Scientist Predicts Cargo Zeppelins in the Future

[Soviet Steve]

I watched some of this on discovery channel back in the early 2000s. It makes sense, you could probably get away with having a zeppelin cargo landing area much closer to your warehouses even if placed near residential areas, I recall the engine noise wasn't harsh even when the documentary was filmed.

 

[Cain_Zeros]

Not using hydrogen? No thermite paint? This sounds safe. Birds might be an issue, but they're an issue for jets too if they get sucked into the engines.

 

[GothmogII]

I like the idea of cargo ships too. What my primary fear about them is:

Spoiler

And that scares the crap out of me.

that only happens if you use hydrogen modern ones use helium which actually puts out fires

It's funny though -one- accident puts Zeppelins down for life. And yet how many plane crashes and other accidents have we had that weren't the result of external factors like weather? And yet planes are a-okay. Bring on the blimps please!

 

[HK_01]

I like the idea of cargo ships too. What my primary fear about them is:

Spoiler

And that scares the crap out of me.

I think they used hydrogen gas back then, which is flammable, and now they use helium, so that wouldn't happen.

And this is awesome news! I love zeppelins!

 

[GothmogII]

You just cant put enough structure into and airship to make them capable of high speed flight. The fastest modern airship are only capable of 100mph and thats with making the gas bag from Kevlar. That gives a top speed which is 1/5 of the speed of an airliner. Whats the point of building a mode transport thats slower than taking the train? A 747 can carry 500 poeple from London to Sydney in 26 hours, an airship would take 5 days (ignoring things like having refuel and have enough food to feed people for 5 days)

The use would probably mostly be moving cargo. And after a while perhaps a few air cruises would pop up...

A train can 1000 tons of cargo at 80 mph in weather that will ground any airship. A bulk carrier can carry 350 000 tons at 25 mph, why bother with airships?

Maybe so, but...we don't have a transatlantic railway yet do we? The closest thing to it, is the Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France. Though, a worldwide rail network spanning the seas would be pretty awesome too, aswell as the Zeppelins.

 

[Danallighieri]

Final Fantasy style Airships here we come! Probably would be more like the zeppelins in WoW though

 

[wfpdk]

well it's about damned time. i can't wait to see people using modern technology to remake zeppelins. i hope at some point they come out with a personal one, something of a flying house-boat type thing.

 

[Trivun]

Anything that makes the world a little more Steampunk is great by me. All we need now are environmentally-friendly Traction Cities, and we're all set

 

[CrikeyO]

I like the idea of cargo ships too. What my primary fear about them is:

Spoiler

And that scares the crap out of me.

As everyone else said, hydrogen and all that.

But planes crash quite a bit too. Overall zeppelins have a much better safety record than airplanes.

 

[ivandobsky]

The big shortage of Helium will likely be a bit of a problem... but I'm sure there'll be a way to make them pretty safely with hydrogen.
I heard something about a solar powered plane flying around the world a while back, that sounded pretty cool, not so much potential for air-pirates though.

 

[Albino Boo]

You just cant put enough structure into and airship to make them capable of high speed flight. The fastest modern airship are only capable of 100mph and thats with making the gas bag from Kevlar. That gives a top speed which is 1/5 of the speed of an airliner. Whats the point of building a mode transport thats slower than taking the train? A 747 can carry 500 poeple from London to Sydney in 26 hours, an airship would take 5 days (ignoring things like having refuel and have enough food to feed people for 5 days)

The use would probably mostly be moving cargo. And after a while perhaps a few air cruises would pop up...

A train can 1000 tons of cargo at 80 mph in weather that will ground any airship. A bulk carrier can carry 350 000 tons at 25 mph, why bother with airships?

Maybe so, but...we don't have a transatlantic railway yet do we? The closest thing to it, is the Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France. Though, a worldwide rail network spanning the seas would be pretty awesome too, aswell as the Zeppelins.

Points at the 1/3 of million ton of cargo moved by 1 ship and asks again why bother with airships?

 

[GothmogII]

You just cant put enough structure into and airship to make them capable of high speed flight. The fastest modern airship are only capable of 100mph and thats with making the gas bag from Kevlar. That gives a top speed which is 1/5 of the speed of an airliner. Whats the point of building a mode transport thats slower than taking the train? A 747 can carry 500 poeple from London to Sydney in 26 hours, an airship would take 5 days (ignoring things like having refuel and have enough food to feed people for 5 days)

The use would probably mostly be moving cargo. And after a while perhaps a few air cruises would pop up...

A train can 1000 tons of cargo at 80 mph in weather that will ground any airship. A bulk carrier can carry 350 000 tons at 25 mph, why bother with airships?

Maybe so, but...we don't have a transatlantic railway yet do we? The closest thing to it, is the Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France. Though, a worldwide rail network spanning the seas would be pretty awesome too, aswell as the Zeppelins.

Points at the 1/3 of million ton of cargo moved by 1 ship and asks again why bother with airships?

For the cool? ^^'

 

[Tharwen]

Hmm... what happens if it gets a puncture?

We'll have people flying around causing terror and panic using only dart guns!

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

Now we can play crimson skies for real.

You just made about 100 nostalgic memories flash up in my mind at once, haha.

OP: I think that would be awesome. Especially if you could travel in them. I wouldn't mind if it was slower, it would be fantastic!

 

[Ed.]

I like the idea of cargo ships too. What my primary fear about them is:

Spoiler

And that scares the crap out of me.

that only happens if you use hydrogen modern ones use helium which actually puts out fires

It's funny though -one- accident puts Zeppelins down for life. And yet how many plane crashes and other accidents have we had that weren't the result of external factors like weather? And yet planes are a-okay. Bring on the blimps please!

concord got ground by one spectacular accident there is more to it than safety

 

[GothmogII]

I like the idea of cargo ships too. What my primary fear about them is:

Spoiler

And that scares the crap out of me.

that only happens if you use hydrogen modern ones use helium which actually puts out fires

It's funny though -one- accident puts Zeppelins down for life. And yet how many plane crashes and other accidents have we had that weren't the result of external factors like weather? And yet planes are a-okay. Bring on the blimps please!

concord got ground by one spectacular accident there is more to it than safety

Yeah. The minimum requirements for flying on a Concord being that you needed to be at least a millionaire.

 

[Ed.]

the Hindenburg concord analogy holds you had to be rich to travel on that Zeppelin

 

[SovietSecrets]

I think that would be pretty awesome. I would feel a lot better being in giant airship than on a plane.

 

[Fensfield]

Here we go...

http://www.aerosml.com/ml866/

That's the 'old news' I mentioned. 'Seems this is pretty real and all, given its a project under way by a seemingly already well-established airship-ing company.

And a direct link to a suggested uses video.. which is kinda cool at that:
http://www.aerosml.com/Wholesm2.wmv

I would feel a lot better being in giant airship than on a plane.

As would I. For one thing, it won't just fall out of the sky if any systems stop working - it wouldn't crash in most situations would drop a plane from the sky. Only if the balloon were punctured - and even then there'd be a degree of speed reduction from what was left of the envelope, greater depending on how /much/ was left.