What went wrong?
>>1233465
You stated a thread with bare minimum effort out of laziness and contempt, that's what.
>>1233478
>200+ boring roman pro/deusvult/byzaboo threads
>shits on an airship thread
>>1233465
Sabotage.
They filled it with fucking hydrogen
Not enough of an economic niche.
Bad PR from a crash.
World War II.
Airplanes.
How many Jews died?
There's your answer
>>1233584
Not nearly as dangerous as popularly believed. The Hindenburg burning was actually because of flammable paint.
>>1233591
t. Mythbusters
>>1233465
Association with Germany plus the Hindenburg disaster. Zeppelin is beginning to make more airships again, though. In a few decades, you might see commercial zeppelin lines as a cheaper alternative to airplanes again.
Aren't airships making a bit of a resurgence lately? I'm sure I've read about new ones being designed in the last 5 years for cargo transport.
>>1233584
Not as great a concern as long as you keep them well maintained so you don't get significant hydrogen oxygen mixing.
Also it helps to not have people actively trying to shoot it down.
Not using hydrogen is expensive.
>>1233465
Its gigantic and slow and also we invented planes
>>1233465
One bullet and the entire thing pops and everyone dies thats what you fucking idiot
>>1233813
takemymoney.jpg
WANNA BLOW US ALL TO SHIT, SHERLOCK?
>>1234001
>>1234004
>>1234026
>I don't actually know anything about airships but I'm going to post anyways
Lads...
>>1234016
I'm excited desu. Iirc, the antarctic expeditions are generally getting flown down via airship now as well since they don't have the same issues as ships and helicopters do in the region and they're easier to land on ice.
>>1233465
I read, recently, an interesting article in Air & Space magazine that argued quite convincingly that the disaster was the result of the skin of the ship burning and not its lifting gas.
I don't have the article right now and I can't find it online, but I will summarize the points that I remember.
>The skin contained a aluminum based chemical that was highly flammable.
>The fire was caused by some atmospheric electrical discharge on the skin of the airship that lasted several seconds, enough time for the necessary heat to build up.
>Skins of ships post disaster were of a radically different chemical comp (sulfur added I think) and this comp was found to be far less flammable.
>The huge fire which rapidly consumed the ship was utterly inconsistent with a hydrogen fire.
>The Zeppelin company blamed the fire on the gas as a scapegoat to disguise their own engineering failure.
I really wish I had the magazine with me so I could post a pic of the article. I will try to grab the article and post it in this thread later.
Personally I would love to go on an airship cruise.
>>1234257
>I have never seen Archer, the post.
>>1233591
>hydrogen
>not dangerous
it's a fucking component of rocket fuel, the fuck are you talking about?
>>1234677
So is oxygen
and aluminum
Not saying you're wrong, just not good evidence.
They were slow as shit, had pathetically low seating for passengers, and exploded on a pin drop.
What kind of dumbass question is this?
>>1234545
The fire definitely started with the skin conducting energy from the charged atmosphere, but it's a bit much to say that the entire disaster was just the skin burning alone.
>>1235810
>had pathetically low seating for passengers
This. Airships couldn't feasibly compete with oceanliners as a practical mode of transport. They were a gimmick for the rich.
>>1235810
You couldn't sounds more retarded if you tried
>>1235874
Same to you, pal.
>riding aboard the floating jew
>>1234686
aluminum's ignition point is about the same as its melting point
Vacuum zeppelins when?
>>1234686
I agree with you, but oxygen is insanely volatile
>>1235943
Right after we build that space elevator.
The problem is that people keep saying "we can probably do it with magic nanotube materials that we haven't invented yet" and they been saying it for ages.
>>1236149
kek I took an aerospace structures class a couple years back where the professor spent a whole lecture explaining to us why space elevators are retarded.
>Blimps
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Blimps are shit. At best, you're getting about 2kg of lift per cubic meter of hydrogen, with that value dropping if
>weather gets hot
>you decide to use a safer gas
>you ascend in altitude at all
>the weather changes
With all the weight associated with the structure of the airship, you're always left with an absurdly low payload. The Hindenburg, for example, was the largest aircraft by volume ever. But it had a payload of just 30,000lb, all while being slightly faster than a ship and far too susceptible to the weather.
