more acute, and it led to first mishap of the Airlander prototype. By contrast, heavier-than-air craft employ so high wing loadings that they are largely immune to winds which would make airship inoperable.

Airships are very capital-intensive. Airship efficiency scales with size, so larger ship -> more efficient it is. Alas this means large infrastructure investment and much specialized institutional knowledge to operate them. Many historical airship projects were shut down when everyone who knew how to operate airships perished in horrible crashes. There were horrible crashes for heavier-than-air craft too, but they were much less manpower-intensive to build and operate, so their development was not dependent on handful of people. This means it is hard to build up an airship service, because there are really very few people on the globe who really understand anything about them.

Problem I see with most airship projects is that they envision a single niche role for the vessel. Even if the vessel is actually more efficient in the niche role than heavier-than-air craft, it becomes very risky and few investors are willing to take the plunge. Only airship manufacturer of modern era which has demonstrated modest success for its prodicts is Zeppelin corporation (surprise...) with its NT airship. It offers an airship which is not real powerful but can be used in multitude of applications: joyride, advertisement, surveilance, scientific experiments. Unfortunately NT is still very small and its payload for many applications is marginal, but it is a way to forward if and when it can be scaled up. If you offer an economical way of lifting stuff up, applications and operators will appear.

 Desubot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yeah if they dropped off medical tents/units/equipment I'd agree...but as a floating hospital, I think it'd be far too ineffective for a mass casualty event. I've only taken part in a handful of MCE style drills/practices, but it's bedlam...people in and out constantly, large body counts, etc. Now a smaller disaster? Perhaps? But for a major incident with hundreds if not thousands of injured and triaged people it'd be a tough call.

Well, if it is in an area that doesn't have a hospital its better than nothing. Even a small treatment center would help. At the very least, the airship would allow transport of equipment that could normally not be transported. Like MRI machines, full size surgery suites, etc...

You'd probably not have anything but ICU patients get kept onboard, but the medical facilities could definitely be there.

Problem though is an area that doesn't have a hospital probably wont have infrastructure to support an firstaidcraft close by.

storage for safe non flammable helium and maintenance. that and in a disaster situation how long does it take to deploy an aircraft what is the transit time. would it be better to just invest in infrastructure and a hospital.

Good luck getting a banana republic dictator to invest in infrastructure and a hospital... or indeed, anything other than his military and his bank account.

Backfire wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
I met a designer who worked on airships in the early 90's at the time when the UK experimented with the return of airships.
Only one thing came out of that, which was the sculpted hull airships sold the the USAF as long duration AWACS.

Anyway this chappy had a patent on a n idea to maintain level buoyancy in flight, a problem airships have because as they use fuel they lose mass. Normally this is achieved by releasing gas but that is crude and expensive and causers the airship to lose air room (safety margin). His solution was to add a water vapour filter to the engine, as fuel was spent an equal amount of water vapour was condensed and sent into a reservoir as ballast.

Exhaust water recovery system is not a new idea, it has been used in airships since the '30s at least. Other means of dealing with changing lift are ballonets inside the main envelope which inflate with air and thus decrease lift, or rainwater recovery systems in very large airships. Big advantage of the hydrogen airships is that you can just dump gas, which is cheap and can be manufactured on-site if necessary. Can't do that with helium.

This is a memory from about 1990-1. I cannot exactly remember what the patent was for, but as it was issued something changed.

Backfire wrote:

Return of large airships pops out every now and then and being quite an airship enthusiast, I have also amassed some skepticism towards the more ambitious projects. Most often hopes are put into hybrid airship concept. However it is a difficult concept to realize. In hybrid airship, part of the lift is created by aerodynamic forces. In fact all airships employ aerodynamic lift to some extent, but in hybrid airship it is signifant part of the carrying capacity. Unfortunately, when you get the advantages of dynamic lift, you also gain disadvantages: basically your airship is an enormous wing with huge lifting surface, not unlike a sailplane. A sudden gust will cause huge aerodynamic forces on the ship and might make it go up, or down, neither which is good for the ship. This tendency was already know and cautioned against by master German airship captains of old. With a hybrid airship it becomes much more acute, and it led to first mishap of the Airlander prototype. By contrast, heavier-than-air craft employ so high wing loadings that they are largely immune to winds which would make airship inoperable.

Ok. I had not considered that.

Backfire wrote:

Airships are very capital-intensive. Airship efficiency scales with size, so larger ship -> more efficient it is. Alas this means large infrastructure investment and much specialized institutional knowledge to operate them. Many historical airship projects were shut down when everyone who knew how to operate airships perished in horrible crashes. There were horrible crashes for heavier-than-air craft too, but they were much less manpower-intensive to build and operate, so their development was not dependent on handful of people. This means it is hard to build up an airship service, because there are really very few people on the globe who really understand anything about them.

