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.
It will also be roughly three times as fuel-efficient as shipping in aircraft. Aeroscraft has hit a few snags in the development process. This was later cut, though the military continued funding the group in other projects, allowing them to move forward with a prototype. Then, in October , a section of the roof of the hangar where the partially completed Aeroscraft prototype was housed collapsed , damaging the airship beyond repair.
Aeros Corp. And even if the testing phase goes smoothly, the Aeroscraft may still face several challenges when it enters the market. A New York Times article about Aeros cites concerns from transportation analyst Richard Aboulafa, who points out the difficulty new air vehicles have in entering the market. Perhaps the biggest problem, though, is the cost of fuel. In , rising helium costs were enough to bankrupt a tourist airship company in Northern California.
Cue the guitars! The Ohio-based tire and rubber company started testing its next-generation airship last month at Goodyear's airfield near Akron. Yes, this is an actual Zeppelin airship, made in partnership with the German company that dates to before the infamous Hindenburg disaster. But don't panic, this new lighter-than-air vehicle is just as safe as its blimp predecessor. It's filled with helium, not hydrogen like the humongous airship that burned in New Jersey in Goodyear is finally closing the door on the GZ models, which came off the drawing board 45 years ago.
In the coming months, Goodyear plans to train more than 10 pilots to fly the Zeppelin NT. NT stands for new technology. If all goes as planned, we'll be watching this sleek new silver, yellow and blue airship hovering high above sporting events east of the Rockies this fall.
More amenities on the new Zeppelin. So what's different about this one? It's faster, because it has three engines instead of two.
It's bigger. It's more maneuverable. Despite early accidents, the revolutionary Zeppelins were soon turned into reliable and attractive machines. The Hindenburg remains the largest aircraft ever built. And then in World War One, the Zeppelin — intended by its inventor as a harbinger of international peace — was pressed into service with the Imperial German Army and Navy.
Soon, the name Zeppelin became one to be feared as these seemingly impregnable machines rained down bombs on cities stretching from St Petersburg to London. A new terror had been born: death and destruction of civilian populations and their cities from the air.
Of the 84 Zeppelins built during the war, 60 were lost to accidents and enemy action. But the R crashed in France in October on its maiden overseas flight, killing 48 out the 50 people on board, including most of her design team and Lord Thomson, the Air Minister responsible for the project.
The R was broken up soon afterwards. With Zeppelin back in action, although now with Nazi government support and swastikas on the tails of its aircraft, German airships ruled the skies.
And then the Hindenburg went up in flames, and with the end of World War Two, the Zeppelin company folded in But for all their high-tech advances, Hunt said, the new airships would still get their buoyancy from hydrogen, a highly flammable gas that is 14 times lighter than air. The possibility of another giant explosion has some pushing back against an airship renaissance. Hydrogen, on the other hand, can be extracted from water and so would much cheaper. And since hydrogen is lighter even than helium and thus more buoyant, it would mean airships could haul more cargo.
To minimize the risks associated with hydrogen, Hunt envisions getting rid of the crew. The airships would operate autonomously — and would be loaded and unloaded by robots. As an additional bonus, Hunt said, the fuel cell would generate as a byproduct water that could be released as the craft passed over regions hit by drought. Lanteigne, who has written extensively about airships, said building such colossal craft would be an enormous challenge.
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