In this video, we will explore the latest technologies that are going into building the new generation of Airship. We will also look at Vacuum Airships and how they can become a reality with modern technology
In this video, we will explore the latest technologies that are going into building the new generation of Airship. We will also look at Vacuum Airships and how they can become a reality with modern technology
Rather than full vacuum, as an interim step, what about reduced pressure Helium airships? If the pressure is 1/2 bar, Helium lift, buoyancy, equals that of Hydrogen. As materials strength to weight improves, new vessels use progressively higher vacuums for improved lift.
That is a great idea.
Hot helium could work.
@@m.j.debruin3041 yep! Elevated temp lowers density w/o lower pressure. Need an insulating envelope though
@@richardrigling4906 If you want to use higher temperatures you need to insulate the hull and heat its interior. If you are willing to do that you should consider switching to H2O as a lifting gas.
Interesting. I think the main issue is finding the right material but I really like this idea about lowering the density of the chamber but still using helium.
There's a 'travelogue' kicking around on the internet (read it many years ago) by a passenger on a Zeppelin flight from Germany, across Europe and the Mediterranean to Morocco, it's quite magical. Amongst other things he vividly describes cruising over the Alps close to the peaks, a stop in Paris for lunch and to pick up passengers, and so on. Given what the Germans achieved with early 20th C tech and materials, the airship has always struck me as a lost opportunity, certainly for cargo transport and leisure/sightseeing flights. Electric drive makes them seem all the more attractive for these purposes, given the reduction in noise that it facilitates.
There is also one for around the world in Zepplin. It was amazing travelogue
Also, hydrogen can be used as a fuel in the ship itself - The Graf Zeppelin of the 1930s used a gas a fuel that was the same weight as air to avoid ballasting issues - Ultra fine loose weave fabrics that prevent flame fronts can be very light indeed (such membranes work in gas pipes to prevent travel of fire, but still allow the flow of gas) so pragmatically, I can image hydrogen airships being a very good solution, ^oo^
It was called “Beau Gas”
Pppppp
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Zeppelin was working on heaters in the gas cells too so hot.yydrogen isn't impossible
@@johnp3937 Doesn't sound a very efficient use of energy - hard to insulate an 800 foot long vehicle flying in a constant 70mph wind at cruise! Perhaps with modern materials it might be possible - hydrogen does have the advantage of being one of the best gases in terms of expansion per unit temperature, ^oo^
R. Buckminster Fuller pointed out that if you made a geodesic sphere out of steel and glass, it would float in the atmosphere because of the solar heating inside would be lighter than the cooler air outside. He envisioned habitats in the sky. But you would have to heat them at night to keep them aloft.
Airships were a lot more successful than people remember - both in transoceanic transport and anti-submarine duties during WWI and WWII - great video as ever, thanks, ^oo^
They also did a flight around the world. There is a very nice documentary on it. kzhead.info/sun/naltfdKtanyFmnA/bejne.html
@@ElectricAviation Wonderful ship the Graf Zeppelin, ^oo^
Problem is there is only so much helium. Hope we can find a deposit as it is used for very advanced equipment. IMO we shouldn't even use it for party balloons. Yet I would like to see blimps though. Could ease up traffic and they no little infrastructure and travel far.
@@dianapennepacker6854 It was used as a welding gas in the US for years, which is a shocking waste, considering there's plenty of cheap argon to do that job - roll on nuclear fusion - though you'd need a lot of plants to produce a significant amount of helium! ^oo^
@@bernardthedisappointedowl6938 Yup yup yup exactly. Wonder how much it has. Told people to invest in it haha. I know we have the biggest stockpile. I know we get it from natural gas. I just don't want us running out of a darn thing. Darn you! I don't know how we retain or manufacture it. Now you are sending me down an other rabbit hole as I know it is used. Edit whoa we can get it by nuclear fission? That is interesting. I'll see if I can get information. I'm a simple but curious man.