>>1236218
this desu
even without the hindenburg disaster, airships would've gotten outcompeted by airplanes in the long run.
>>1233465
Guys, what went wrong with flying boats?
Berlin was going to have a flying-boat port. What happened?
>>1236239
Nothing, flying boats still exist.
now if only they made a resurgence
>>1233465
>>1240521
I mean, he's half correct.
>>1238225
They're not.
>>1238225
>There's a reason they're making a comeback.
Except they're not. They've found a niche role recently in the form of semi-permanent early warning radar stations, but the same downsides we saw a hundred years ago still apply today. Slightly better structural engineering doesn't get around the fact that you need an absurdly large airship for even medium-sized payloads.
>>1235943
>Vacuum zeppelins when?
There is no purpose to a vacuum zeppelin. Vacuum is only 7% more buoyant in air than hydrogen and 14% more than helium, but requires vastly greater structural strength and thus weight, more than negating the small difference. It would also be very dangerous - any leak is a big, immediate problem, unlike with H or He.
>>1236239
When you've got an airport flying boats just aren't practical for general use and so, thanks to both the rapid proliferation of large runways from 1939-1945 and modern jet aircraft's massive range, seaplanes and flying boats have fallen into very niche roles.
>>1241021
Aircraft carriers became a thing too.
>>1234677
It's also a component of water.
>>1233813
I hope they're brought back. I'd love to ride a luxury one and take an airship cruise around the world or going over the sahara n shiiet
>>1234257
>Antarctic expeditions are generally flown down via airship
Do you have an example? I can't imagine having a lighter than air craft in a region so extreme
>>1235956
Oxygen is already a gas.
>>1236181
Do you remember why? I'm curious.
Is it just a matter of needing an unreasonable strength-weight ratio or what?
>>1242803
Bump. Why are space elevators retarded?
>>1242803
>>1243271
The general idea is that even with space-age materials like carbon nanotubes, the compressive force created by the weight of the tower is going to be far more than the strength of any material, even for distances far less than what a space elevator would require.
Sure, there's the argument that the space elevator might actually be under tension once set up correctly, but that still leaves the problem of making it in the first place - until you've actually got the whole thing assembled, the tower will be under the compressive force of literally thousands of kilometers of material.
Plus, the whole carbon nanotubes meme is just that - a meme. You're lucky if you can build a carbon nanotube even an inch long, let alone the ~30,000km you'd need for a space elevator.
Really the far more feasible proposal is a space skyhook.
>>1233465
It caught fire
>>1240521
This guy was very right.
Flying machines have still not made their way into the general consumer market like cars. Airline companies need not apply.
And yes, this is mostly due to the dangers in an average person flying and how we still haven't figured out a way to create one that's safe enough.
Amazing that he predicted how they would be used for war.
"Men will be found in plenty to take the risk of utilizing a flying machine for military purposes...but the average mortal...would not be disposed to take a like risk for the sake of, say, a pleasure trip across the channel."
>>1233465
Shits too slow.
Even during WWI they abandoned airships and moved to twin engine bombers.
>>1245614
Maxim was a pretty smart dude.
I still find it hilarious the only reason he invented machine guns was because his rivals in the US paid him to fuck off to Europe for a couple years, and he got bored of raking in cash doing nothing.
>>1245614
>Airline companies need not apply.
This is completely arbitrary.
There's a strong implication airships are preferable for commerce because the fiscal gains aren't comparable with the future of a nation being at stake. Note that he dismisses the idea it would be competitive with railways. Private train ownership is even less common than private aircraft ownership, so it's clear he wasn't limiting it to mass consumer ownership.
>>1233465
The paint, the gas inside, and poor safety procedures.
>>1233795
I'm hype for luxury airships with actual fucking safety precautions. Back in the 30s even airplanes were more unsafe, so these days airship technology will have improved.
>>1248664
Kill yourself you stupid fucking meme tier faggot
>>1233795
I swear to God I'm making it my life's goal to captain a zeppelin.
