• Does anyone know anything that would be useful in airship discussion?
    45 replies, posted
Hello! I am on a goal to construct an airship, even if it takes place over 10 years. I'll worry about money once I have my plans made, but for the time being I am looking for advice on materials and construction. Basically the ship would be a large boat, 14th century design, with an interior aluminum frame with chain attaching the boat to a balloon...basically a ship suspended from a balloon. I already have some of the simpler things down (lifting gas to use, how to determine how much would be needed) and I am looking for help on a few other aspects, such as would sitka spruce be a good material for the ship itself and how to go about building the ship. If anyone could help me, I would be eternally grateful.
For the balloon you should go with neoprene impregnated polyester fabric, two ply to be exact. You should be extremely careful to make sure there are absolutely no possible leak points, or you'll be going down wherever you happen to be.
Could we know what gas you will use for the airship?
What you're trying to do is extremely infeasible, and frankly, stupid. All the namby-pamby fantasy art of sailing vessels hanging from simple ropes attached to bloated bags of gas have no basis in reality. A real airship needs to be able to vent gas, dislodge ballast, and have a complete steering system - something you can't do if the gas vessel is detached from the 'hull' and if the 'ship' only sports a simple rudder.
Just a bit of info, it takes gigantic balloons to lift a small cabin for six passengers, so a boat will require a balloon substantially larger than itself to actually get off the ground.
Fill it full of hydrogen, helium just makes stuff explode!
[QUOTE=markg06;32388502]Fill it full of hydrogen, helium just makes stuff explode![/QUOTE] Yeah, and it makes your voice go high-pitched. Keep away from that shit!
Honestly, If you are serious. You should build a scale prototype first. Then you can determine the faults and the design needed. You might end up building a full airship and only have to destroy it because the design is faulty. But if you are not serious, then fuck you.
[img]http://www.nlhs.com/images/hindenburg/big_hindenburg_explodes_over_lakehurst.jpg[/img] Hydrogen makes awesome explosions.
Oh, believe me, I know that. I'm not some guy who saw a steampunk picture and thought "I want to do that!" I've been researching this for 4 years, and I still have years ahead of me before I even consider construction. I see the challenge ahead of me...And I accept it. [QUOTE=mastermaul;32388086]What you're trying to do is extremely infeasible, and frankly, stupid. All the namby-pamby fantasy art of sailing vessels hanging from simple ropes attached to bloated bags of gas have no basis in reality. A real airship needs to be able to vent gas, dislodge ballast, and have a complete steering system - something you can't do if the gas vessel is detached from the 'hull' and if the 'ship' only sports a simple rudder.[/QUOTE] [editline]20th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=adam1172;32389831]Honestly, If you are serious. You should build a scale prototype first. Then you can determine the faults and the design needed. You might end up building a full airship and only have to destroy it because the design is faulty. But if you are not serious, then fuck you.[/QUOTE] Don't worry, I intend to. I'm going to make sure all my measurements are flawless before I begin. If I am to have anyone on board, there is absolutely no margin for error. [editline]20th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=N.A.N.B;32387914]Could we know what gas you will use for the airship?[/QUOTE] Helium. Hydrogen is too dangerous. Maybe if I was alone, MAYBE, but not if anyone else is coming aboard.
This won't work. You can't suspend a ship from a balloon, there's a reason real airships have tiny cabins. Not to mention it would be fantastically expensive and would have to be custom-manufactured. Oh, and probably illegal without licensing.
this is a huge waste of helium, i implore you on behalf of science not to do it
[QUOTE=mike;32395377]this is a huge waste of helium, i implore you on behalf of science not to do it[/QUOTE] There are things much more important than helium that are already being wasted for you to worry about.
