I was reading about the epic trip of the airship Graf Zeppelin, which transited the globe in 1933. Sure, the airships were slow,but they have some advantages:
(1) you can land them anywhere (you just need a field and some guys to hold the ropes)
(2) they can be made as large as the capacity requires
(3) the USA has plenty of helium, sono need to mess with the dangerously flammable hydrogen
What I’m asking-would there be a market for a airship service, that would get you from the East Coast to Europe in 25-30 hours? It might be viewed as midway between a jet plane and taking a ship. In any case, it seems that the prewar german zeppelin company was quite profitable…its airships were always fully booked…of course, after the “Hindenburg” disaster, things changes.
How fast could a modern version of the “Hindenburg”(inflated with helium) fly?
I’d love to take a long trip via airship!
I think it woudl be fun to travel that way.
but in this modern world, everyone seems to want it all and want it now. so I can’t see them making the kind of money that would make it profitable unless they charged exorbinate sums which would make it cost prohibitive for most people.
If passenger airships ever make a comeback, they will do so as a parallel to cruise ships rather than ocean liners. I can’t see how they’d ever be remotely competitive as pure transportation.
The Zepplin Co. (yes, they’re still around) has talked about building a luxury “cruiseship” type zepplin that would be pretty pricey to travel on, but they haven’t done anything more than talk AFAIK. It would be cool, but I don’t think that it’s going to happen any time soon or ever.
I’d like to see a rigid dirigible flying again, but the memory of the Hindenburg is so indeliebly burned into the minds of most people that I think people would be reluctant to travel that way again.
Both the Akron and Shennandoa were filled with helium.
I can’t see a Hindenburg-type incident happening again, given the skin materials and helium lifting gas that are used in modern airships. There were, however, numerous crashes of large airships prior to the Hindenburg; in most cases these were due to structural failure and/or bad weather, and these are the situations that would most worry me with a modern airship.
From my reading, it appears the most likely market for large airships in the near future will be as long-duration platforms for surveillance or network transmission, or as heavy-lift cargo aircraft. I believe the latter application is what companies like Zeppelin are aiming for.
Zeppelin, by the way, has built at least three semi-rigid airships since 1995 based on its NT (New Technology) designs. I believe the largest so far is about 110 meters in length; still some way from the huge dirigibles of the '30s.
Here’s an interesting site on the current state of the airship art:
http://www.modern-airships.info/en/home.html
I would have to think, however, that there is at least some small market for a luxury airship cruiseliner along the lines of the several luxury cruise-train services such as the Orient Expresses in the USA and Europe. Hey, I’d certainly consider taking a cruise on one. Scheduled services for mass transport, er, probably not so likely, IMO.
They will- as soon as we can make diamond-like super materials that can hold a vacuum without being heavy. 
I’ve been thinking about this for years. I think it would be a great idea, it could be run along the same lines as cruise ships
Well, these guys have De Beers crapping in their pants.
I’ve always been a big, big airship geek, and it would be a dream come true to be able to make a trans-atlantic flight on a large rigid airship.
Hindenburg’s top speed was 84 mph, cruising speed was 78 mph. So the flight from Germany to Lakehurst NJ took about two days. It normally cruised at under 1000 feet, so the view was incredible, both onboard and from the ground. Imagine a zeppelin over 800 feet long slowly flying over you at only 800 feet. It would virtually block out the sky! Everywhere they flew everything would stop on the ground below. People would get out of their cars and stare up in awe as the giant silver vehicle flew over. Man, it gives me chills just thinking about it…
Hindenburg could hold more than 70 passengers in luxurious comfort and had a dining room, library, lounge with a grand piano, and large windows. The craft was so stable that passengers often didn’t realize they’d lifted off. The sensation was of staying in one place while the ground sank away below them. Hindenburg’s sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin, flew for 10 years before it was retired. It made 590 flights including 144 ocean crossings. It flew more than one million miles and carried 13,110 passengers.
The US wasn’t as successful with it’s rigid airships (they were all military craft, not passenger carriers). Of the four, only the Los Angeles survived until retirement. the other three were lost in disasters: Shenandoah and Akron in storms, Macon due to a structural design flaw.
I think they could make a comeback, although probably only on a limited scale. Building and operating something the size of the Hindenburg would be an expensive project.
While the US has a lot of the world’s supply of helium, it’s pretty expensive. Also, you’d need more than just “some guys to hold the ropes”. the Hindenburg’s ground crew consisted of 350 men! It may weigh essentially nothing at all, but it’s still got a heck of a lot of mass to move around. Tiltable propellers (like the current Zeppelin NT uses) would, however, cut down on the number of people required on the ground to maneuver the airship after landing.