>>1243552
what if you attached nuclear powered turbines to it?
>>1248759
Ignoring how retarded that idea is, what are you going to do for the tens of thousands of km of material outside of the atmosphere you're supporting? Those turbines are only going to work up to ~100km in the absolute best case.
>>1233465
Time, honestly.
The time it took for the Hindenburg to cross the Atlantic to New Jersey was almost 6 days, just somewhat faster than you would be boat.
but with commercial airliners able to pull of Atlanta to London flights in 12 hours, most people are gonna keep with that to save themselves nearly a week travelling on a zeppelin.
>>1248784
pump-fed thrusters
>>1248808
There's a couple proposals like that which are a bit more feasible than a Space elevator.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop
>>1234677
I'm researching airships for a 1930s air pirates novel, and I was surprised to find this out too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety#Mixtures
>"The limits of detonability of hydrogen in air are 18.3 to 59 percent by volume"
In other words if *more* than 59% of the gasbag is filled with hydrogen rather than air (that leaked in after it was shot full of holes, for example,) there's not enough oxygen in there to let it ignite. Compare with gasoline fumes, which are
>(For comparison: Deflagration limit of gasoline in air: 1.4–7.6%; of acetylene in air,[7] 2.5% to 82%)
What makes hydrogen so damn dangerous is, it takes a *tenth* of the energy to initiate ignition as it does compared to gas vapors in air. So even the tiniest spark can fuck you. But in the context of an airship, it's actually pretty safe, because it requires a lot of air mixed in with the hydrogen before it becomes dangerous.
Things that will let a ton of air in fast and allow the hydrogen to keep fueling the ignition: a fire eating away the fabric of the gasbag.
>>1248759
1. Any space elevator cable is going to need a strength we'll probably only achieve with something like carbon nantubes.
2. Carbon nanotubes are stupidly conductive.
3. Failing that, place the base station in an equatorial desert and power the climber with microwave lasers. Someone's working on a thermal expansion rocket that works the same way, in fact.
My great-grandparents operated a tavern right outside the field where the Hindenburg blew up. My great-grandfather was one of the men on the ground that used to assist with the landing procedure. They were both there when it crashed and burned.
They took some silverware from the airship , only to have to stolen by a nurse twenty years ago when my great-grandma was in hospice. Bastards.
>>1233465
Is there a genuine role for zeppelins in the modern era? What usage would they have beyond being cool?
A jewish commie admitted to having sabotaged it actually
>Ywn ride on an airship because of kikes
>>1249251
>ywn ride on an airship because they're totally inferior to fixed wing aircraft
FTFY
>>1249656
Pleb tier taste
the second world war
the remaining airships ultimately were broken up to serve that conflict, as well as advancements during the war ending any question of heavier than air travel's supremacy over ariships
>>1249834
They're not really comparable though.
>>1249841
exactly, that's why airships fell by the wayside
>>1249912
But they have different roles, it's like a slow fusion of a light ship and a helicopter, with the gliding potential of a hot air balloon.
>>1249972
it has massive surface area ans so it doesn't handle weather well in any way, and actually can't lift a whole lot compared to a helicopter
theyre making a fucking massive airship near me atm ive seen it when the hangar doors are open and it looks impressive as fuck
apparently theyre trying to sell it on the idea it can deliver aid to remote regions without places suitable for container aircraft or some such
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/21/airlander-10-hybrid-airship-unveiled-bedfordshire
probably not going to be successful but it looks amazing in person
>>1250053
It can stay aloft for far longer though, and is much less energy intensive. Hell, I'd say they'll become more profitable as oil fades.
>>1250091
maybe if they were actually not death traps, and the load they carry was actually impressive for the size
>>1250100
>death traps
This meme died with hydrogen. Helium is perfectly safe. In fact, modern safety procedures mean that hydrogen can be used extremely safely, but public opinion would never allow it.
>>1250112
I just knew you'd think I was talking about hydrogen
>>1250121
>deathtrap
A zeppelin is a hell of a lot more secure than an airplane dummy.
