
Airlander 10: World's longest aircraft gets full-production go-ahead - colinprince
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-46810151
======
dorfsmay
I find the article a bit "light" (pun totally intended!) on information. As
usual, wikipedia saves the day:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_HAV_304/Ai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_HAV_304/Airlander_10)

Specifically, what I expected from the article:

The original purpose was military:

" programme was intended to demonstrate a medium-altitude long-endurance
unmanned aerial vehicle capable of providing Intelligence, surveillance,
target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) support for ground troops."

Length (to answer clickbatey title): 92 m

Payload: 10 tons (10,000 Kg)

~~~
dragosmocrii
In support of last comment, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Airlander_-
_Mission_Mod...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Airlander_-
_Mission_Module_Fitting.jpg)

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dogma1138
The thing has a cargo capacity of 20,000lbs who is this for? Military? This
thing can only carry 4 humvees at most and about 1/6th of a a main battle tank
by weight.

Civilian transport? 20,000 lbs is a lot if you need to resupply an Arctic
research station manned by 3 people but not for anything at scale.

Tourists? Maybe a novelty but you wouldn’t really need more than 1 or 2 of
those.

Edit: 1/6th instead of 1/3rd forgot that MBTs are 60,000kg not lbs.

~~~
csa
For the military, intel collection seems to be one obvious use case:

1\. 5 days airtime manned.

2\. 92 mph cruise speed.

3\. 20,000 ft service ceiling.

4\. 23 mph loiter speed.

I would want to know how loud it is and how resistant it is to (limited?)
ground fire.

Regardless, I can see it having potential uses.

~~~
stevehawk
It'd never be close enough to ground fire to matter. You're using altitude for
general line of sight and then some very quality antennas to pick up anything
in a very significant radius.

~~~
outworlder
FL 20 _ceiling_ is not high at all. That's the lowest Class A airspace goes,
which is where you'll find most commercial flights.

~~~
userbinator
MH17 was shot down from the ground while flying at 33,000 feet, so 20k is
definitely not out of reach.

~~~
peteretep
But not by small arms fire, or a shoulder-mounted device — it was essentially
shot down by an anti-aircraft installation (wheeled though it is)

~~~
dingaling
But within the ceiling of 37mm or 40mm flak, which are towable behind a pick-
up.

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thechao
Are there any hybrid _hot_ airships? That is hot air dirigible hybrids? That’d
really tickle my diesel- & steam- punk interests.

Edit: they’re called “thermal airships”; Cameron Balloons sells them. Less
lift than a helium balloon of the same size (by ~30%), but about 20x cheaper
to fly. I really want one, now.

~~~
aeneasmackenzie
Not hybrids. You may be familiar with Cloud Nines, the observation that if you
make it but enough a very small temperature difference will be enough to
achieve lift for a very large vessel (i.e. more like kilometers). Very
difficult to figure out the construction though.

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ToFab123
So how long is the world's longest aircraft?

~~~
neurotrace
They really should have included it in TFA but I found this:

> Another mishap befell the 92-metre-long (302ft)...

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/worlds-
biggest...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/worlds-biggest-
aircraft-airlander-10-retired-from-service)

~~~
wongarsu
For comparison: the longest curently operating airplane is the Antonov An-225
Mriya with 84 m (275 ft) length [1]. The longest passenger airplane is the
Airbus 380-800 at 72,30 m (237 ft).

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya)

2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380)

~~~
billfruit
Longest passenger aircraft is 747-8 at 76.3m, as per its Wikipedia article.

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tyingq
_" Cruise speed: 148 km/h (92 mph; 80 kn)"_

What's the market for this thing? Maybe short, over water trips?

It would seem hard to compete with cars or trains once you factor in security
screening time, etc.

~~~
Jedd
Trains (etc) require a lot of infrastructure, especially if you've forgotten
to plan for them for a century or so.

In Australia, the Sydney - Canberra - Melbourne route would be a potentially
interesting one for this, as road travel averages 100km/hr, but has obvious
downsides. These are short leg trips, though I don't expect this tech would
alleviate most of the land-based delays, and (traditional) incumbents would
not be happy if they did.

Either way, a less painful than jet, cheaper than jet, (slightly) faster than
car, less attention demanding than car, travel option would certainly be
relevant to quite a few people's interests around the world.

~~~
petre
Not to mention safer than a car or jet. Airships are quite safe, contrary to
what people think after what happened to the Hindenburg. I wonder how this
hibrid airship behaves in high winds.

~~~
bigiain
I'm not sure I'd classify modern passenger jets as "unsafe".

~~~
petre
They aren't unsafe but hybrid airships with the current air passenger
transport procedures in place could be even safer. If a HAV goes down with 150
kmh speed and 60% buoyancy there's a better chance the passengers would
survive provided there is no pressure loss.

Here's a video of the Airlander 10 prototype crashing:

[https://youtu.be/Mg-RPTiVa_Q](https://youtu.be/Mg-RPTiVa_Q)

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stcredzero
Perhaps the huge surface area could be turned to its advantage? If microwave
rectennas could be incorporated into its upper surface, perhaps such a craft
could be powered by beamed power from satellites? In the right climate, what
about solar power? These would only be viable for operating in extremely
remote areas where the logistics cost of moving fuel in becomes prohibitive.
It's niche, but there is a market there.

