
A recent paper proposes to bring zeppelins back - prostoalex
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/zeppelins-stopped-flying-after-hindenburg-disaster-now-scientists-want-bring-ncna1043911
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weinzierl
CargoLifter [1] tried to bring Zeppelins back in the late nineties. They
started building a gigantic manufacturing building but ran out of money before
they even started to build a Zeppelin. The hangar was later turned into an
aqua park but ran into troubles because the heating expenses were too high.
Not surprising given the hangar was designed to be open at both ends.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter)

~~~
ul5255
The aqua park is actually doing quite well nowadays [https://www.tropical-
islands.de/en/](https://www.tropical-islands.de/en/)

~~~
weinzierl
Good to know, I always wanted to visit it. Maybe I'll do...

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aww_dang
Allied forces went to great lengths in creating specialized bullets to ignite
hydrogen from zeppelins. The common conception of zeppelins being wildly
flammable seems misplaced in this context.

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

In my eyes zeppelin travel would be a welcome alternative to current air
accommodations. In the same way I prefer taking a room on a train to air
travel, I would prefer a cabin on an airship to either. If cargo can be
transported, then I would expect a similar arrangement to the existing
container ship passages.

~~~
rgblambda
In the article they talk about how the airships would be unmanned due to the
risk of fire.

~~~
squarefoot
Which is a very shortsighted view from them IMO. An unmanned hydrogen filled
airship may spare passengers and crew in case of an accident because there is
none of either, but if catches fire over a stadium or a highway while carrying
5 grand pianos that wouldn't make it less deadly than the Hindenburg.

~~~
bewo001
In fact, two thirds of people aboard the Hindenburg survived. Since the we had
a lot more aircraft landing accidents where all passengers died in the jet
fuel fire.

~~~
usrusr
But on the other hand, the whole class made less than 100 flights, which makes
it more than a thousand times more deadly than the 737 MAX even with two
thirds surviving. So the bad reputation is not just the outcome of exceptional
media coverage (I do wonder how the failure rate compares to it's fixed wing
contemporaries though, they surely were quite terrible by today's standards as
well)

------
Darkstryder
A wild dream of mine is to build a 1/4 scale replica of an Imperial Star
Destroyer that would actually be a zeppelin in disguise.

Just imagine that thing floating mightily in the sky like the actual starship
from Star Wars.

You could even jump with a parachute or a wingsuit from the starfighter hangar
bay.

If any zillionaire out there wants to tackle this...

~~~
mkl
Let's try maths on that! An Imperial Star Destroyer is ~1600m long, and has a
volume of ~9.3e7m³ [1]. At 1/4 scale, it would be 400m long and have a volume
of 9.3e7/4³ ≈ 1.45e6m³. The largest zeppelin ever made was the Hindenburg,
which was 245m long and had a volume of ~2e5m³ [2].

I think your dream is unlikely to come to fruition, but zillionaire is in the
right ballpark!

[1]
[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=117422](http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=117422)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg-
class_airship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg-class_airship)

~~~
rwj
Bring on the 1/8 scale model!

------
eesmith
I've been hearing about the return of Zeppelins since the 1980s. Still hasn't
happened.

> 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. It’s the same gas the Hindenburg and the other big
> zeppelins used in the 1930s.

As a reminder, the Hindenburg was originally designed for helium. They were
unable to get the US to lift its ban on the export of helium under the Helium
Control Act of 1927.

> 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.

That's isn't much amount of water, and certainly not enough to affect a
drought.

Figuring 2km long x 200m x 200m that's about 3E9 mol of gas. You need some
lifting gas for the vehicle weight - call it 1E9 mol or 5E8 mol of water,
which is 30K tons. That's 27 acre feet, which appears to be enough for about
15 acres of potatoes for a growing season, using numbers from
[https://www.ardentmills.com/media/1725/colorado-quinoa-
susta...](https://www.ardentmills.com/media/1725/colorado-quinoa-
sustainability-story.pdf) .