>>1250196
have you read anything about airships?
>>1250091
>It can stay aloft for far longer though
Doesn't matter if you're going slow as fuck.
>and is much less energy intensive
No
>>1249015
>Is there a genuine role for zeppelins in the modern era? What usage would they have beyond being cool?
Two things - loiter time and cheap cargo moving. Much like ships, (which are very cheap for bulk cargo) the friction between them and their medium is very low; and it only takes a little bit of energy to push them along. So they're great for cheap bulk cargo (much cheaper than planes.) Russkies are using them for moving logs around in siberia (road suck dicks out there.)
And then there's loiter time. An airborne radar aircraft (AWACS/Airborne Early Warning) costs a lot of money to fly, so if you want constant airborne radar coverage, you use a blimp. The US has some over Washington DC (to spot cruise missiles that try to fly under the radar; we put those up when the Russians started sub patrols with nuclear armed cruise missiles again,) and China's developing very high altitude ones for more general AWACS coverage.
>>1250053
They actually handle weather much better than you think. All in all airships never really got a fair shot. That's exactly why they're coming back now, they actually are great for particular use cases. Back in the day what killed them was a combination of bad press from early accidents and airplanes improving enough to handle most of the things airships were doing. Even if an airship could do X, Y or Z cheaper nobody wanted to risk them after the bad pres, esp. once aircraft were good enough to do the job too (even if they didn't do it as well or as efficiently.) Nowadays it's far enough in the past that the stigma has faded and modern tech opens up a lot of possibilities. Esp. the fact that you can predict the weather a lot easier.
>>1250317
>Doesn't matter if you're going slow as fuck.
>>1250317
>>and is much less energy intensive
sir
sir you are in error
>>1250372
>it only takes a little bit of energy to push them along
lolno
Overcoming air resistance is a much bigger drain on fuel than generating lift.
It's been 86 replies, and people still aren't getting that lighter than air aviation physically isn't as fuel efficient as fixed wing heavier than air aviation.
>>1250391
face it nerd airships are fucking useless compared to airplanes.
>>1233465
Partially related:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbAhn7iKLPc
>>1250399
>Overcoming air resistance is a much bigger drain on fuel than generating lift.
>fixed wing heavier than air
Motherfucker, I'm no genius, but even I know that fixed wing heavier than air generates lift via moving forward through air at speed. I.E. "overcoming air resistance" (which is what you have to do when you move forward through the air) is the prerequisite to generating fucking lift. Aircraft have to move at a minimum speed (i.e. stall speed or faster) to generate the lift to keep them airborne.
Airships don't. Airships can just fuckin float there, all day. Aircraft have a max efficiency speed; i.e. "cruise speed" where the diminishing returns of going faster really set in hard because of increasing air resistance (the faster you move the more effective air resistance.) Airships don't have that problem. They can putter forward as slow as they fuckin want for efficiency's sake. And they're not even that draggy; the fucking Akron and Macron would sometimes take off without their biplanes loaded, then let their aircraft fly up and dock - because they could carry more weight once in motion because the envelopes generated dynamic lift (from forward flight.) If those fucking ugly-ass gasbags in the 30s could generate useful dynamic lift, think of what modern designs can do. We can shape the gas envelopes any damn way we want to reduce drag and generate lift.
Fuckin hell, there, I found one, check the picture. Ten seconds on Google.
Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying. If so, please explain. Because right now it seems like you don't know how the fuck aerodynamics work.
>>1250404
That's one hella low effort post bruh
>>1250438
It's simple.
>airship has to contend with extremely high amounts of drag and no need for lift force
>airplane has an extremely low surface area relative to the mass it carries, but needs to lift its own weight
>modern airplanes outperform airships in fuel efficiency
>airplanes started to outperform airships in fuel efficiency in the 40s or so, which is why that's when everyone stopped using airships
>airships are useful for extremely long term aviation, such as surveillance aircraft, which is precisely what people use them for now
>>1250466
Okay, that makes sense and sounds perfectly rational, thank you. I definitely doubt the numbers work out like that, but it's not like I've looked them up myself yet so I can't say shit about that.