Most informative video I've seen yet on contemporary airship design concerns. However, has anyone considered dynamically increasing vacuum with altitude based on differential pressures between inside and outside? It doesn't have to be all one or the other. Atmospheric pressure reduces rapidly with altitude, which means it's kinda silly not to reduce the pressure within one's dirigible airship, in kind. If hydrogen is used with lightweight flexible solar cells on top then you could release the hydrogen gas and make more from water, using electrolysis when descending. Another approach to containing a vacuum even under full atmospheric pressure would be to use a high-velocity rotation of the vacuum chamber to counter the strength of the vacuum. High tensile strengths are easy to acquire in the lightest materials, e.g. and especially carbon nanotubes. Granted, the velocity would need to be pretty extreme. We can achieve those extreme velocities through brushless electric motors and also with larger diameters. In other words, larger vacuum ships would be easier to build. This was once the basis of an orbital launch vehicle I designed, at home. The idea was to form it with broad wings for lift. A large lightweight vehicle would take far too much energy to gain any reasonable velocity at 1 atmosphere of pressure but this dynamic changes very rapidly with altitude. As the air thins, hydrogen gas could be expelled replacing it with a vacuum. If that hydrogen gas is heated (or combusted) then substantial thrust will ensue, at an increasing rate with altitude. So long as there is sufficient atmosphere to create resistance there must also be enough to create lift, so little energy is lost. Once there is no resistance, it is possible to maintain unpowered orbital velocity. There is an obvious equation here that implies that the vehicle must be pretty large and the ascent will begin very slow but with an exponential increase in velocity.
Such a key point you have made, that you dont need full vacuum but a partial dynamic vacuum can also do the trick. This should be investigated
Years ago I worked with a group from California called JP Aerospace, I think, that were working on something like this. Look them up; they might still be around.
Spinning a vacuum chamber seems like a really great idea. My first guess is some sort of can with bowed in edges facing the axis of rotation. There's a lot more math that would go into it, but some rough calculations gives that the curved surface of a cylinder should be able to balance about 100kPa at 3000 rpm when the radius is 1m and a surface density of 1kg/m^2. Though I don't think you necessarily need to full balance the pressure, just bring it down to the point where a lightweight material can handle. Adding structural supports inside the chamber might also help reduce this requirement. I do like your orbital launch vehicle design as well. Seems that once you've used up all your hydrogen as propellent and are at a negligible air pressure, the vehicles rockets should be able to cheaply handle getting to a stable orbit, and the launch vehicle can glide back to earth. Does the vehicle have enough fuel to bring itself orbital velocities or does it just get the payload to the edge of atmosphere?
Where did you learn this kind of stuff? That's pretty cool.
I was gonna reply... but you are exponentially more smarterer than I am.. so I'll just follow and chill ✌️
Damn! I had thought about vacuum air ships when I was a kid. I never figured out the math to see how feasible it was. Thank you for showing us here. Also ISO truss from BYU's material science dept would be a great weight saver, used as a vacuum shell, surrounded by some amazing skin material.
Theres two scary realities of a vacuume airships ... Any small puncture would result in an immediate significant loss of vacuume/bouyancy increasing as you descend...you would drop like a brick ...you could comparmentalise but that would add significant Weight. The other is akin to the oil can hauled down into water.. it will resist to a point. But any slight impact, point loading stress, or bending force is likely to trigger an imediate implosive collapse.😬 🤔 Carbon Fiber is largely a product of Petro chemicals ... stop burning it ....its too valuable to burn 🤦🏻♂️ as for graphene and nano tubes its still too hard. The Airship trust runs the Airships on line historic site well worth a look. As are the sites featuring the US Navy's Dirigibles/blimps including the largest the radar carrying NAN ships. True story one was loosing lifting gas the crew spotted a sizable tear in the skin @ a foot or so long they just stuck a T- Shirt in the hole and headed on home ... the pressure of gas inside is very low so small arms fire against a helium filled airship is pretty ineffective Skycat Airlifter fired hundreds of rounds up to .50cal into a test envelope and found even twelve hours later it would have remained viable to fly and make a controlled decent. Compare that to a helicopter or even fixed wing aircraft.😁
He said there were no materials that could stand a vacuum so how can there be manned space stations and manned space suits.
@@roycampbell3433 The vacuum is outside the object /suit in space so the pressure only has to be kept within . In a vacuume airship the void is inside and the skin not only has to prevent the atmosphere getting in but hold the shape of the removed volume of air..against not just atmospheric pressure at depth s below sea level ... Like the Danikil Depression ..the current lowest point on the Earths surface . ..but against high winds giant hail and possible impacts. It helps to think of a vacuum airship as a very light submarine with a vacuum inside .... that means its very vunerable to a catastrophic collapse without and extensive internal structure beneath the surface material... Like a birds wing bone but even less dense and with vacuum in the voids. Thinking further on the idea i think there would be a maximum size of any floating vacuum envelope and it would be very difficult to maintain sufficient displacement to generate useful lift. It will get multiples x harder as the lifting body increases in size.
As always. A very informative and interesting video. This channel has become my go-to source of information in the emerging technology in the aerospace industry. Thank you.
Thank you very much!
I do hope the airships become more successful and popular. I'd book a ride.
