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Airships / Blimps / Dirigibles (Lighter-Than-Air Craft)

Airlander 10 'breaks in two' and collapses at Cardington

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Image copyrightSBNA
Image captionThe airlander collapsed at Cardington Airfield, where it is based
The world's longest aircraft has collapsed to the ground less than 24 hours after a successful test flight.

The Airlander 10 - a combination of a plane and an airship - was seen to "break in two" at an airfield in Bedfordshire, an eyewitness said.

Owner Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd said it appeared the Airlander broke free from its mooring mast, triggering a safety system which deflates the aircraft.

Two people on the ground suffered minor injuries.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-42037832
 
Maybe the best prospects for lighter-than-air craft lie with smaller versions and more specialized uses ...

In any case, this was a Guinness record-setting event involving a record I didn't realize even existed ...

Blimp tows water skier across Southern California lake
... The Press-Enterprise reports the blimp towed skier Kari McCollum for 6.9 miles (11.1 kilometers) at Lake Elsinore on Tuesday.

The newspaper says that’s a new record, according to Philip Robertson, an adjudicator with Guinness World Records.

The old mark for a water skier being towed by a blimp or airship was nearly 5 miles (8 kilometers). ...
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SOURCE: https://apnews.com/502a77e020064a95...s-water-skier-across-Southern-California-lake
 
Not a video, but skully don't seem to like it either.
 
A thought on the American mystery airship panic of the 1890's. Linking unrelated ideas together again: I've been reading various histories of the Boer War of 1899 - 1902 (and the earlier prequel one in 1881) as ongoing research for stories I write with a South African theme (long story... the tales ramble on a bit too).

An interesting sidenote in Emanoel Lee's To The Bitter End. Quick summary: in 1899, the British brought a proto-air force to South Africa. The Royal Engineers experimented with three hot-air balloons, as a military curiosity and to explre their possible uses in combat. Lee notes that the British military leadership were mistrustful of this and sidelined them, viewing them as a gimmick and a distraction with no feasible military use whatsoever. He reproduces photographs taken from the balloons, remarking that had they been used more widely than they were for observation and aerial photography, they might well have had a more significant impact.

Lee also reproduces accounts from the Boer side of how the balloons were received in the other camp.

He notes tht more educated Boers who knew what they were and had travelled abroad - two of the Boer commanders had even flown in them, while in France - weren't especially bothered, other than to prime really good shots with instructions to try to shoot them down if they got too close (Joubert and de la Rey both knew what naked flames can do to a bag full of inflammable gas).

more insular Boers - those who had never travelled far from home, with limited education and a degree of religious inculcation - tended to the superstitious and regarded them as something utterly alien, or perhaps Alien, and the balloons had a demoralising effect. Speculation ranged wide among the troops as to what they actually were and what they represented. In short, they behaved much like farmfolk in the mid-West and the US backwoods.

Lee also notes that a significant number of American volunteers fought alongside the Boers. Did any of these Americans remember the airships of ten or fifteen years earlier and add their memories to the mix?

Oh, and savvy British prisoners also remarked to their captors that you know, we really shouldn't be saying this, but we intend to fly these things over you, and you know how a balloon drops ballast to gain height? Well, we'll be using bombs as ballast when we fly over you... an interesting precursor of the future...
 
I was just thinking the other day that things had gone quiet about this.

Airlander 10: World's longest aircraft grounded
  • 5 hours ago

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Image copyrightHYBRID AIR VEHICLESImage captionAirlander took its first flight in 2017 from Cardington Airfield
The world's longest aircraft has been permanently grounded as developers prepare to start work on a new model.
The £32m Airlander 10 - a combination of plane and airship - had completed six test flights before it collapsed to the ground in November 2017.
Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), based in Bedford, said it had received Civil Aviation Authority backing to start work on a new craft.
It is hoped the new model will take to the skies in the early 2020s.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-46810151
 
Bigphoot2 said:
I was just thinking the other day that things had gone quiet about this.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-46810151
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In November 2017, the airship broke free from its moorings. This triggered an automatic safety feature which deflated the airship so that it would not drift and cause damage to property or a hazard to air traffic. This caused it to crash to the ground and break up.

This in turn has led to a £32 million insurance claim. However, the developers say that they do not intend to build another prototype as it had done its job and they are now moving on to the next stage of their development project.

As someone who worked in insurance claims for 35 years, I'd like to hope that someone is looking very closely at the claim! "Our airship broke just as we no longer needed it. Can we have £32,000,000 (presumably less the £50 excess) to spend on something else, please?"

On the whole, I think airships are not only great fun, but also a good idea in certain very specific applications. However, I am sceptical about the need for such a huge one. Although several smaller ones would be less efficient in terms of volume:mass, and therefore lift, they would be more versatile. They could perhaps raft together or work in pairs or teams when a big lift was required. A huge airship can only be in one place at a time, and, as they have demonstrated with Airlander more than once, it can be dangerously unwieldy near the ground.

Imagine a flotilla of semi rigid airships, easily transportable by sea or by cargo plane, then inflated on site after an earthquake or tsunami. They could provide mobile or fixed observation and lifting platforms, and transport relief supplies. Helicopters use a lot of fuel and have to be able to land somewhere every few hours.
 
The hangar for that thing isn't far away from me, but I've never seen it flying.
 
They are not really practical due to the problem of wind.

As an observation platform, just keeping them on station is problematic.

But for occasional use in the right conditions they are very useful.

INT21.
 
INT21 said:
They are not really practical due to the problem of wind.