And I think I'm highly over-estimating.

~~~
jsilence
Well at least for now we are not running out of Helium:
www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-06-28-huge-helium-discovery-life-saving-find

~~~
input_sh
But... we are. We're using it at a rate that's faster than the rate it is
produced in.

Just because we find a pocket or two that we haven't found before doesn't mean
that the problem is gone. The new pockets are usually more difficult to
extract helium from, and storing it and transporting it is a painful process
to say the least. The problem won't be truly gone until we find a way to
gather it from outer space.

------
mannykannot
Weather is the enemy of airships: three of the four large helium-filled US
airships were brought down by structural damage from bad weather. Forecasting
is now good enough that bad weather can probably be avoided, but airships are
not fast enough to be routed around developing or fast-moving storms, so
regions of unsettled weather might be off-limits for days at at time.

~~~
solstice
would it be possible for them to rise above the storm systems and thus avoid
them? Or is that where the jet streams are?

I have wondered about a similar thing in the context of solar panels floating
on the oceans: if the weather and the waves get too rough, just go drive to -5
meters or so to avoid damage from the waves and surface after the storm is
over. But of course, salt water corrosion and growth of marine life on the
panels is going to be a big problem with that

~~~
pixl97
I think you miss the scale of strong storms. Updrafts and their corresponding
downdrafts can commonly reach 40,000 feet with severe storms far higher than
that. Many storms, especially in the central US can exceed 65MPH in forward
ground motion.

~~~
mdorazio
I think you miss how high balloons can go. Strong storms top out at roughly
60,000 feet. Weather balloons can easily reach 100,000 feet and are often only
altitude-limited by the fact that their skin is designed to burst after they
reach a certain point. There's really no reason you couldn't design an airship
for flight above storm conditions as long as its weight to lift ratio is kept
low enough.

~~~
usrusr
A balloon can be designed with excessive slack for accommodating the dramatic
pressure differential between ground level and typical weather balloon
altitudes, but neither airships (rigid or semi-rigid) nor blimps could ever
hope to come close. Airships would fail to enclose enough volume power
structural weight and blimps tailored for high altitude would fail to keep
shape at lower altitudes.

Even if the problem was somehow solved for blimps, (perhaps with an internal
"diving bladder" filled by compressing some of the carrying gas), their cross
section at lower altitudes would be prohibitively big, making them effectively
unmaneuverable. A very high altitude blimp would effectively be a one-way
vehicle, it could raise as an uncontrolled balloon (then it might even be
acceptable to not solve the slack issue at all), then operate as a dirigible
at target altitude.

~~~
mdorazio
I fail to see why a blimp could not be designed in the same way as a weather
balloon with a highly expandable skin. They already utilize bladders
extensively. You would have to suspend your payload / drive unit below the
balloon the same way a weather balloon does, but that's not a deal breaker.
This seems like a materials engineering problem more than a design engineering
one.

------
stubish
Who are the people always cited as being concerned by using hydrogen, every
single time there is an article on airships? Do they exist? If so, are they
just contrarians we can ignore? The technology is doomed if every time someone
suggests it they start by explaining why it won't explode like that incident
that happened 80 years ago that your parents might remember from a Led
Zeppelin album cover.

"Unlike blimps built in the last 50 years, the the suggestion is to revert to
an even older technology and using hydrogen for lift, cheaper, safer and more
environmentally friendly than the alternatives."

~~~
WalterBright
Airliners take off full of fuel. Many airliners have ended in fiery crashes.
Yet we still fly in them, all the time. Myself included. We drive around in
cars full of fuel, that burn, too. People even drive around in hydrogen fueled
cars.

Why should Zeppelins be held to a far higher standard than airliners?

~~~
weinzierl
Makes me thinking: What is the total energy of a full airplane vs a Zeppelin
for roughly same cargo or passenger number.

~~~
jcims
Just stubby pencil work here because I'm up at entirely the wrong hour and
this might help me go back to sleep.