Now, airships are often used for advertising or aerial broadcasting, which is exactly how Goodyear utilizes its fleet of airships. In fact, in the U.S. there are only 124 pilots with a rating to fly an airship and a mere 39 registered airships, according to the FAA. 4:35 [CNBC]
The hull of the airship is nothing like in the past. Today's materials are strong, light and rip-proof by fusing layers with different properties to form the gas-proof skin. Airships fly low, unpressurised. This means there is no risk of rapid decompression, thus eliminating another threat to air safety. 7:56 [OceanSky]
I would like to thank you for this video. I am not an expert but have always had a fascination with Airships since I was a kid and always watch videos or read about them whenever I come across something on them... and I have to say this is the most informative short video I have ever seen on them, tons of info for a relatively short time span and though I have heard of most of the companies and concepts in the video some of the info you had on both "vacuum" airships, modern safe hydrogen tech and solar powered airships was new to me! Many thanks for the great video! I've subscribed to your channel!
Now that would be the best cruise ever!
19 seconds in and I already hit like. Love your voice
There is ongoing R&D for pure carbon based meta-materials for vacuum airships. The strength of such material allows for airframes of various shapes with a utility comparable aluminum alloyed aircraft. The acceleration and speed of these upcoming aircraft will also facilitate access to orbit, space, Mars, and the asteroids. Imagine using bouyancy to reach the edge of space and then firing rocket engines. 1000's of tons per ascent. A thoroughly reusable vessel similar to aircraft. A Martian outpost can be a reality in a few years once the meta-material is perfected.
I have been watching "The Expanse". I like what you are saying
The first company to produce such material makes billions
I always learn something from your videos, and I thank you!
My pleasure!
Incredible video I love airship the more safe aircraft of the world 👏
Expanding a composite plastic foam inside of a vacuum chamber would allow you to create a material that would be naturally lighter-than-air permanently.
Thanks for sharing 👍😀
No problem 👍
Outstanding work! Good video!
Thank you very much!
@@ElectricAviation look up sloot digital coding systems, its neat ----- Patterns can be autonomous, so much so, that the program knows what to expect, like quantum entanglement, the pattern can be really interwoven, that on each end. That it knows what it's going to expect on each end. I LIKE THE SLOOT coding idea, so much potential in that idea, in supporting autonomous action and reaction's ability. Maybe it compresses it in such away, like they said lossless and like other videos saying compacted really well, it didn't take much to pinpoint the information needed, to create predictions on what the code would be, with near accuracy.
Brilliant as always my friend. Love this channel.
Much appreciated!
An idea that just wont lie down.
Glad I found this video! Very good information and explanations. Thank you.
I am so happy I found this channel.
Welcome aboard!
Super informative, and well made video. I always appreciate your content, and look forward to the latest aerospace industry developments you share with us next!
Thanks for your great work🙏
Welcome!
Fascinating information. Thankyou for the upload!
Glad you enjoyed it!
As long as the weather is nice.
Thank you. Very informative. Let's HOPE we see rapid progress.
Fascinating. Thank you very much.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The idea is great ! But Wind / Storm is a force which makes it to a nice weather "hopper" ! Or it needs a lot of engine power !
Superb presentation!! I want to learn more about these airships.
Someone did a calculation that determined that you didn't have to have a single hollow sphere holding a vacuum to create lift. Instead you can create microscopic hollow spheres out of graphene that could hold a vacuum and still create sufficient lift. I don't have the source information, but the math is straight forward and should be easy enough to check and to find where the sweet spot is where the graphene sphere is small enough to maintain its shape and still have enough displacement to cause lift.
You may even be able to have a flying suit of those!
@@martinwilliams9866 Possibly. But you'd need some other means of getting down from your buoyant point when you were done. I doubt if slowly releasing black spheres into the atmosphere to control your decent would be a good idea for the atmosphere. Maybe hire a plane to pick you up?
Airships is really Kool and Amazing to see I hope to fly on them for sight seeing in the American Areas soon whenever there release Awesome Video!!!!
Same here!
MASHAALLAH khub valo video......
Very Nice presentation. Well done.
Thank you very much!
This has been staring us in the face for many years. By far the most effective and efficient way to allow people to travel from point A to B around the city or country side.
This channel is so fun.
Would be nice to list the companies spoken about. Great show!
Great suggestion!
Seems a good option would be to partially pressurize at sea level & pull close to total vacuum at high altitude where ambient pressure is much less (14.7 psi @ sea level vs 5.5 psi @ 25k feet).