you need helium to get that bitch up it's the second symbol on the periodic table
LZ-1, first hydrogen zeppelin had a gas cell size of 120000 m^3 it weighed 13 tons by comparison, an relatively small boat wears 52 tons... you would need 480000 m^3 of gas (hydrogen) helium provides less lift, so you would probably need more. 480000 m^3 = 16951040 ft^3 price of helium is $75/1000 ft^3 do some math you should need $1,271,328 to fill the balloon with helium alone. Good luck making that money in 10 years, you could need an annual salary that is about 2x that of which you could get after you graduated from college WITHOUT taxes, living income, etc. sorry if that was a bit deflating sauces: [url]http://www.ibaonline.net/HeliumNewsandInformation/HeliumandtheBalloonIndustryPriceIncrease/tabid/162/Default.aspx[/url] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_LZ1[/url]
If you do this i'm sure you'll be god of the steampunk kingdom.
[QUOTE=Andokool12;32395631]There are things much more important than helium that are already being wasted for you to worry about.[/QUOTE] there are at the least some alternatives for a lot of uses of fossil fuels. there is no alternative material that provides such excellent cryogenic properties as helium.
[QUOTE=Owen Bicker;32390328]I've been researching this for 4 years[/QUOTE] I would like to see your counter to my calculations then
I've seen this exact thread before. Anyway, aerospace engineering student here. My suggestion: go with as light a vessel as you can. It's difficult, but not impossible, to use fiberglass to create light-weight structures. You could apply fake details to said structure to make it look like it was made of wood. If you keep the vehicle light enough you could fly it under [URL="http://www.all-about-ultralights.com/faq.htm#14."]"ultralight" rules[/URL] meaning you wouldn't need a pilot's license.
[QUOTE=ChristopherB;32398540]I've seen this exact thread before. Anyway, aerospace engineering student here. My suggestion: go with as light a vessel as you can. It's difficult, but not impossible, to use fiberglass to create light-weight structures. You could apply fake details to said structure to make it look like it was made of wood. If you keep the vehicle light enough you could fly it under [URL="http://www.all-about-ultralights.com/faq.htm#14."]"ultralight" rules[/URL] meaning you wouldn't need a pilot's license.[/QUOTE] yup, lightness is key in this endeavor if you could built it at a weight under 1 ton, it's a rather reasonable (But still expensive) project. It's just the entire 14th century [b]large[/b] boat of wood on aluminium frame that I think is unrealistic. Wood weighs a lot, and aluminium is light but not that light.
Create a 3D model of your fantasy airship, compile for source, attach balloons and thrusters in Gmod, crazy dream accomplished! As others have previously stated, it's currently not possible to build what you're dreaming of (If the ship was made of wood) without a balloon about 10x larger than the ship itself, and a significant amount of money. Good luck!
avoid bringing lighters onboard
The funny thing is that hydrogen isn't as dangerous as people like to make out. It's just a fact that large airships are intrinsically dangerous things. The Hindenburg was one of the only airship disasters that was caused by the lifting gas. There had been a number of incidents throughout the 30-odd years that airships were popular, but they were nearly all down to strong winds and the difficulty in handling a something of their size in the air. The US Navy had 5 large helium filled airships and four of them had fatal crashes. Just because it isn't filled with hydrogen, doesn't mean it won't kill you. And looking at it the other way, you have the Graf Zeppelin which flew more than a million miles over nine years. Just because it's full of hydrogen, doesn't mean it will turn into a fireball.
[img]http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-02/art/ff12-airship-ifrit.jpg[/img] Build that airship.
What's the size of the ship you plan to build? Full ship size?
Needs more steampunk. Always needs more steampunk.
Wasn't there a thread ages ago almost exactly like this? That person also wanted to suspend an actual ship from a balloon.
Build a rigid skeleton for it and use hydrogen filled gas bags if you want buoyancy and integrity
You could make hydrogen for the cheapest amount but that raises safety concerns both in production and flying a homemade vessel filled with hydrogen
[QUOTE=Ama-zake;32404769]You could make hydrogen for the cheapest amount but that raises safety concerns both in production and flying a homemade vessel filled with hydrogen[/QUOTE] hydrogen would require a lot more money and weight if you wanted to do it safely.
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