Envelope volume of the Goodyear blimp is ~8.5e6 liters.

Density of hydrogen at STP is ~0.09g/L. If we filled the Goodyear blimp with
that we'd have ~765kg of hydrogen gas. Let's round up to cover the slight
operating pressure and say we have 800kg of hydrogen.

Energy density of hydrogen is very high, 141MJ/kg. Energy density of Jet A is
~45MJ/kg.

So our hypothetical blimp has the equivalent of 2600kg of Jet A on board.

The Goodyear blimp only holds 8 passengers plus two pilots. A similarly sized
jet would be the Learjet 60. It holds 3500kg of fuel.

So, most jets probably have more on takeoff and less on landing.

~~~
lorenzhs
The Hindenburg carried around 200k m³ of hydrogen, or 18,000kg, storing 2.54
PJ of energy, or equivalent to 56,400 kg of jet fuel. A 747 can carry more
than four times that (240k-ish); an A320 or 737 carries slightly more than
half (25k-ish). The Hindenburg only carried some 70 passengers, though.

~~~
jcims
Whoa the Hindenburg was huge:
[http://thesaratogasake.blogspot.com/2010/06/big-things-
again...](http://thesaratogasake.blogspot.com/2010/06/big-things-
again.html?m=1)

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yoz-y
A completely naïve question: Is there any chance we could get buoyancy from
void if the materials are strong enough?

~~~
edynoid
Don't know about the material science behind it. But from a purely physical
point of view, the problem there is that void (= vacuum) does not have any
pressure. So the frame would have to support itself against the atmospheric
pressure instead of the gas doing it from the inside – that is a big technical
challenge. The catastrophic failure scenario (hull breach) would be an
implosive compression of the entire hull, which kinda sounds worse than a
hydrogen-fuelled fire.

~~~
haylel
I read about this a lot a while ago, the main solution I came across was that
in the _diamond age_ when we get to that point in societal development. We'll
be able to make tiny diamond bubbles with a vacuum inside, and they can be
used to create airships and floating platforms. The airship doesn't have to be
a single large vacuum diamond hull, but could also be made from many smaller
diamonds which would help prevent a catastrophic failure. The diamond bubbles
would be strong and light enough to hold the vacuum.

~~~
beautifulfreak
The wikipedia entry on "vacuum airships, as they're called," is nicely
detailed.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship)

------
FrozenVoid
There alternatives to zeppelins
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_airship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_airship)

~~~
raxxorrax
I wonder if it is feasible as a miniature version for cargo drones. Probably
would add quite a bit of range for the cost of speed.

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stupidcar
According to the article, these new zeppelins would be 1) huge, 2) hydrogen-
filled, and 3) uncrewed and automatically piloted.

If there are any Hollywood producers reading this, I suddenly have a great
idea for an action film involving maleovelent hackers and a slow moving fleet
of explosive destruction.

~~~
solstice
I'm picturing extremely slow moving cinematography like in DBZ in the battle
against Cell (which was stretched over weeks' worth of episodes)

------
jhallenworld
Here is a BBC dramatization of Lady Grace Drummond's 1929 sensationalized
first-person account (sponsored by Hearst) of an around the world trip on the
Graf Zeppelin:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jq7oRxw-g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jq7oRxw-g)

~~~
dredmorbius
NB, Hearst, William Randolph. Grandfather of Patty. Creater of the eponymous
Castle (and a northern cousin). And inspiration of _Citizen Kane_.

------
JSeymourATL
Related: Blimp Boom or Bust? Assessing Airship Business Opportunities for
Helicopter Operators > [https://www.rotorandwing.com/2018/11/02/assessing-
airship-bu...](https://www.rotorandwing.com/2018/11/02/assessing-airship-
business-opportunities-helicopter-operators/)

------
kstenerud
“The idea would be that the whole process would be automated so that in case
you have an accident, no one will be injured — only the equipment and the
cargo,”

"And in other news, tragedy struck earlier today, as hundreds were killed when
a cargo blimp exploded, dropping its 250 tonnes of cargo 40,000 feet into an
apartment block in Chicago..."

~~~
exhaze
Just don't fly over highly populated areas?