Hi guys thanks for your video of air travel would be amazing to have these flying around be a lot cleaner for the atmosphere thanks 👌🇬🇧❤️👍
A note regarding vacuum airships, it's good to mention that it doesn't have to be a full vacuum. If you take a normal airship filled by a lifting gas but at slightly lower pressure and slightly higher temperature you reduce the density of the gas further without needing as strong of a hull. The heating could in theory be a solarthermal system if operated in a hot enough climate like in the mediterranean, africa, central america or the middle east
WOW! Awesome Video! The Vacuum based Airship is a a Very Cool and New (to me at least) Idea.
Glad you like it!
Fascinating video.
Thank you for an excellent update on airship technology. As you say, we keep hearing about certain developments - and it's hard to stay enthusiastic. I'm encouraged by your prediction that cargo airships may be in service within this decade - that's very good news!
I remind you of a 1960's concept called "The Pumpkin Seed." It was a proposal for a lifting body that worked with lighter than air gases and a "lifting" external configuration. Talking about ultra strong materials and variations of atmosphere; I spoke to a professor at a Midwestern University whose students had an idea to build a very large, variable focus orbiting reflecting telescope where a large piece of Mylar (or something similar) would be stretched across a drum where the internal pressure could be increased or reduces to increase or decrease the convex surface
Informative video keep up the good work👍👍
Thanks, will do!
Excellent
Thank you! Cheers!
Great video as usual I wonder if the safer hydrogen technology could be employed and also perhaps spacecraft derived retrorocket use to perform a soft landing for the gondola if it had to be injected following a hydrogen problem I would love to travel by a ship assuming it will less environmentally impactful then jet travel Cheers
human traffic is not what we need airships for. we have better solution than that.
What about a Plasma Lifting Gas? Think about it: Electrical repulsion of the gas to itself would allow for nearer to vacuum densities, and the skin of the balloon could be similarly charged.
I'm sure some of us watching this video know why helium is a non-renewable resource, but it would have been nice if you had spent 20 seconds explaining why to your watchers.
fair point
But you can make helium. You just need a fusion reactor. In the end, by physics standards, no fuel is renewable because every single fuel works by taking a type of matter and making it release energy while turning into another type of matter, one with lower energy potential. No energy source is renewable in the end. Every process leads to entropy and the cold death of the universe.
I love the idea of airships. Vacuum ships that you have just discussed opened my eyes immensely. The biggest thing that concerns me personally is windy conditions. How hard is it for airships to deal with strong winds, and like ancient sailing boats, could the wind be harnessed for propulsion and tacking against the wind? I would love to see a video on this if you are inclined. Thanks
Airships handle head wind without much trouble. Crosswinds can be an issue but they have thrust vectoring to counter that now
I've given this a considerable amount of thought, and as far as I can tell, it wouldn't be possible to effectively use wind power unless it's behind you. It is the ship's hull resting in the water that provides the ship with something to push against to redirect the force of the wind.
Due to atmospheric pressure being reduced at higher altitude, the vacuum chamber would not be under as much stress as long as it stayed very high. Having stable high altitude platforms would be valuable for a large number of endeavors. This video was very interesting.
great video thanks
You are welcome!
Vacuum airships aren't really a great idea considering the amount of structure required relative to how much structure is used for traditional airships. the skin on modern airships can be on the order of a few hundred grams per square meter, even with advanced futuristic composites nothing would be able to withstand that kind of external pressure and be light enough to take off. The other number I think you should have mentioned that's more important the W/B is the what the difference in buoyant force is between a vacuum and hydrogen. Buoyant force is the difference between the density of two gases, in hydrogens case .08375kg/m^3, subtract that from the density of air at STP (1.225kg/m^3) and you get 1.142kg/m^3 equivalent of lift, compared to a vacuum's lift of 1.225kg/m^3, if my math is right that's only around 7% increase in lift relative to hydrogen, which is not enough to make up for the amount of structure you'll need to withstand a constant 1atm of pressure across the entire envelope. The other issue with a vacuum airship is it limits you to practically only using a sphere, which makes a pretty terrible airship shape aerodynamically. Hydrogen (or any lifting gas) plays two important roles, one is obvious as a lifting gas, but the other is counteracting the atmospheric pressure which negates the need for massive structure that would be required for a vacuum lifting volume.
Cylinders work as well, and you seem to have forgotten they only need to withstand 1atm of pressure at ground/sea level, as they rise in altitude less internal pressure is needed to prevent crushing so a hybrid approach seems like a good way to go. Particularly if the lifting gas is hydrogen since it can be fed into fuel cells to provide the electrical power needed for propulsion as well.