How come there can't be an inner core/gas bag filled with helium and an outer layer filled with helium? that way the helium would not be able to react with the air and the noble gases would also do a good job preventing explosive reactions.
>>1250501
I'm gonna be honest, I chased the sources myself, because I knew I remembered reading it somewhere.
I got an uncited sentence in a wikipedia article and this shit
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/helium-hokum-why-airships-will-never-be-part-of-our-transportation-infrastructure/
Which I'm reading through.
I may be full of shit. Oh well.
Hydrogen & Fire
>>1250550
Helium & fire
>>1250522
inner bag filled with hydrogen i mean
>>1250524
>only 30 seconds needed to find a NACA report with the drag coefficients of several period airships
>lift/drag coefficients for comparison: lol no
Yeah, lets just say I feel your pain on that one. You still have a point though, just glancing at the wikipedia page gave me this:
>The disadvantages are that an airship has a very large reference area and comparatively large drag coefficient, thus a larger drag force compared to that of aeroplanes and even helicopters. Given the large frontal area and wetted surface of an airship, a practical limit is reached around 130–160 kilometres per hour (80–100 mph). Thus airships are used where speed is not critical.
And further above, this:
>An impediment to the large-scale development of airships as heavy haulers has been figuring out how they can be used in a cost-efficient way. In order to have a significant economic advantage over ocean transport, cargo airships must be able to deliver their payload faster than ocean carriers but more cheaply than airplanes.
So they might be, strictly speaking, more efficient than aircraft, but if you can do the same job with a ship, why bother? That's one reason they're being tried in Siberia; you're a long, long road haul away from a port there. Other places, not so much.
>>1250522
This has actually been done, but for reasons different than the ones you mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rozi%C3%A8re_balloon
>>1250564
>NACA report with the drag coefficients of several period airships
>>lift/drag coefficients for comparison: lol no
>Yeah, lets just say I feel your pain on that one. You still have a point though, just glancing at the wikipedia page gave me this:
Also this was my first thought as well (my idea was, mix hydrogen and helium) but I soon found that the best mix you can make without increasing the risk over a pure helium mix is, at most, 7% hydrogen. And the difference between helium and hydrogen, buoyancy-wise, is only 8% to start with - which can be significant for an aircraft, but you really need to go all-in to realize it.
>>1250600
See, the sentence that apparently lodged into my subconscious and influenced my thinking was
>So long as the power-to-weight ratios of aircraft engines remained low and specific fuel consumption high, the airship had an edge for long range or duration operations. As those figures changed, the balance shifted rapidly in the aeroplane's favour. By mid-1917, the airship could no longer survive in a combat situation where the threat was aeroplanes. By the late 1930s, the airship barely had an advantage over the aeroplane on intercontinental over-water flights, and that advantage had vanished by the end of World War II.
There is no citation to this, but it honestly sounds plausible to me.
Thanks to aluminum, titanium, and carbon fiber, you can do things with the structure and aerodynamics of a fixed wing aircraft that aren't as easy to do with a bag of gas.
Sure, you can use kevlar now, but that's an extremely marginal difference.
https://www.wired.com/2011/01/all-seeing-blimp/
If it makes you feel any better, airships are great for the COIN/ISR missions that compose most of 21st century warfare.
I recommend "Zeppelins of World War I" by Wilbur Cross for anyone wanting to learn about the only time when the airship was a viable aviation platform.
>>1234026
for the last time, ITS HELLLIIIiiuuuumm
Are zeppelins the future?
>>1251499
Indeed. They will rise in utility shortly.
>>1251499
they're the past
>>1250620
>Use blimps to surpress Rebels
It's like I'm really playing tropico.
ITT: Everyone thinks OP's picture is of the Hindenburg when the name "Graf Zeppelin" is in the caption.
>>1251553
Huh?
>>1251557
The Graf Zeppelin was another airship
>>1251557
Not sure what was confusing there. OP posted a picture of the Graf Zeppelin. Nothing "went wrong" with it, it was one of the most successful and popularly beloved aircraft of its time and it never blew up.