~~~
Tade0
Regarding solar power it's currently hard to fulfill all of the requirements:

\- Monocrystalline solar panels would provide as much power as those engines
when covering the craft's surface but they're too heavy to be put there.

\- Modern thin-film solar cells could be light enough, but would probably
provide only enough power for cruising at low speed.

I guess you could replace one of those engines with an electric motor, throw
away 1/4 of the fuel tank and this way more or less break-even on weight
saving a lot on fuel during the day.

~~~
philipkglass
The extremely thin GaAs cells from Alta Devices are flexible and even higher
efficiency than monocrystalline silicon cells, with excellent power to mass
ratio.

Multijunction inverted metamorphic cells are even higher efficiency and also
offer excellent power-to-mass, over 1000 W/kg.

They're probably still too expensive for a huge airship though. Even if it's a
military airship.

------
kerng
That it deflated, broke and crashed just a bit over a year during a test
flight doesn't give me the confidence that I'd wanna fly in this thing.
Conceptually this seems a lot easier and safer to build and operate compared
to a let's say a Boeing, so crashes make me wonder about their quality
assurance.

~~~
Reason077
Hopefully they’ve learnt from what went wrong and made improvements for the
production model.

A lot of Boeings crashed in the early days of jet aviation, too, but now
they’re considered very safe.

~~~
ReptileMan
As the Lion Air crash showed too much safety can kill you.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Strange interpretation, I think most saw it as inadequate training.

~~~
Someone1234
Boeing didn't tell the airline or crew that they had added the new safety
system and didn't provide training materials for it.

The "most" you're referring to are people that didn't read any of the
preliminary findings and jumped to conclusions the second they read Lion Air.

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jupiter90000
Here's an article from mid-2018 showing (mock?) images of the company's
planned use of this as a "luxury airship"

[https://newatlas.com/airlander-10-passenger-
cabin/55515/](https://newatlas.com/airlander-10-passenger-cabin/55515/)

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aldoushuxley001
Can we still call them Zeppelin's tho? This is literally a childhood dream of
mine coming true. Amazing.

~~~
JshWright
It's different from a zeppelin in a couple ways. First, its not totally rigid
(it relies on pressure to keep it's shape), and it is negatively buoyant in
the atmosphere (it relies partially on lift generated by the shape of the
aircraft to stay up).

~~~
anamexis
Re: negatively buoyant, that might not be true. Their FAQ states:

> Being Lighter-Than-Air, the characteristics of the Airlander bring many
> safety benefits. It has four engines and can fly on just one. Even if all
> engines fail, which is extremely unlikely, it can still float or glide under
> pilot control.

~~~
jessriedel
Little more detail:

> As a unique part of the design, 60% of the lift is produced aerostatically
> by being Lighter-Than-Air and a further 40% lift is generated
> aerodynamically by having a wing-shaped hull. The engines can be rotated to
> provide an additional 25% of thrust up or down, to help landing, take-off
> and hover.

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zepearl
Small Airlander Q&A:

[https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/downloads/download/Airland...](https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/downloads/download/Airlander%20Student%20Q&A%20Sheet.pdf)

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skybrian
The article seems unclear on the order of events. What happened after the
prototype crashed? Was there another prototype? What is "successful final
testing?"

~~~
KineticLensman
The Guardian [0] suggests that Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) is not going to
rebuild (repair?) the prototype that crashed but is now instead going into
production.

HAV themselves have more on the move to production at [1]

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/worlds-
biggest...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/worlds-biggest-
aircraft-airlander-10-retired-from-service)

[1] [https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/news-and-media/news/hav-
aw...](https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/news-and-media/news/hav-awarded-
production-organisation-approval)

------
ChuckNorris89
I can already hear Hell March[1] playing. Kirov Reporting!

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBOD8qeCBuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBOD8qeCBuc)

~~~
nerdwaller
Helium Mix Optimal!

The original Red Alert was such a phenomenal video game.

~~~
titanix2
EA announced at remastered version few months ago. I’m both excited and
anxious about it.

~~~
nerdwaller
You may have just made my day! Link for those interested:
[https://m.ign.com/articles/2018/11/14/ea-announces-
command-c...](https://m.ign.com/articles/2018/11/14/ea-announces-command-
conquer-red-alert-remasters)

------
walshemj
Great news after the crash last year - I currently work in Cardington and can
see the sheds (never hangers) from work.

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KineticLensman
Press release from HAV themselves at [0]

[0] [https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/news-and-media/news/hav-
aw...](https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/news-and-media/news/hav-awarded-
production-organisation-approval)

------
rishabhd
Looks okay, but not sure about the use cases. Its slow and it's capacity
advantage can be outmatched with numbers in existing platforms. A slow luxury
cruise? Reconnaissance - but radar cross section would be too big. Am I
missing something?

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fredgrott
This is civilian surveillance given the low payloads just the right payload
for electronic gear and a small staff to man it or even automate its flying as
a drone say over London not all bad in terms it would be great for traffic
control applications

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agumonkey
related, allegedly fully solar powered hot air balloon
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdNuQv_LV5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdNuQv_LV5U)

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dis-sys
watched that video in the link, wondering why Airlander 10 is so noisy?

~~~
ileri62
Wasn't that rather the helicopter noise? Either way it was a stupid decision
to include audio. Nearly blew my ears off

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buboard
looking forward to the voyages of the giant butt and the inevitable kardashian
comparisons.

