
Imperial Airship Scheme - benbreen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Airship_Scheme
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sevensor
Fascinating. It still seems counterintuitive almost a century later that
heavier-than-air flight would be so much more effective, even for long-haul
bulk transportation. Compare the payload of a C130 to even the biggest
airships. The only thing airships seem to have going for them is loiter time.

Also, this makes me want to implement a new dialect of scheme just so I can
name it "Imperial Airship Scheme."

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jpm_sd
There are two huge downsides to LTA flight: leaks, and drag.

Leaking lift gas is expensive & difficult to prevent. Also explodey! (if H2).

Airships have to have enormous volumes to float. Therefore they have a lot of
drag compared to their payload capacity (Vs. heavier-than-air-craft). So they
aren't very good at dealing with wind in an efficient manner.

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aaron695
> Leaking lift gas is expensive & difficult to prevent. Also explodey! (if
> H2).

Expensive OR very cheap and explodey. (Gasoline is also explodey)

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gozur88
Helium is comparatively expensive, but you don't expend it as part of normal
flight and it doesn't migrate very quickly through modern materials. A bigger
problem than loss is fouling - you have to pump out the helium and purify it
every so often (I think Zeppelin does it every six months).

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aaron695
Hydrogen is close to free.

~$2 per 10kgs of lift if my internet calculations are correct.

But I guess if helium isn't lost at a great rate, it might be a cheap part of
the whole setup.

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benibela
There were even flying aircraft carriers:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_aircraft_carrier#USS_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_aircraft_carrier#USS_Akron_and_Macon)

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nibelungen79
What about the German Zeppelin?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin)
First lift off was 1900/06... They tried to reinvent it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter)
But announced insolvency in 2002...

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FullyFunctional
There is still interesting development going on although the only I remember
off the top of my head is [http://aeroscraft.com/](http://aeroscraft.com/)

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TorKlingberg
The Wikipedia article doesn't say but I assume these were filled with
hydrogen, making crashes very dangerous.

There is modern attempt at airships in the Airlander 10, but it has had a
(soft) crash.

