# Would passenger dirigibles be feasible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 16, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939 "2011-03-16T17:48:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/141 "2017-05-24T13:05:22Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > There’s one othert point worth making – jet fuel is not always going to cost what it does today; as the cost of crude and of refining increases, the price of jet fuel will skyrocket. Plus we are using the figures for 1936 airspeeds in calculating airship travel times here – which to be frair should be equated to 1936 aircraft, not modern jets, or else a reasonable estimate of what it would be possible to fly an airship safely at today substituted for the 75-80 MPH of 1936. First of all, jets do best at higher speeds, I question that a zepplin would use a jet engine even in these days and times. Second, part of the reason for the 75-80 mph speed of old zepplins wasn’t just due to engines, it also had to do with air resistance/drag on such a large object and stresses on the airframe. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/142 "2017-05-24T13:17:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I’m sorry. I left out a statement from that post that would explain why rigid airships are still not practical. You are correct, the use of carbon fiber should cut the weight of an airship superstructue significantly, _but making airships practical requires more than that_. Helium has been available for a long time, and I believe some of the early airships used steel frames The German zepplins had aluminum frames, as well as extensive use of aluminum in every other aspect of the zeppelin where it could be utilized… The Graf Zepplin was originally intended to use helium but the US wouldn’t sell any to Germany so they used hydrogen for lift. In other words, the Germans, who were the clear masters of the technology in the Golden Age of Zepplins, had already realized that and planned for it. > [@](#): > > But all airships are dangerous because they are buoyant, and vulnerable to wind. I prefer the term “vulnerable” - it’s a manageable risk to a large degree. Saying they’re _dangerous_ is like saying all helicopters are dangerous because they are rotorcraft and don’t glide well after an engine failure. It’s true, but it’s also true the risks can be reduced and managed. > [@](#): > > They are also very slow for aircraft, and subject to the loss of the gas that keeps them up. This is true, but I think these days we have much less porous materials for keeping the gas in. The old style zeppelins used “goldbeater skins”, the intestinal lining of cows, for the skins of the hydrogen containing cells. We have better materials for that purpose today. > [@](#): > > The Graf Zeppelin managed a circumnavigation of the globe, but was extremely lucky to do so. Most of the airships ever made were destroyed in accidents, or decommisioned because of safety concerns. Or to utilize the aluminum in making war materials… that’s why there are no remaining bits of the old zeppelin skeletons, aluminum recycles really well and wartime Germany needed it for other purposes. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/143 "2017-05-24T13:20:08Z")
Romantics keep trying, but the practicalities and finances just don’t seem to stack up. These people may yet get enough funding to put the thing into service, but who knows: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/03/massive\_new\_airship\_to\_enter\_commercial\_service\_at\_british\_dirigible\_base](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/03/massive_new_airship_to_enter_commercial_service_at_british_dirigible_base) [This one](http://londonist.com/2008/07/londonist_rides_in_an_airship_in_pi) flew for a while in 2008 but the web domain for it expired some time ago, so it was clearly not capable of permanent operation. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/144 "2017-05-24T13:23:31Z")
If any solar powered aircraft would be viable, it’d be an airship. Compared to an airplane, an airship has much larger surface area, and much lower power requirements. In fact, even if solar isn’t enough, I’d be surprised if truly modern airships didn’t still use solar, just supplemented with other power sources, because it’d probably cut down considerably on the needed weight of fuel. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/145 "2017-05-24T13:27:11Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Regarding the weather, would it be possible (perhaps with some future technology) to have zeppelins rise up to airline cruising altitude at 40K feet, or even near earth orbit at 80K feet? No pesky storms up there, and (especially for the latter) a much more spectacular view. It’s already feasible. Back in WWI when airships were actually used in warfare they were capable of reaching 20k feet and exceed the flight ceiling of airplanes of the time. The problem wasn’t the _airship_, it was the _people inside it_. Those early zeppelins did not have pressurized cabins for the people so the effects of altitude were a definite problem (and not particularly well understood at the time). Zeppelins should in theory be able to go where helium-lift balloons can go… and those have gone to the edge of space (100k+ feet altitude) Old style passenger zeppelins hugged the ground because they had paying passengers who didn’t want to freeze their asses off (it’s cold up there, baby) or deal with the problems of hypoxia. Also, the higher up you go the more boring the view. Zeppelins for the tourist trade are going to fly low, _unless_ the whole point is to go up to where the sky is black at noon… in which case you’ll need a pressurized capsule for the people on board, which will add some significant weight to the whole project. Probably doable, but again, a very niche thing. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/146 "2017-05-24T13:34:59Z")