@@BlueChrome - 1atm is equivalent to roughly 10 metric tons for every square meter, no material that's as light as existing envelope material is withstanding that force unsupported, and even if you could manage to find a miracle material that could the advantages of doing so are only 7% better than hydrogen in terms of lift. In addition, the structure now must be rigid which also adds substantial weight. The lifting gas being used to support the envelope via internal pressure is not a feature to be overlooked. -Cylinders make terrible pressure vessels, capsules maybe but that'd only marginally be better than a sphere aerodynamically. -Higher altitudes are the enemy of airships, you lose a substantial amount of lift as you increase altitude due to the nature of buoyancy. Remember lifting gas subtracted from external atmosphere is equivalent to your lift, if air pressure is halved your lift is also roughly halved. -Hydrogen would make an excellent fuel choice for airships in my opinion, just not from the hydrogen that's being used for lift (for aforementioned reasons)
@Christian Salge > See the vacuum aerogel wrapped in cling film videos to get an idea of where I'm coming from. Now an airship calved from sold aerogel might be a tad expensive, so hollow the lifting shells out so they only have to withstand the ambient air pressure at their chosen cruising altitudes, when they go lower than this the lifting shells would be filled with hydrogen to balance out the atmospheric pressures trying to crush them. So not a true vacuum airship, but close enough with a hybrid approach that makes the airship somewhat more affordable. "-Cylinders make terrible pressure vessels," > And yet engineers the world over continue to make cylindrical submarines, aircraft fuselages, rocket propellant takes, pressurized vessels for storing and transporting industrial gases, it's almost like they ran the numbers and came to the conclusion that cylinders may not be perfect they are certainly 'good enough' to be useful. "-Higher altitudes are the enemy of airships" > Strictly speaking, sure you have a point, but seem to be ignoring the bigger enemy of airships is the troposphere and all the myriad storm systems it contains, see what happened to the Akron and Macon amongst others for why operating above the troposphere seems like a really good idea. "-Hydrogen would make an excellent fuel choice for airships in my opinion, just not from the hydrogen that's being used for lift" > True airships versus the low altitude helium blimps we see today, have a technical challenge they need to overcome when they go from ground level to cruising altitude then back to ground level again - in that they need to be able vary the amount of buoyancy their lifting envelopes provide or else bad things happen. Being able to feed hydrogen from your fuel tank to the lifting envelope then into a fuel cell when the airship needs to descend again is a very useful thing IMO. See all the complex and/or heavy workarounds helium airship proponents have had to devise in order to justify the use of helium as a lifting gas, factor in the rising costs of diminishing helium reserves and it starts becoming obvious why helium airships aren't really seen in everyday use all that often/at all.
@@BlueChrome I can't find any videos relating to vacuum aerogel wrapped in cling film. regardless as far as i'm aware there are no aerogels, much less structural aerogels that are lighter than air or even close to lighter than air. When it comes down to it making a vacuum airship would be all about strength to weight ratio, especially compressive strength. currently nothing exists that can withstand that pressure while being light enough to lift an airship. on the vacuum airship wiki it even seems to imply that diamonds aren't strong enough to withstand the compressive strength of atmosphere against a vacuum. I'm not going to say it will never happen, but technology isn't at a point where a vacuum airship will be feasible likely in our lifetime. re "Cylinders make terrible pressure vessels," submarines airplanes etc are not cylinders, google search "cylinder" and compare the shape to an airplane or submarine. submarines (and pressure vessels) are closer to a capsular shape. look at a the vast majority of pressure vessels and notice that they are capsular shaped with rare exception. a cylinder has a flat top and bottom with a circular cross section, and that 90 angle between the flat face and the curved portion make it a poor pressure vessel where weight is a factor. The distinction is important because cylinders have sharp edges where a capsule does not. Just because aircraft and others have cylindrical sections does not mean you can describe them as cylinders any more than you can call a cube a square because it contains squares. re "Higher altitudes are the enemy of airships" that has nothing to do with my argument, my point was that as airships ascend to a higher altitude they lose a substantial amount of lift, to the point of not being practical at higher altitudes in the case of any non expanding airship. on hydrogen we seem to be mostly in agreement, so long as hydrogen can be proven to be safe in the eye of the public it's definitely the superior choice for a lifting gas.
In theory, vacuum graphene foam can be lighter than helium, and without H problems. In practice, a cube 1m of this foam, while have a lifting force of approx 0.5 - 0.9 kg, will cost a as a plane.
Very Good video Sir! I learned a lot from it. When I was a kid in Houston the Goodyear Blimp would fly over. I loved it. I was that weird kid that was always looking up and awestruck by aircraft. Any aircraft. I was in the Navy and worked on the flight deck because I love aircraft so much and loved to rub their rivets. You did a very good job on this video. Educational.
awesome video!
