Lighter-Than-Air vehicles! Is this the first step toward Interstellar space ships?
44 replies, posted
[QUOTE]If you like the idea of cruising on a ship in laid-back luxury, but prefer the speed and convenience of air travel, there may soon be a solution. Drawing their inspiration from the airships of yesteryear, a new generation of airship-like vehicles could soon be making their way across our skies.In a hangar outside Tustin in California, engineers are preparing one of the most radical designs for testing. The Aeroscraft, as it is known, is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak and has been made possible by advances in materials and computer control systems.
“We are resurrecting [the airship] with new composite fabric structures, that are stronger, lighter, more versatile” says Fred Edworthy, of [URL="http://www.aeroscraft.com/"]Aeros[/URL], the company building the lighter-than-air vehicle.
The airship in the hangar is being built to test various key components of a design that could one day contain a hotel, casino or spa. However, the company believes one of its biggest markets could be transporting freight from hard-to-reach locations or, for example, carrying wind turbine blades. Currently blades are as large as they can be to be transported on a truck.
“It’s a new era for logistics in cargo. Transport is our first aim for these craft,” says Edworthy. “It’s impossible to get into some of the resource rich areas of the world. Ecologically, you can’t do it. Areas of the far north, or the Amazon are good examples.”
Planes need large runways, and helicopters can only carry limited loads. But the Aeroscraft can take-off and land vertically using turbofans that can swivel to provide lift and move the craft forward.
[B]Rising up[/B]
The whole process of loading and unloading, as well as getting off the ground and keeping the ship aloft is helped by an ingenious system held within the frame of the ship.
“The biggest advancement is our buoyancy management system that allows the vehicle to operate autonomously - without the hundreds of people that you saw grabbing the Zeppelin type airships,” says Edworthy.
The system gets around a major drawback of traditional airships which have difficulty controlling lift, and need ballasts to reach the correct altitude, and ropes and docking stations are needed on the ground to stop a vessel floating off.
Instead, the Aeroscraft uses large bags, or bladders, inside a rigid structure. When the pilot wants to descend, the vehicle needs to be heavier, so the helium in the main body of the craft is compressed and put into storage chambers. That creates a relative vacuum inside the body, which draws air from the outside. Air is heavier than helium, so the vehicle sinks. To rise again, the stored helium is released back into the body of the aircraft, pushing the air out of the bags and replacing the volume it filled with lightweight helium.
“We can control the buoyancy, and allow ourselves to come to the ground and land vertically as well as take off vertically,” says Edworthy. That is the biggest advancement over the last 100 years.”
The whole process is controlled from a cockpit, which is also designed to be retractable to allow the craft to be as aerodynamic as possible. During flight it can be moved inside the vehicle, and the pilots will have “virtual” views on screens. The whole assembly is lowered below the airship body for landing or when visibility is needed.
The craft is also designed to be as simple to fly as possible. Fibre-optics around the aircraft link touch screens in the cockpit with actuators and controls in the engines or on the control surfaces.
“We moved from the typical aircraft paradigm where we have pedals, to a 6 degree of freedom joystick,” says Munir Jojo-Verge, aerospace control flight engineer for the firm. “You can control the vehicle with one hand – roll, pitch, yaw. This is a huge step.”
Ease of control will be critical when the firms’ next generation craft, which are twice the size of the test vehicle under construction, are built.
Assuming they pass their flight tests, which will begin later this year, the big question is whether anyone will choose to fly in them. For all of their cutting edge design and elegance, they will still only travel at about quarter of the speed of a passenger jet.
“It will be slower than a 747 [plane] at approximately 110 knots (approx 200km/h) cruising speed,” admits Edworthy. “But it would be the event of ‘getting there’ rather than how quickly you get there.”[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120921-lighter-than-air-craft-rises[/url]
So kind of like blimps?
Second hindenburg time?