You’d also need airfields with the proper ground handling equipment and helium storage facilities - not to mention hangars (I’ve been in the airship hangar at Moffett Field in California. It’s really, really big! :))
I agree with Kabong that structural failure and weather are the biggest concerns, but modern design and materials would make today’s rigid airship much stronger and lighter than those of the 20’s and 30’s. Modern weather tracking should allow them to avoid dangerous storms as well.
I think another big problem is just the complexity of designing, building and bringing to market a new passenger carrying aircraft. It’s complicated enough for a company like Boeing to develope a new jumbo jet, how hard would it be for a company to re-create something that no one’s built for 70 years. The government red tape alone would probably be nearly insurmountable…
There are more and more non-rigid blimps flying around the world, however. None for actual passenger service (that is, carrying passengers from place to place), but some for limited sight-seeing type flights. Of course many of them are used for advertising as flying billboards. There’s been work to adapt them to be used for coastal and border patrol, transporting lumber from remote locations, inspect remote pipelines and power lines, etc. If they continue to gain favor, perhaps interest will build in zeppelins too.
Ticket prices would be expensive, but I believe there are people who would pay it to experience such an incredible trip. What’s really needed is someone with the desire to take the risk and the bucks to back it up.
Ah well, we can dream, can’t we?
Eric
I agree with El_Kabong. The Hindenburg disaster was the result of rocket fuel paint covering a hydrogen filled structure. The real problem with large ships is weather. Minor weather events that aircraft can fly through can tear apart a rigid ship.
If you merged rigid ship design with blimp technology you might create something that will hold up under stress. It has to have a lot of flexibility to survive.
I can’t see large ships running around at 800 ft because of the distraction it would cause. I would dearly love to see it though. I would love to take an airship ride cross country in the fashion of a scenic train ride. It is pointless (to me) to fly over the ocean because there is so little to see. I would much rather look at mountains or castles. or even a nice skyline like Chicago (except I would never give Daley the time of day after closing Meigs).
My apologies for the Meigs hijack. Hey Daley, I fueled at Oskosh and Gary instead of Chicago. Sorry.
Bastard. Again, sorry.
Really? I figured the majority of people would have much more vivid imagery of airplane crashes than the Hindenberg.
I’d love to go, but I’m not nearly rich enough. Maybe if they had flight that flew around some metropolis for a few hundred USD. The Centropolis Entertainment logo is about the fifth coolest thing in existence.
No.
- Too slow.
- Too dependent on good weather.
Link: Zeppelin NT site (can’t open it myself; they have been trying to be too clever with Javascript).
Unneccessary. Multi-phase carbon materials should be able to do the job.
Add a lifting-body shape to the hull, tilt-roters for manruverability (SP?), a diesel-turbine electrical generator, electric motors attached to the propellers, liquid metal high-density batteries for keel balast, & suplimentary solar-power cells on the upper surface for fuel-less battery topping, & you’ve really got something.
It may only be useful for a niche market.
Other than the above mentioned aerial cruise liners , who has the vacation time , most north americans only get at most 3 weeks losing six days to get back and forth does not really seem a fair trade off.
Anything else is merely a technical detail to be worked out with the engineering boys.
Declan
Agreed that the only plausible passenger market would be as premium cruise-ship-type traffic. Except:
- Passenger capacity is severely limited compared to a ship, forcing a very high minimum ticket price.
- The novelty factor a cruise ship has, with a broad range of onboard activities and near-daily port stops, won’t beavailable. The waves on the ocean just aren’t that interesting to watch after awhile.
- Airships can’t avoid rough weather easily, and can’t even tolerate severe ones. The passengers’ tolerance is far less than that. Their tolerance for docking maneuvering is also in question.
- Startup costs, including ship certification (no small matter), are outrageous, and few investors would be interested.
- The Hindenburg factor is a huge marketing barrier.
So, there’s no plausible and sustainable market, and costs and risks are eye-popping.
So that leaves the freight market. But to be competitive there, the shipping costs have to be significantly lower than by airplane, and the freight has to be nonperishable and non-time-sensitive. What does that leave you with?
Well, perhaps the mountainside logging market. Note, though, that Cargolifter GmbH had the only plausible product coming up, and they’ve already gone belly-up. You need precision hovering ability for that, and can’t get it with such a large “sail area” in the wind.
While I’m as much a romanticist about the “glory days of aviation” as anyone out there, I’m also a realist. Airships don’t have markets other than as flying billboards, and that’s already being taken care of. Sorry.
Yah, a billion dollar “blimp”.
Goddamnit, that was my idea. Back around 1970 I imagined an airship with lifting cells consisting of incredibly light yet rigid spherical tanks which could be evacuated. No need for lighter-than-air gas, and you could stay aloft virtually indefinitely. Obviously, this would require an exotic material.
Even blimps are cool, but I would dearly love to see a zeppelin in the sky.