Thanks for the visit
Very well done! I don't when I've ever learned so much in 10 minutes. subscribed!
20 лет смотрю на ролики этих иновационных цепелинов, иногда они даже летают, иии.... на этом все) Вот модельку суперяхты увидел.. хоть чтото новенькое)
Vacuum airship possible?! That's pretty exciting. It's like adding negative fuel..
look up sloot digital coding systems, its neat ----- Patterns can be autonomous, so much so, that the program knows what to expect, like quantum entanglement, the pattern can be really interwoven, that on each end. That it knows what it's going to expect on each end. I LIKE THE SLOOT coding idea, so much potential in that idea, in supporting autonomous action and reaction's ability. Maybe it compresses it in such away, like they said lossless and like other videos saying compacted really well, it didn't take much to pinpoint the information needed, to create predictions on what the code would be, with near accuracy.
We need to build airships.
This is a future I can get behind
It would be cool if the army uses these airships. Just imagine a battle with airships.10 airships shooting at another 10. It would be so cool!
What about mixing hydrogen with helium to reduce flammability? Internal fans can keep the two gases mixed so it is always below flammability limits everywhere in the gas bags.
Hydrogen by itself is not flammable or explosive. It has to be mixed with an oxidizer such as oxygen. The bad part is the percent range for it to be flammable is quite wide. There were survivors during the Hindenburg fire so it isn't as dangerous as you might think. Separating the people from the hydrogen is pretty easy and since it burns upward just put it above what you don't want to burn. It also doesn't radiate heat like gasoline. Use relatively small containers that don't burn. Hydrogen is the way to go.
@@Eugensdiet I know that hydrogen in and of itself isn't flammable, but it's flammability mixture ratio is wide. I think it is something like 97% hydrogen / 3% will burn. What this means is that you don't need much of a leak with the outside world where oxygen and hydrogen can mix and then get into the flammability range. That's why I was suggesting helium as an additive. It would basically "get in the way" and dilute that mixture ratio. A little bit of trivia; the Hindenburg was designed for helium. However, the United States was the only helium supplier at the time and due to worsening relations with the new Nazi regime in Germany there was a helium embargo. Thus, the Germans used hydrogen instead. I can't help but wonder if the vents on top of the dirigible where the hydrogen first ignited were faulty for hydrogen use since they were designed for helium. The German engineers would have designed those vents not worrying about any potential mixture ratios, turbulence, static discharge ignition sources, etc. One thing is certain however; the Hindenburg would not have blown up if it was using helium as originally intended.
@@flechette3782 A far more spectacular accident was the 85 space shuttle disaster, but getting back to the Hindenburg, that happened over 80 years ago. Materials are much better now. I guess that is why we see them designing lighter than air using hydrogen. Maybe a better way to use helium is to surround many small hydrogen balloons with a large envelope of helium that has very little volume. This should also minimize leakage of the hydrogen via osmoses.
@@Eugensdiet That's not a bad idea. I love dirigibles and really wish we could fins a good economic use for them. Awesome machines.
Hydrogen bags within Helium ones!
As much as I want airship technology to advance as part of the industry of flight, _all_ of these will become vaporware if the prototypers, developers, and manufacturers neglect the following: - equipment, infrastructure and practices for handling airships _on the ground_ - sustainably controlling buoyancy to respond to atmosphere and weight changes - materials, systems, and practices for preventing, mitigating, extinguishing, and recovering from _fire!_ I don't mention hydrogen vs helium, because even if you overcome the changes in buoyancy being deducted from the payload, _helium will not stop a fire!!_ Plenty of helium airships in the past went down, flames included; when there's poor fire-prevention practices and plenty of other flammable materials/equipment on-board, hydrogen vs helium won't make a difference.
Great points, but landing could be made optional if needed. I.e. GPS station keeping and a cable elevator could allow re-supply while hovering. Solar power could greatly reduce fuel needs. And modern weather observation and prediction make it far easier to avoid storms.
All the points you have mentioned (and more) have been taken in to consideration since airships began to be flown in 1900.
I'm convinced about airships having a big future in electric aviation. However, that vacuum calculation doesn't add up. Lets give air, which is mostly nitrogen and oxygen, a molar mass of 28 x 0.79 + 32 x 0.21 = 28.84 g/mol. Displacement per mole of helium is 28.84 - 4 = 24.84 g/mol Displacement per mole of hydrogen is 28.84 - 2 = 26.84 g/mol Displacement per mole of vacuum is 28.84 - 0 = 28.84 g/mol So helium already produces 92.5% of the lift of hydrogen. Pretty good considering the safety. Vacuum would produce 107.5% of the lift of hydrogen if you could keep the material mass the same. Probably would not compete with helium in reality.