[QUOTE=draugur;38659992]Second hindenburg time?[/QUOTE]
Not quite, these companies can afford and have the abundance of helium, a noble gas that doesn't ignite. However, I really do wish these guys luck. One of the biggest problems that I have heard aside from the logistics work involved with dirigibles is that they move so slow and that they don't handle bad weather all that well. While the aircraft could simply fly above bad weather, I don't know how viable it will be for long term for the simple reason that the crafts move so slow and their lift tonnage isn't gigantic due to the need to be able to be that buoyant in the air. Planes get around this problem by being able to move quickly and generate a large amount of lift due to their speed, but like the article said, they require even more logistical support than a dirigible.
EDIT: Woops, didn't catch the part about the speed, 120 miles per hour isn't a terrible speed, especially if the craft is large. However that is still pretty slow in terms of airborne freight(also mentioned above.)
[video=youtube;Kq-N3_plNq8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-N3_plNq8[/video]
Seriously, the last thing we need is slower air travel.
[QUOTE=Chessnut;38659983]So kind of like blimps?[/QUOTE]
I fucking love Zeppelins.
They're so Majestic in the sky.
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/NH43901-enhanced.jpg[/t]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmQnEyiGdGQ[/media]
i hope they make a commemorative edition with christopher walken
I can't even begin to imagine what it must have felt like in pre-hindenburg airships. The feeling I get just from looking at them is incredible
[QUOTE=OvB;38660425][img]http://i.imgur.com/Scdza.jpg[/img]
Doesn't look half bad.[/QUOTE]
Streamline Airship. Very futuristic.
I like it, but I prefer the older styles, like the picture I posted.
[QUOTE=Reviized;38660213]Not quite, these companies can afford and have the abundance of helium, a noble gas that doesn't ignite. However, I really do wish these guys luck. One of the biggest problems that I have heard aside from the logistics work involved with dirigibles is that they move so slow and that they don't handle bad weather all that well. While the aircraft could simply fly above bad weather, I don't know how viable it will be for long term for the simple reason that the crafts move so slow and their lift tonnage isn't gigantic due to the need to be able to be that buoyant in the air. Planes get around this problem by being able to move quickly and generate a large amount of lift due to their speed, but like the article said, they require even more logistical support than a dirigible.
EDIT: Woops, didn't catch the part about the speed, 120 miles per hour isn't a terrible speed, especially if the craft is large. However that is still pretty slow in terms of airborne freight(also mentioned above.)[/QUOTE]
Speed isn't as much of a factor when you are reducing fuel consumption by that much. The first cars were slow, unreliable, hard to operate, and would be easier to explain in efficiency in 'miles per tank' rather than 'miles per gallon'. As we've advanced, they've come to a point where anyone tall enough could plausibly pilot one, given that they understand the basic concepts and have some experience. As we advance and learn to properly apply the materials we have around us, newer inventions trend towards higher reliability, safety, and utility.
Consider that surgery, the invention of the airplane, and nearly everything else new in the realm of technology has been faced by the same doubts. I think this is one of those new things that we won't quite comprehend until we actually see it in action.
[editline]30th November 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;38660504]Streamline Airship. Very futuristic.
I like it, but I prefer the older styles, like the picture I posted.[/QUOTE]
The idea of there being a small hotel contained inside, I would love to travel that way. I think it'd be brilliant if eventually there were cameras on the outside of the craft which would enable passengers to see the entirety of the view around them through the use of large oled screens in higher price rooms, common, and dining areas. At 120 mph, their perspective of the world would be ever shifting and dynamic. Depending on the altitude, you could appreciate wonderful sunsets, fluid cloudscapes, and breathtaking views for hours at a time, or even look down on cities and the landscape you are cruising over, through the use of downward facing cameras.
It makes me question why we haven't done this on passenger aircraft already..
[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;38660365]I fucking love Zeppelins.
They're so Majestic in the sky.
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/NH43901-enhanced.jpg[/t][/QUOTE]
Airships are such an amazing invention
This is something that hit me when I realized they are literally ships for the air. It is awesome.