Wondering if they used a He and O2 mix atmosphere as the lifting gas they could forgo the cabin (save the weight there to offset the gas mix) and have the passengers travel inside the body of the zeppelin, while still getting enough lift. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/147 "2017-05-24T13:44:30Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Still curious if there’s any reason why a dirigible couldn’t fly above the cloud cover and thus avoid bad weather. Assuming a pressurized cabin, of course. There isn’t - the reason there wasn’t before was due to limitations on aviation in general at the time when pressurization technology wasn’t yet developed the the human effects of low pressure not well understood. There are also some issues with propulsion systems that utilize oxygen as well, but that, too, has been conquered with modern aviation engines. If you use solar power (possible option) to generate electricity for propulsion that problem goes away. You’d still have to steer around big weather systems, but that is doable (as demonstrated by ships like the _Graf Zeppelin_) and easier these days with better weather prediction and observation, > [@](#): > > ETA: In fact, if it were solar powered, it might be able to stay up there for very long periods and not even need to come down except for repairs. I’m picturing a super-sized dirigible made of future tech materials floating up there indefinitely, perhaps with smaller dirigibles going up and down as a shuttle service. It seems like a great science fiction idea, at least – has it ever been explored? You don’t need to go up and down with mini-airships - you could use fixed wing or rotorcraft shuttles. The USS Akron and USS Macon were both flying aircraft carriers that could launch and retrieve mid-air scouting airplanes. This wasn’t just theoretical, the US Navy actually did perform this maneuver with the airships. Of course, there were limitations with the overall technology at the time. It might be more practical to use helicopters as shuttles for this purpose (rotorcraft were very primitive at the time, and true helicopters didn’t exist a the time of the \*Akron \*and _Macon_). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/148 "2017-05-24T13:50:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > …You don’t need to go up and down with mini-airships - you could use fixed wing or rotorcraft shuttles. The USS Akron and USS Macon were both flying aircraft carriers that could launch and retrieve mid-air scouting airplanes. This wasn’t just theoretical, the US Navy actually did perform this maneuver with the airships… Yes, very cool - and shown in one of the Indiana Jones movies (although set aboard a Nazi zeppelin) as well as in the Pixar movie _Up_ (although with trained dogs as pilots!): [USS Macon (ZRS-5) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_(ZRS-5)#1933) ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/149 "2017-05-24T13:58:55Z")
> [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#): > > That is true, I just like Seattle and Chicago, but it could be mostly year round in the south, or the Caribbean or the Med. Day trips among the Greek isles would be very cool. Why would it be seasonal in Chicago? Airships fly just fine in cold weather, and speaking as someone who has done some flightseeing in the Chicago in all seasons, winter skies and winter landscapes have their appeal provided you have the means to keep warm while watching the scenery. The problem is storms - which occur at all seasons. Let’s say you launch your touristy airship cruises from Navy Pier in Chicago (where the boat dinner cruises launch from). You’ll need a big-ass hangar to put your airship in when the weather turns sour. Well, OK, not practical with how built-up downtown is. Put the launch point/hangar in the suburbs and make a cruise over the skyscrapers part of the show (again, I speak from experience in that that can be an attractive view). Oh, wait - since 9/11 people get their panties in a twist with aircraft flying relatively low over buildings… A lot of the problems with these airship concepts are not the airships themselves or the aerotech, it’s people problems. A lot of perception problems on the part of people. Also the cost of real estate and building/maintaining the required protective hangars. > [@](#): > > Question: how does insurance work for hot-air balloon rides? Or airlines? Are they required to sign a waiver or is the operator liable? Or could I sell those airplane policies that used to be common? Hot air balloon rides as they currently exist in the US, to my admittedly imperfect and limited experience, require you to sign a waiver that, as the pilot of my ride put it “says you promise not to sue, your heirs promise not to sue, your friends promise not to sue…” If Something Bad happens of course your heirs can attempt to sue the operator (or his/her estate, depending on whether the operator survives the Something Bad) but so far as I know there is no one providing insurance for these activities. Operators can purchase liability insurance (just like small airplane and rotorcraft pilots) to cover them for inadvertent damages caused by their activities/machines, ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/150 "2017-05-24T14:02:28Z")
> [@Daylate](#): > > Also the Germans during WWI developed a series of “high-flying” airships that could cruise at 20,000 to 27,000 feet (or thereabouts). I understand that this was not too pleasant for the crew. > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Too cold? Air too thin? Too much bucking up and down? Something else? Too cold and air too thin. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/151 "2017-05-24T15:20:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **kanicbird** : > > Wondering if they used a He and O2 mix atmosphere as the lifting gas they could forgo the cabin (save the weight there to offset the gas mix) and have the passengers travel inside the body of the zeppelin, while still getting enough lift. You probably could, but I’m not sure what the benefit would be. You’d still need a floor firm enough to walk on, and windows, and seats, and bathrooms, and enough of a kitchen to serve in-flight meals, and so on, and that’s going to account for most of the weight of the cabin. All you’re really saving is the weight of a membrane to separate the cabin from the envelope, and with light as that could be, it’d be really tough for it to compensate for any loss of lift from suboptimal gas. At best, I suppose you could include that membrane and fill the cabin with He-O while the rest is filled with He, but the cabin is probably small enough that that wouldn’t be worth the airlocks and acclimation and funny voices. ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/152 "2017-05-24T16:05:54Z")