Weather will always be an issue. What a “train” of vacuum carriers pulled by a single train engine in the ground.
Hydrogen Airships: Let's gooo! Lightning: allow us to introduce ourselves
Yeah because we obviously never learned how to deal with lightning.
Great
There is already a shortage of helium. The problem with air ship travel is blowing in the wind. The idea of a vacuum air ship is new, difficult to believe that materials can be sufficiently light and strong to withstand the immense pressures involved. Then again there maybe nothing in it.
You discuss the new blimps uh airships and all of them are shown at extremely low altitude. What are their service ceilings to avoid weather? How do they compare to travel time and passenger emplanement versus the airlines? What about cost comparrison? These airships are not pressurized like airlinerrs so whats to keep some crazy from exiting the airship or gaining access where they down't belong? There are so many questions that need to be answered before these actually fly.
I really want luxury airships to happen.
Thank you.
You're welcome!
In order to conquer Venus, we must master airships here. Advanced weather study makes it possible today
If you learned something give it a thumbs up? ahhahahha YOU are the man. The bestest. I send your vids to ALL my aviation friends. Be careful, right now you are 'some guy'. In about a year or less you are going to have $00,000's in traffic. Keep up the inspiring content.
Much appreciated. Thanks. It is really down to KZhead Algorithm though
What is the practical ceiling for airships? Are there regions of the globe where they are more practical? How well could they take advantage of normal wind patterns?
There are now at least two companies marketing autonomous weather ballon type vehicles that navigate by changing altitude and using the wind at different altitudes to go where they want. They don't vent the helium when going down; the compress it into small tanks to save it.
helium powered airships could do serve as a consistent aerial fire fighting apparatus . . . in addition to carrying water & fire suppression foam the airship will extract hydrogen & oxygen from the helium through reverse electrolysis producing water . . . only catch is how much water can be made . . . a typical Australian bush fire spread across a 3 mile radius requires 2,900 litres of water every 53 secs to extinguish a fire within a 120 ft² area . . .
Everytime I see an airship, the airship theme from super Mario bros. 3 plays in my head
Why would they put the cabin in the middle where it cant see anything
I also thought about that. I suppose they are happy putting cameras there, but that is no substitute for clear vision
If vacuum is the preferred option then the requirements would be for small spherical cells in multiples to fit the lift required. This would ensure the cells would easily be strong enough to resist external pressure.
This is very interesting, I never thought about vacuum lift .
Short haul flight great.
Ian Pearson three days ago suggested hot air. Thousand of hot air balloons are flying today and a few of them are blimps (doesn't have a outer frame) and have propulsion. The issue is the lift potential and standard atmosphere sea level can lift approximately: Hydrogen 1.202 gram per liter, Helium 1.114 gram per liter, and Air 99 C above air temperature 3.870 gram per liter. (maximum operating temperature for Nylon 400 and 500 hours before the fabric needs to be replaced.) Hybrid with 5% Hydrogen hot air is suggested for max lift. Other gases that can be used: coal gas, Ammonia, Methane, and proposed gases steam and pure Nitrogen that are not toxic or flammable. The advantage of heating the lift gas is more lift and control. That means a bag material needs to be light, strong, insulating, and can handle high temperature. Well UK tested a material to the melting point of steel 23,000 F Starlite a intumescence material. Commercial product of a intumescence paint materials can be used to coat the inside of the envelope. Intumescence materials creates an insulating carbon foam when heated to high temperature. At home DIY material: 2 flour binder 1 corn starch hold shape and less sticky 1 sugar carbon source 1 baking soda and/or Borax creates CO2 and water gas 25 gm of water Have fun KZhead source kzhead.info/sun/Y62bh8Wlp5N7loU/bejne.html kzhead.info/sun/hNimj9yHq6mVpWg/bejne.html
I think airships are a great idea I'm surprised there aren't more of them
The U.S. shot down the balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America. China insisted the flyover was an accident involving a civilian aircraft. 5 days ago [Time]
what is the airship shown at 0:50?
Right On
Maybe hybrid solution is better, a combination of aerodynamic lift with aerostatic lift. Then you can use thrust vectoring for liftoff with minimal power until you get enough speed to generate aerodynamic lift.
There is something reassuring about traveling in a vehicle that when the engine stops for whatever reason the craft will not plummet to the Earth but will instead remain afloat.
I feel the same
Greyhound should look into the airship business.
Why not use Helium with just a little less pressure then the outside ? You could scale the propper pressure so the material holds...
cool
It’s very interesting but unless they can operate above the weather not sure scheduled usage will be a thing.