Imagine the different world we'd live in airships continued on as they were
[QUOTE=Andokool12;38660701]Airships are such an amazing invention
This is something that hit me when I realized they are literally ships for the air. It is awesome.
Imagine the different world we'd live in airships continued on as they were[/QUOTE]
Vitural Titanics of the air.
[QUOTE=Andokool12;38660701]This is something that hit me when I realized they are literally just bigass balloons[/quote]
fix'd
I'm not sure about their promise that this vehicle will provide a better means of transportation of materials to remote areas. It seems like an efficient helicopter or VTOL aircraft would be a better alternative, given the extreme size:payload ratios present for all lighter-than-air craft.
Honestly it sounds like they're just building it, and trying to think up reasons for it to be useful, which seems like a backwards way to be going about things. Maybe people will be interested in it as a luxury cruise, I don't know since airships tend to be pretty cramped. But I really can't see what use there is in the modern world for a very slow, very large aircraft. It just seems useless, beyond the novelty.
[QUOTE=koeniginator;38660723]fix'd[/QUOTE]
Oh, be fair. They're more like submarines for the air as far as the mechanics go.
I think this video truly shows how beautiful Airships are
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG_wnJeH0fk[/media]
[IMG]http://proon.puppyrush.net/images/hellsing/snapshot20071010025706.jpg[/IMG]
Airships my master?
[QUOTE=FreakyMe;38660558]
The idea of there being a small hotel contained inside, I would love to travel that way. I think it'd be brilliant if eventually there were cameras on the outside of the craft which would enable passengers to see the entirety of the view around them through the use of large oled screens in higher price rooms, common, and dining areas. At 120 mph, their perspective of the world would be ever shifting and dynamic. Depending on the altitude, you could appreciate wonderful sunsets, fluid cloudscapes, and breathtaking views for hours at a time, or even look down on cities and the landscape you are cruising over, through the use of downward facing cameras.
It makes me question why we haven't done this on passenger aircraft already..[/QUOTE]
Probably cheaper :v:
Seriously though it just sounds so breathtaking. I just prefer something more like a Classic Airship if you asked me.
[editline]30th November 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;38660282][video=youtube;Kq-N3_plNq8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-N3_plNq8[/video]
Seriously, the last thing we need is slower air travel.[/QUOTE]
I think the point of a Zeppelin/Blimp is like the point of a cruise ship. Not really to get anywhere, but to enjoy the ride.
Sometimes I really wish at one point that transport technology took a different focus. Working towards cities in the sky would be way cooler than cars.
[QUOTE=ScottyWired;38661342]Sometimes I really wish at one point that transport technology took a different focus. Working towards cities in the sky would be way cooler than cars.[/QUOTE]
Get your head out of the clouds, something like that is never going to happen
[QUOTE=Andokool12;38660701]Airships are such an amazing invention
This is something that hit me when I realized they are literally ships for the air. It is awesome.
Imagine the different world we'd live in airships continued on as they were[/QUOTE]
you might like the book "Airborn" by Kenneth Oppel
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborn[/url]
Reminded me of:
[IMG]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060618173554/cnc/images/1/16/Kirov_1.jpg[/IMG]
[img]http://www.cgsociety.org/stories/2012_04/ironsky/zepp6.jpg[/img]
Iron Sky is awesome.
[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;38660817]I think this video truly shows how beautiful Airships are
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG_wnJeH0fk[/media][/QUOTE]
That guy at 3:15. Now that's real news reporting, or whatever he was doing.
I always wondered why rockets don't use airship-style technology to ascend to the outer-reaches of the atmosphere without the need for all that fuel. I mean, obviously they'd need helium, but surely it'd be cheaper and, if done with a removable craft, reusable? They would obviously have to take some fuel to get beyond the atmosphere, but it'd be much less.
But obviously there must be some huge problem with doing this that I'm stupidly blind to, as it'd have been done by now.
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