~~~
Aeolun
I’m sure they’ll make that rule right after!

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alex_duf
They've been coming back for 30 years, I think I'll be excited when I see one

~~~
C1sc0cat
It is really cool I saw Airlander flying before its crash and I can almost see
the Cardington Sheds from my office window.

And years ago ago I remember seeing Airship industry flying around.

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cafard
Quite apart from the dangers of hydrogen, zeppelins handle bad weather only so
well. The US Navy had a couple of large zeppelins in the 1920s. They used
helium, but both, as I recall, were damaged and lost in storms.

------
gnikif
The only reason to bring them back is the fancy steampunky look. From the
practical side, they would be a step back.

~~~
chr1
Step back from what? A middle sized autonomous airship carrying one container,
would be a huge step up from semi trucks, as it would be 2-3 times faster
would not cause damage to roads, could be used in places where there are no
good roads, and if thin film perovskite solar cells become reality would
generate the energy needed for its flight by itself.

~~~
thombat
A standard 6m shipping container has a maximum gross weight of 30,480kg. The
current Zepplin NT craft have a payload of 1,900kg and are 75m long. So it
seems that quite a substantial airship might be required, e.g. a modern
version of the 240m long "Hindenburg" would be able to deliver a shipping
container, given that [1] quotes it as having about 20,000kg of payload
capacity (including crew, passengers, food) but allowing for further weight
savings with modern aero engines, etc.

[1] [https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/calculating-lifting-
capacity-o...](https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/calculating-lifting-capacity-of-
airships-48df5cd7d147)

~~~
eigenloss
They state the dimensions in the OP: a mile and a half long at altitude, 10
times larger than the Hindenburg, payload of 20,000 tons. No, not 20,000
pounds - tons.

~~~
thombat
That's the "replace a freighter" model - I was commenting on the parent's
"replace a road truck", which seems like a poorer return: since any Zeppelin
is going to be inconveniently large may as well go for broke.

~~~
eigenloss
Yep, it only makes sense economically (and physically) if it is big enough to
carry a few dozen shipping containers.

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lcnmrn
An electric Airbus Beluga will be a lot more efficient.

------
yk
The thing about zeppelins is, that (party) balloons give the completely wrong
intuition about things that float in air. A balloon does float quite freely
and without much air resistance, but by contrast a zeppelin is a substantial
piece of machinery with a lot of area to generate air resistance. Actually to
the point, where it is less energy consuming to use a plane, instead of
fighting against the wind.

~~~
esotericn
Eh, I wouldn't say that a balloon floats without much air resistance. Trying
to throw one to someone else is difficult, for example.

The cheap footballs that are thin skinned - we used to call them 'flyaway'
balls when I was younger. Because even those, substantially heavier than a
balloon, would go off in random directions due to their susceptibility to wind
from the low weight.

But actually, I've never thought of a zeppelin this way before. It gives a
good intuition - but for the opposite reason you've stated, that they _do_ act
kind of like balloons, and that's not what you want from a directed vehicle!

~~~
MayeulC
> Because even those, substantially heavier than a balloon, would go off in
> random directions due to their susceptibility to wind from the low weight.

Just be sure to keep in mind that while zepperlins, dirigibles and aerostats
are subjected to non-negligible amounts of buoyant force due to low density,
that does not make them light, nor easy to push around.

If you carry 20kt of cargo, plus the weight of the vehicle (including the
weight of the lifting gas), I don't think a wind gust would blow you away,
regardless of how strong it is.

Try to push around a big buoy, that gives an idea of the challenge.

Moreover, spheres are one of the aerodynamically poorest shapes (if not the
most), actually worse than a flat sail. That's probably the biggest reason for
Zeppelin's shape (or the rugby ball, for that matter).