>>1251568
And the Hindenburg was a large reason for the eventual fading out if airship use as a transportation method.
>>1233813
Instead of being packed in like sardines it'd be like a luxury cruise.
I mean yeah they could just shove in people for bulk sales but given it would be slower than a plane it wouldn't exactly suit the constantly rapid traveling businessman or woman.
FUCK ALL OF YOU GUYS ZEPPELINS ARE AWESOME I MEAN SERIOUSLY THEY ARE GIANT FUCKING FLYING MACHINES THAT RIDE THE WIND AND SHIT
SUPPORT FUCKING ZEPPELINS AND YOU CAN BECOME A FUCKING SKY PIRATE
OPPOSE ZEPPELINS AND BE A GROUND STUCK BITCH
>>1251862
>SUPPORT FUCKING ZEPPELINS AND YOU CAN BECOME A FUCKING SKY PIRATE
sold
They should've used noble gases instead.
>>1251874
>neon blimps
I ain't a chemist, so how would that work?
>>1251879
They could use helium. Helium is lighter than air, and requires enormous amounts of energy for it to react with anything.
t.Chemist
>>1233465
>can stay 5 weeks in the air
>can land anywhere, even water
>220 km/h, as fast as average trains
>use helium as fuel, can't catch fire
>superstrong fiber, mylar, and Kevlar body
>could fit 700+ passengers with proper adjustments
>can reach places a train or plane can't without building airport or tracks
>can carry shitload of cargo
>you would actually survive a crash landing as opposed to airplane
Literally perfect.
How the a FUCK is this not a thing yet??
>>1253317
because weather is a thing, anon.
>>1253317
One spark from a woman with a heavy wool sweater and it's all "oh the humanity!"
>>1253472
helium is not hydrogen...unless you're being sarcastic
>>1253482
The whole thing's a bomb. Jesus! Wanna blow us all to shit, Sherlock?
>>1251908
Isn't using helium fairly costly? At least, not currently (or in the past) cost effective for purpose?
>>1253472
>Another thing that some have touched on is the risk of leaks and crashes if the gas envelope is somehow breached, be it by gunfire, irate woodpeckers or what have you. But as has been mentioned, the gas inside these things is indeed not pressurized. Keeping it so would defeat the purpose of the gas being there in the first place: To provide buoyancy by being lighter than atmospheric air. If you compress the gas, you get a higher mass per volume, which is great for divers who want to carry lots of the stuff (and, you know, sink), but not so great when you want to float on something that's already pretty damn light, namely air. So even fairly large holes in the envelope are not an immediate concern - With no pressure differential, the exchange of gases is not much faster than between inside and outside air if you open a window in your home... and there's a whole lot of gas to spare. Realistically, even if you take out a full square meter of material from the gas envelope, the airship is still likely to be able to remain airborne for several hours. And when it does come down, it will do so softly. You could riddle one with machine gun fire for hours on end and it wouldn't drop, though you might kill the people onboard.
B U I L D I T
>>1251548
>mfw I've had flamenco music stuck in my head for the last week
>mfw that post brought it back to full volume
>>1243552
>until you've actually got the whole thing assembled, the tower will be under the compressive force of literally thousands of kilometers of material.
A space elevator isn't built from the bottom up, it's built from the top down.
>>1253517
I T S
T H E
F U T U R E
>>1253517
why doesnt some billionaire with money to throw away not just fund this? i'd expect one of them to come out of the woodwork by now desu. then again one of the articles an anon posted here said that the airship in britain will be touring the emirates for prospective buyers.. then again who wants mudslime sky pirates?
>>1253937
Airships aren't sexy like spaceships, or cars, or fighter jets.
>>1253951
but that animated film Up made airships look cool, though i was already fascinated with them before that movie. I just the idea of a floating sky mansion that can travel anywhere around the world: sort of like the nautilus from 20k leagues except in the air
>>1254123
R u a billionaire?
>>1254123
The big problem is this.
>too slow to avoid storms
>in order to be heavier than air, you need an extremely large, extremely light structure
>get torn to pieces in midair and everyone dies
Also, low lift capacity relative to the size and expense.