As others have stated, it would really have to be sold as a sight seeing cruise than a mode of transportation. From what I’ve read, zeppelins are quite vulnerable to bad weather. Of course these days we have much better weather predicting technology compared to the hey day of the large air ships. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/153 "2017-05-24T17:00:05Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Hot air balloon rides as they currently exist in the US, to my admittedly imperfect and limited experience, require you to sign a waiver that, as the pilot of my ride put it “says you promise not to sue, your heirs promise not to sue, your friends promise not to sue…” If Something Bad happens of course your heirs can attempt to sue the operator (or his/her estate, depending on whether the operator survives the Something Bad) but so far as I know there is no one providing insurance for these activities. Operators can purchase liability insurance (just like small airplane and rotorcraft pilots) to cover them for inadvertent damages caused by their activities/machines, I know of two companies that sell insurance for hot air balloons. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t make you sign a waiver for commercial operations (taking paying passengers), though not sure if it’s just good policy or a requirement of the insurance company. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/154 "2017-05-24T17:07:46Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > If only there was kind of way to look for photos of dirigibles, you know, some kind of Internet “search engine” type of thing. Luckily there is and you can find pictures of dirigibles such as: [http://s811.photobucket.com/user/OtterOnFire/media/Kingdom%20Under%20Fire/Dirigible.jpg.html](http://s811.photobucket.com/user/OtterOnFire/media/Kingdom%20Under%20Fire/Dirigible.jpg.html) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/155 "2017-05-24T23:39:25Z")
Have anyone quoting other posters in the last day or so noticed they’re dialoging with people from 2012? In some cases deceased people from 2012? Dirigibles are always a blast from the past. Even the ones crewed by zombies. What are they seeking? _Plaaaannnnzzzz!_ That way they won’t be doomed to cruise the skies at 50 knots forever. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/156 "2017-05-25T01:38:56Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Have anyone quoting other posters in the last day or so noticed they’re dialoging with people from 2012? In some cases deceased people from 2012? In some cases ourselves… Yeah, I eventually noticed but I’m not afraid of zombies. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/157 "2017-05-25T12:30:32Z")
Would there be any advantage to using them as aircraft carriers for drones? If you’re fighting someone with no air force or anti-air ability, which seems standard practice for the US army recently, drifting your drone-carrier blimp over to the next group of insurgents might be easier than setting up a new base/flying the drone for miles. Or you could just fill it up with MOABs and kick them out the back door whenever you see someone looking terroristy down below…you could hover around and take really nice pictures of the explosion as well. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/158 "2017-05-25T14:13:38Z")
> [@Delicious](#): > > Would there be any advantage to using them as aircraft carriers for drones? If you’re fighting someone with no air force or anti-air ability, which seems standard practice for the US army recently, drifting your drone-carrier blimp over to the next group of insurgents might be easier than setting up a new base/flying the drone for miles. Airborne aircraft carriers are iffy (cool, but as late WWII German weapon designs showed us, cool uberness is not relevant). Docking and undocking in mid-air is tricky and dirigibles can’t lift that much weight. There are more benefits to using them as surveillance or communications relay drones. You could cover huge tracks of land for comparatively cheap. Put solar panels on them and you can power the electronics and engines indefinitely. I don’t know how feasible it would be to put solar panels over the top portion. Perhaps some kind of inverted catamaran (2+ balloons attached together) could offer a rigid top platform or increase the lifting capacity. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/159 "2017-05-25T17:49:28Z")
> [@Delicious](#): > > Would there be any advantage to using them as aircraft carriers for drones? If you’re fighting someone with no air force or anti-air ability, which seems standard practice for the US army recently, drifting your drone-carrier blimp over to the next group of insurgents might be easier than setting up a new base/flying the drone for miles. The USA did test a concept after WWI of an airship carrying two biplanes that came and went from hooks under the ship that grabbed a bar above the aircraft’s wing. I always thought that was a really neat idea. > [@](#): > > Or you could just fill it up with MOABs and kick them out the back door whenever you see someone looking terroristy down below…you could hover around and take really nice pictures of the explosion as well. Ah, another “Wedding Crashers” scenario. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939/160 "2017-05-25T19:41:21Z")
> [@Delicious](#): > > Would there be any advantage to using them as aircraft carriers for drones? If you’re fighting someone with no air force or anti-air ability, which seems standard practice for the US army recently, drifting your drone-carrier blimp over to the next group of insurgents might be easier than setting up a new base/flying the drone for miles. > > Or you could just fill it up with MOABs and kick them out the back door whenever you see someone looking terroristy down below…you could hover around and take really nice pictures of the explosion as well. You could pack an awful lot of small drones into an airship, and provide saturation coverage of your target area. Ferrying them near to the site of interest would overcome some of the problems imposed by distance on pocket sized craft. But MOABs? Not a chance. Flying an airship involves a constant balancing act between the lift available from the gasbag and the weight of the airship plus all passengers and cargo. It’s a pretty tight balance, otherwise your ship acts like a yoyo going up and down as it travels across the landscape. Those bombs are heavy. If your dirigible could lift one or more of them, as soon as you kick it out, your airship will be heading for the sky almost as fast as your bomb is heading toward the ground. Not saying that would necessarily be fatal, but you sure wouldn’t be hovering around doing photography! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-passenger-dirigibles-be-feasible/574939.md?page=9)