As an observation platform, just keeping them on station is problematic.

But for occasional use in the right conditions they are very useful.

INT21.
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As a dinghy sailor and general boating enthusiast, I'd say the wind can be a friend as well as an enemy. It's like the tide: you can work with it or you can fight against it.

An airship could use the reliable wind currents as "trade winds" to travel far and fast at little cost.

At low level in many areas, the typical wind speed is low. An airship with modern propulsion should be able to hold station easily in a 15 to 20 knot wind. Also, at low level, airships can be tethered, and multiple anchor lines can fix their position, just as a boat may use two anchors to reduce its swinging with the wind and tide.

Modern GPS and computer technology combined can make an object hold its station automatically with small but rapid corrections.

Airships are already used very successfully at low level as camera platforms for sporting events. In WW1 they were used as long range bombers. One Zeppelin could carry and deploy 4,000 lbs of munitions. One airship spent 95 consecutive hours in flight. They have strengths as well as vulnerabilities.

Of course, an airship cannot hold a static position in very strong or turbulent winds, but those same winds would make it difficult for a helicopter too.

A tent may blow down in a gale; an aluminium skiff may be swamped in a big sea; the blades of a helicopter rotor may be iced up in winter; a jet engine may suck in wind blown debris. No piece of technology is suitable in all circumstances, but that does not mean it is not a valuable tool in the right circumstances.

I do not foresee a modern "steampunk-esque" era of widespread airship use, but I do think that by concentrating on a small number of huge airships, they are missing the point. A large number of fairly large ones would be more versatile and practical.
 
I do agree with you about a lot of medium ships being more useful than a few very large ones.

But in these days when something is required to be moved it is needed now; not when the wind is favorable. Also if the wind changes then you could be stuck a long way from where you wish to be, as a sailor you will appreciate that.
It seems that the once reliable Trade Winds are becoming disrupted.

Useful in the right circumstances.

INT21.
 
From the History Restored YouTube Channel. The clearest footage I've seen of the disaster.

Hindenburg disaster 1937 | Restored Quality | 2880p | History Restored

This is upscaled, colored, denoised and fps boosted footage of the hindenburg disaster from 1937. This has been achieved with the help of machine learning.

 
I would personally love to travel by Airship.
A proper big one, with all the facilities and amenities on board, y'know, a bar, restaurant, observation lounge etc etc.
They did it with the R101 and Hindenburg (okay so there were disasters) which shows it is possible.
 
Trevp666 said:
I would personally love to travel by Airship.
A proper big one, with all the facilities and amenities on board, y'know, a bar, restaurant, observation lounge etc etc.
They did it with the R101 and Hindenburg (okay so there were disasters) which shows it is possible.
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There was some talk a few years ago of developing new passenger airships, helium filled, rather than hydrogen.
 
Yes well we had the ongoing testing of the 'Airlander 10' which itself was a further development of the HAV 304 originally built for the United States Army's Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) programme.
The testing was progressing quite well towards building a larger version but in 2017 the prototype Airlander 10 suffered an accident when it slipped it's moorings in high winds and was destroyed.
No further work was then carried out.
 
Souleater said:
There was some talk a few years ago of developing new passenger airships, helium filled, rather than hydrogen.
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Sounds superb, but somebody will just declare that helium mining makes newts sad, and they’ll be banned.

maximus otter
 
Xanatic* said:
I'm not worried about newts but the world is running out of helium. Hot air might be a better option.
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The problem with hot air is it doesnt stay hot very long hence the need for bloody great burners in hotair ballons, which are great btw, if you have never been up in one i highly recommend it.
 
New original photographic evidence of the Hindenburg disaster has surfaced. A bystander with a camera was positioned so as to view the airship from the side (rather than from the more frontal vantage of the newsreel photographers), and they depict the fire seconds earlier than what's seen in the famous newsreels. These additional photos more clearly illustrate how the fire apparently started in the rearmost area of the airship and moved forward. Also, these photos show the landing lines / ropes (not usually visible in the newsreels) and provide clues to how these lines may have served to spark the blaze due to static electricity discharge.
Hindenburg disaster's earliest moments captured in newly released footage

A bystander captured the film in a location apart from the newsreel cameras.

When the enormous German airship Hindenburg burst into flames on May 6, 1937, during a flight over New Jersey, it ignited in seconds before crashing to the ground in front of horrified onlookers. Now, footage that captured the early moments of the disaster ... could offer new clues as to what sparked the blaze.

On the day of the accident, news photographers were already filming the Hindenburg at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey. When they realized the airship was burning, they rushed to record images of the rapidly spreading blaze, and the best-known footage and photos of the disaster all show it from a similar angle.

However, an amateur photographer named Howard Schenck was also at the scene with a Kodak 8-millimeter consumer film camera — but he was at a different spot on the field. Schenck realized that the Hindenburg was on fire and began filming earlier than the newsreel photographers, and his wide-angle lens and side view of the airship captured the Hindenburg's entire length as it burned, offering a perspective that was missing in the news cameras' coverage. ...
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FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.livescience.com/hindenburg-disaster-newfound-footage.htm
 
Got a tale or a bit of the wreckage?

An appeal has been launched for stories and memorabilia ahead of the 100th anniversary of an airship disaster which killed 44 people.

The R.38/ZR-2 exploded mid-flight in front of onlookers in Hull on 24 August 1921, before crashing into the River Humber, killing most of the crew. The airship, called the "Titanic of the skies", was on a test flight before being handed over to the US Navy.

Historic England wants to create an online archive about the disaster. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-57260147
 
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