Over the years I keep seeing magazine covers that show prototype or working models of airship designs. Some for lifting heavy things like logs in the deep jungle, some for stadium advertising, and always a wistful mention of eventual scenic travel.
Some are still cigar shaped, but some are round or more like hot-air balloon shapes. All rely on helium instead of hydrogen.
It seems to me that they would have to be safer in any situation than hot-air balloons, and you would simply bring them down in bad weather. Just like any other pleasure craft in the air and water.
I would love to float over coastal areas or circle any of our cities, or the Grand Canyon, or Mayan pyramids.
Funny you should ask at this particular time. The Los Angeles Times of July 7 carried an article about some German types who seem to be intent upon returning the zeppelin industry to viability. Unfortunately, I don’t still have the article, but the general thrust was that we really need to get over the whole Hindenburg thing. We’ve learned too much to get suckered into using hydrogen again.
The article also claimed that the reason helium wasn’t available for the Hindenburg in the first place had to do with Roosevelt’s desire to keep America’s stocks of helium out of the reach of Hitler, out of fear that Adolf would just use it to further his hostile aims.
As to whether the airship cruise industry has a real chance for success, I’d be inclined to say “no.” I know that I personally wouldn’t be terribly attracted to the notion of leisurely traversing the continent or the ocean at thirty thousand feet (or however high these contraptions are supposed to go). If the mode of transportation is more important than the speed at which I reach my destination, I’d just as soon take a cruise ship on water, or a well-appointed train overland. And, of course if speed is the more important consideration, then Boeing or Airbus will be the brand name on the conveyance I choose.
It may work for a very short time, though. I can imagine that starting up a fleet of luxury cruise dirigibles would be considerably cheaper than launching ocean liners or railroad trains. But I expect the novelty factor would be the only driving force for such an industry, and that would have to wear off within about ten years or less.
“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure
de Guerre
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?”
David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for
investment
“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the
best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t
last out the year.”
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
It is true that the U.S. restricted exports of helium (partly because of a reluctance to allow the NAZI state to use it, partly to avoid running out ourselves).
However, the Germans never asked for helium and the Zeppelin works never considered helium as an alternative. Helium is considerably more expensive than hydrogen and has a (modestly) lower lifting capacity. The engineers on the Hindenberg felt that hydrogen was the only appropriate gas and never even considered helium as an alternative. They had 40+ years of relatively safe use (with improving saftey records, each year) and did not consider hydrogen to be a safety issue.
(Ironically, a recent analysis of the Hindenberg disaster seems to support their beliefs. A strong contender for the actual source of the fire is the doped paint on the skin. Note, for example, the large (presumably yellow-red) flames and the billowing smoke in the photos of the dying Hindenberg. Hydrogen burns with an invisible flame and almost no smoke. (I am not arguing that no hydrogen burned once the fire erupted. It is the position of the most recent analysis that it was the skin and not the hydrogen that was the direct cause of the disaster.))
Articles I have come across suggest that Hitler himself did not want German companies to request the purchase of helium.
The stories go that there was a good chance that the request to purchase would be denied and AH seemed to feel such a denial would amount to a loss of face.
We’d need an engineer here, but I seem to recall the difference between hydrogen and helium lift in a vessel the size of the Hindenburg would have amounted to the difference of three or four paying customers.
In pre-war times the main consideration was blimps would be used like our satellite system today, to get aerial map photos that fast-moving aircraft couldn’t. FDR wanted the helium reserved for future military use.
I do believe Fanny May’s suggestion that the future is in short, low flights rather than ocean crossings.
Who would take a days-long flight now? If you’re not in a hurry, you take a liner; if you are, you take a plane.
Short flights improve safety. Most of the lost craft were simply too far from base to return once they spotted the storm front that smashed them.
Although, a couple did either fly into the ground or get a mis-timed and lopsided takeoff. But that does affect all aircraft types, especially the competing balloons.
As I calculate it, given an atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen, and identical pressures and temperatures for both, a given volume of hydrogen would have about 8% more lift than the same volume of helium. I’m not sure what that translates to in absolute terms-- How big was the Hindenberg?
The Hindenburg held 7,062,000 cubic feet of gas, producing 242.2 tons of lift. So replacing the hydrogen with helium would lose 18 tons of lift. I have no idea how significant that difference is though.
Some people are thinking about using airships for communications, to replace communications satellites. A solar powered superpressure (completely sealed, unlike current high-altitude balloons used for research) airship is very attractive as a replacement for satellites - it can stay aloft for months or even years, and is far cheaper than a comm satellite.