>>1253937
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/iron-maidens-bruce-dickinson-has-ambitious-plan-for-worlds-largest-aircraft/
>>1254144
>lighter than air
>>1254144
>too slow to avoid storms
Sounds ideal for Saudi Arabia.
>>1254176
>On this episode of Air Disasters: Zeppelin vs. HABOOB
>>1240521
>planes will be costly
>747 costs $350MILLION
>B-2 costs $1.2BILLION
wew
>>1254189
The actual production cost of a B-2 is more like 750M.
It's the program costs and economies of scale that made it such a bitch.
The original order was for 225, and then the Cold War ended, and they only produced 22, so the program costs were amortized onto the handful of production units.
>>1250399
But it does have the advantage that you don't need to use jet fuel
>Cover the roof in solar panels
>Free fuel during daytime
![aid665270-728px-End-an-Erection-Step-7-Version-2[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/dJm5s6P.jpg "aid665270-728px-End-an-Erection-Step-7-Version-2[1].jpg")
>>1233795
>you might see commercial zeppelin lines as a cheaper alternative to airplanes again.
>>1254250
>mfw I buy my tickets to ride an airship
>>1234257
Most Antarctic expeditions are still flown down by the USAF.
>>1254133
desu yes, but i'm waiting for the folks to die before i inherit it. when they do i'll make a sovereign wealth fund for /his/ part of which ill invest in airship tech
>>1254268
I have to say Mel Gibson is pretty good at portraying a chinese person.
>>1254250
yeah, cheaper because it'll take a week to get anywhere.
spaceplanes soon anyways.
just think, NYC to Tokyo in 1-2 hours.
>>1233465
The true benefit of zeppelins is that they are DIRT CHEAP. I for one can't wait for zeppelins with nuclear reactors that could power the propellers. Totally clean.
>>1255749
It'd be good as a final solution to the New Jersey problem.
>>1256023
>final solution
>New Jersey
Go on...
>>1257119
>build a nuclear powered zeppelin
>it gets broken in half by a light breeze somewhere over hoboken
>new episodes of the Jersey Shore bear a striking resemblance to STALKER
>
>>1258867
>mfw
>reason to build nuclear zeppelins #214
>>1233465
structural issues, and a navy bureaucracy that had some skepticism.
>captain of the USS macon wanted to keep the US navy airship program,
>thus tries to minimize downtime, basically saying "this is worth the money"
>thus leading to a structural fault not being remedied quickly enough.
>a structural fault that likely caused the demise of Macon's sister ship, the USS Akron(which went down with almost all hands off the southeast coast of the US)
>in a hurricane/tropical storm off the california coast part of the USS Macon's tail gets ripped off,
>causing a leak in the rear gasbag/gas-cell (there's several cells for storing helium in an airship, it's not just 1 big balloon).
>this leads to the airship basically pointing upwards, while the engines are at full throttle,
>thing flies high into the sky.
>eventually crashes into the sea,
>all but a couple crewmen survive (the cook apparently had a heart attack, some other sailors got injured or trapped and drowned).
>The USA had fucking flying aircraft carriers in the 1930's,
>as in they could hold 4-5 scout planes (typically 4) in an internal hanger. (planes were retrieved by a trapeze mechanism.)
The expense involved, and some PR-disasters were likely some of the big reasons Airships didn't make it.
Radar removing the need for visual scout-craft also likely played a role, along with faster/safer airplanes.
Airships also have a disadvantage when it comes to landing, if you look at old photos of airships landing they require really fucking huge ground crews in addition to anchor-towers. More Modern designs seem to try to remedy this, but regardless it's not like landing an airplane, it's not something that can be done by the aircraft alone.
>>1258867
>I've never been to New Jersey
Lol, fuck off back to Illinois or whatever shithole you crawled from
>>1258941
Jersayfag angry
>>1258941
>New Jerseyite has to think of a place that isn't New Jersey
>picks the one, only place in the union as shit as New Jersey
Okay, that isn't technically true, being that Maryland exists.