Green credentials could get some attention, and as for the skills, the manufacturing technology needs redeveloping from the ground up, modern batteries, engines, fabrics and polymers would all make an ultramodern airship have few technological similarities to its forebears.
It would require a large set up budget, but as I envisage government funding rather than commercial funding these costs should not be unrealistic.

Backfire wrote:

Problem I see with most airship projects is that they envision a single niche role for the vessel. Even if the vessel is actually more efficient in the niche role than heavier-than-air craft, it becomes very risky and few investors are willing to take the plunge.

Niche commercial yes. But niche government or niche military can stand. The emergency service niche is what I envision. Relief efforts are a money sink anyway, and airships as desployable installations are as highh profile and useful contribution one or more nation states could count towards the annual aid budget.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vulcan wrote:


Good luck getting a banana republic dictator to invest in infrastructure and a hospital... or indeed, anything other than his military and his bank account.

Desubot didnt understand the thread. Yes paying for hospitals in third world countries is not an unreasonable use of western government aid budgeting, b ut it takes a while ti build a hospital. When a disaster strikes you need medical facilities there and then, not accounted for in next quarters aid budget then handed over for construction over a period of years.

And yes you are right, banana republic officials will often embezzle aid money, and even if a project is honestly actioned corruption and inefficiency will more often than not seep in. An airship hospital doesn't belong to the country it is deployed in, but to either a national or international aid agency. Yes a hospital will be wanted on an ongoing basis, which is hard to countenance with short term emergency aid deployments. However the airship will need to return to its hanger (in another country) after a few weeks on mission. This makes for a clear break. Disaster reflief assets and funds often devolve into general aid work, which is very different in terms of logistics and funding. Disaster relief and general aid work should be seperated because of the logistical costs and because disaster relief materiel needs to be centralised so it can be redeployed at the next peak emergency. situation.

 Kroem wrote:

Bonus wikipedia quote: The operating cost the NH90 HCV (High Cabin Version) was estimated at 200,000 SEK per hour flown, or about US$24,000, in 2018
You see what I mean about helicopters being pricey to fly!

NH90 is bit of a special case though as the manufacturer marketed the chopper as very cheap compared to competition, then realized they can't profitably sell it for those prices and took their margins from spare parts.

Hey aftermarket spares are a good way to make money

Funny thing with NH90 is you speak to pilots and they love it, but then you speak to the load masters and they hate the thing lol

The problem with airships is there is something that can already do it better and with more control.

They're the paddle boats of the sky at this point.

Airship is potentially more efficient than HTA in certain roles which require long endurance, problem is that realizing that efficiency requires scaling the vessel very large (Hindenburg-sized or bigger) and that requires enormous capital investment which is not easily materialized for which is still a niche platform.

Airships are useful in various scientific roles as it is much smoother ride suitable for sensitive measurement systems, as evidenced by number of missions Zeppelin NT flies for various research projects. However even there a larger craft would be preferable. Zeppelin had plan for 'Zeppelin European Tour', a tourist scheme utilizing airships carrying about 50 passengers and flying routes between European cities and landmarks. I don't think that scheme is ideal for Europe, but in Caribbean or some such locale it might.

 Elbows wrote:
This pops up every couple of years. There is a pretty solid business case for a fleet of commercial airships. The main draw has been mentioned above. The airships I've seen advertised could more or less hold 8 cargo trucks worth of materials. (around 25-30,000 lbs. each if I remember our weight numbers back when I used to unload trucks in college).

Regardless, the advantage is indeed being able to deliver goods onsite direct from the point of pick-up, weather permitting. Quietly and rather fuel-efficient as well. Particularly good for remote areas (Russia, middle of nowhere in Africa, etc.). Unaffected by ground weather conditions (mud, snow, etc.) but obviously impacted by genuine wind/weather. Want to drop something off in the middle of a swamp on a tiny spit of land? Only real solution outside of a bunch of Mi-8/Mi-26 helicopters. No rotor-wash to worry about, no noise, no disturbing a dig site etc.

In a place like Europe another advantage would be direct from factory (or damn close) delivery options to a variety of locations. Similar to having a factory situated on or adjacent to a railway depot. If airships become popular, you could have a loading dock in the parking lot behind your warehouse and skip a lot of intermediate transport.

They have a few other applications, but mainly from a security/military standpoint. Loiter time would be immense for an airship used for observation or higher altitude reconnaissance, monitoring traffic or smuggling routes, international boundaries, water traffic, etc.

When I did the overland trip from Guyana to Brazil (8+ hours on a red clay road, impassible in the rainy season) it occurred to me that airships might be the way to go for undeveloped inland regions where building/maintaining roads is impractical/expensive/impossible. If the route proves unprofitable the ship can just be diverted to another route. But it would probably be a low margin sort of thing that would only work once the technology was developed.