It
presently weighs eighteen tons and will carry sixty tons. It is
certainly a good start. What it really becomes is a learning
platform for the integration of modern materials into effective
airship design. While we are at it, it would also be a good idea to
discover if we can also operate safely with hydrogen again.
If
hydrogen could be held in chemically neutral bladders and designed to
fail upward for safe release we may have something. On the very
large craft, it may be practical to place helium filled bladders
around the perimeter while all the interior bladders hold hydrogen.
This supplies a safe crush zone in the event of a crash. Any fire
will burn upward away from the craft also.
I
suspect that it will be completely feasible to build craft out to two
thousand tons of fully loaded dead weight with a fifteen hundred tons
or more as cargo. In that case, helium supply quickly becomes a
limiting factor and the hydrogen solution kicks in.
The
large craft themselves will be used to haul cargo point to point and
will have small crews that may even have an evacuation ultralight
aircraft as well as parachutes. As a comparable to this vessel, we
are ultimately going to a thousand foot length which looks pretty
well possible.
What
will be interesting is the operational speed that can be achieved
with this new craft design and just how scalable that skin happens to
be.
These
guys are not the only players out there and the moment we have a
deliverable and a fifty ship purchase contract from a cargo hauler,
this industry will be off and running. This is the one technology
able to put long haul trucking completely out of business and able to
challenge seaborne container shipping simply on time value. Imagine
the impact on the fruit and vegetable trade. The longest possible
haul will be seven days and the real volume will be traveling
vibration free less than two days.
In
time we will have thousands of these craft up there.
Construction is
complete on behemoth airship; first flight planned
By W.J. Hennigan
January 4, 2013, 1:36
p.m.
A massive
cargo-carrying airship has taken shape inside one of the 17-story
wooden blimp hangars at the former military base in Tustin.
According to aircraft
maker Worldwide Aeros Corp., construction is complete on a
36,000-pound blimp-like aircraft designed for the military to carry
tons of cargo to remote areas around the world.
The Montebello company
hopes to have a first flight in the coming months and to demonstrate
cargo-carrying capability shortly thereafter.
"This is truly
the beginning of a vertical global transportation solution for
perhaps the next 100 years,” Chief Executive Igor Pasternak said in
a statement.
Worldwide Aeros, a company of about 100 employees, built the
prototype under a contract of about $35 million from the
Pentagon and NASA.
The Aeroscraft is a
zeppelin with a 230-foot rigid skeleton made of aluminum and carbon
fiber. It's a new type of hybrid aircraft that combines airplane and
airship technologies and doesn't need a long runway to take off or
land because it has piston engines that allow it to move vertically
and a new high-tech buoyancy control system.
Ultimately, the
company wants to be able to carry up to 66 tons.
"This will land
in Africa, Afghanistan," Pasternak told The Times in
September, "a Wal-Mart parking lot – wherever."
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