They managed scheduled passenger transport on days long routes from Germany to South America without incident for many years - check out the history of the 'Graf Zeppelin", ^oo^
@Drew Peacock People are considering high altitude communication airships that operate in the band of altitude where winds are (as you say) typically lower - Though because as the atmospheric pressure drops with altitude, so does the lift capacity for a given volume of airship - so a laser carrying ship, perhaps charged by a solar skin might be feasible, but it would have to be very big to carry a significant payload at altitude - Alternatively - an airship in a lifting body shape could produce a lot of lift at 40 mph (typical on station wind speed) so might be a more practical and achievable size to deliver the lift required, ^oo^
@Drew Peacock Here's quite a good summary of the Airlander hybrid airship (lifting body) (at end of this comment) - Air weighs around 200 grams per cubic metre at 50,000 ft - but 1 kg per cubic metre at 6000ft so to get the same lift as 6000 ft you need a displacement of around 7 times that of an airship designed to operate at (more material need for the envelope that adds weight, but the envelope can be thinner due to lower dynamic forces - so around 7x rather than 5x) An increase of volume of 7 times is close to a doubling of all linear dimensions - so very big comparatively, but not infeasibly so, ^oo^ kzhead.info/sun/lpFpkb2hmqhoaYU/bejne.html
@Drew Peacock Happy to chat, appreciated - essentially yes it might be possible - you can certainly build an airship capable of carry a payload like that - As a rule of thumb, take the payload in kilograms, - divide it by the weight of the air at the operational altitude (approx 5x for this application)) take the cube root of the result for the linear dimensions of a cube - then consider one of them the diameter of the ships, and multiply it by about 5 to get the length of the final vessel - for a 60 ton payload that works out as around 70m by 335m - roughly 230ft diameter by 1090ft - which is 300 ft longer and and about twice as wide as the HIndenburg - which has a displacement of 200 tons - so big - but considering what was possible in the 1930s, it's certainly looks possible, ^oo^
Hydrogen, being more buoyant than helium is safer. The extra buoyancy translates into greater strength. The German airships had a modicum of success. When the Americans converted German hydrogen airships into helium ones, they broke up.
the u s navy's airship los angeles was made by germany. it was designed for hydrogen but america used helium. the los angeles didn't break up, it was scrapped during w w 2. the two u s made airships akron and macon were destroyed when they were used against the advice of the crews in conditions they weren't designed for. the experts were overruled by - guess who - politicians.
Any link about modern blimp with hydrogen ballonets ? Can't find any with Google.
I like the approach you take. I don't think that vacuum buoyancy envelopes are a step in the right direction, though. Air has a mass of about 1.2 grams per litre at sea level atmospheric pressure and room temperature, while helium is about 0.17g grams. If a helium airship buoyancy envelope gets a small rupture it will leak slowly, if a vacuum buoyancy envelope gets a pin hole it could quickly lead to catastrophic failure and a total crash, very quickly. It is a great example of how far is far enough and how far is too far and too stupid (forgive the phrase). Of course while designing my airship I considered the full range of parameters down to vacuum enclosure. Helium is the happy medium currently. While I do have some other interesting ideas they are beyond the scope of conventional thinking and are subject to a different treatment on the longer term but for now, let's just figure out helium based airships and make them super weather resilient, super safe and high performing. Well that's what I'm doing and hopefully at some point in the near future you will be interested to see what I've come up with. Great video, very interesting.
With helium airships the passengers won't be able to resist inhaling a bit of helium now and then and everybody would be talking like ducks for the whole trip. 😅
Thx. for the video. But i did not understand why can't Helium be manufactured like Hydrogen? Why did you say that Helium is NOT renewable? Could you explain please?
Helium is a noble gas which means it doesn't form molecules (There's no helium equivalent to H2O), so helium just float off into space. Hydrogen would too if it weren't weighed down by other atoms. What helium we have comes from the decay of radioactive material underground. It takes a while for it to seep up and we can catch it before it does.
The thing is how does mere mortals like me to about building my own instead of been suck dry financially these are the questions that needs to be answered
One of the things that was forgotten about was that if you get a hole in your airship when it's got nothing but vacuum in there you will crash. this means that you're going to have to have a double hole and right there has just doubled the weight of your bag.
How to make lighter than air airships with existing materials. High strength low weight materials. May I suggest a double walled 2 shape design. The outer skin might look like a standard airship with only a partial vacuum or Helium gas. The inside would be hollow spheres using a complete vacuum. The difficulty is finding structural synergy and optimum lift, strength, vacuum, and optimization designe.
*FANTASY....nothing more.*
I super heat helium....works great