back to article First rigid airship since the Hindenburg cleared for outdoor flight trials

Good news for airship fanciers this week, as it appears that the world's first rigid airship since the 1930s will soon take to the skies for flight trials: and better still, this ship has a new piece of technology which could actually change the existing landscape and permit the leviathans of the skies to return. Rigid ships …

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              1. Pedigree-Pete

                Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

                There are a few Scots who think they can leave Europe & the UK without a Tug Boat.

              2. CCCP

                Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

                @AC 14:25

                Sorry, off topic but WTF? Two down votes for what? Has the geography knowledge of elreg commentards suddenly dropped?

                Actually, they're probably down voting because they wish England wasn't so physically close to France. Or they're angry at Putin for the small island comment...

            1. cortland

              Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

              Up with which, etc . . .

            2. Peter Rowan

              Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

              If England isn't in Europe where has it moved to?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

            XML parsing error

            Opening and ending tag mismatch

          2. Pedigree-Pete
            Meh

            Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

            "If your in England, your already in Europe"

            Sadly all to true in more than the Geographical sense.

          3. The Sod Particle
            Headmaster

            Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

            If you're going to be pedantic at least do it properly.

            <double pedant mode>

            If you're in England, you're already in Europe.

            <double pedant mode/>

          4. TheRealRoland

            @ac Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

            Your what is already in Europe?

            If you want to be pedant-ish, show some real effort next time.

          5. cortland

            Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

            When I went to Prep School there in the 1950's, it was a point of honour NOT to be European. (And never to react, no matter how many applications of the cane.)

          6. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

            ... and syntax.

          7. tojb

            Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

            No, my friend. Europe is a continent, which Britain is in, but it is also a state of mind, which it is not.

            1. Peter Rowan

              Re: it will probably be an expensive @ Jess

              Not everyone who is British is a little Engerlander, I feel very European, then again I am from London, a bit more open minded.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: it will probably be an expensive boutique operation.

        Traveling time would go up by a factor of 5, I guess. But space would not be an issue. You'd be able to walk around or sleep. England to Europe would be fine.

        Not sure it would be so onerous, London to New York would be around 35 hours if they could get it going at around 100mph (The Zeppelin's could do 80 I think).

        I'd happily take a sleeper in preference to cattle class on a plane.

    1. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: Rigid Airships have a place

      but never as military transport unless well to the rear

      So a force of Scouts and Dragoons on the vanguard, backed up by long-range fire from your Carrier, then? Preferably backed up by Arbiters. Got ya!

    2. John X Public
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Rigid Airships have a place

      Once we have even just a few of these forging an established place in aeronautics Phase 2 can be implemented: Die Überluftschiffe or megadirigibles.

      Huge airships that are small cruising cities and do not normally attempt to land. Passenger boarding and resupply by small aircraft or airships that come up to meet it. I can see it now. Time for some Kickstarter trawling.

    3. Amorous Cowherder
      Facepalm

      Re: Rigid Airships have a place

      I remember living near the Cardington hangers in Beds., back in the 1980's when the secret airship trials were going on. The number of UFO stories went up but then 6 months later it all came out and no more UFO sightings reported.

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm curious

    If it only takes the pressure of a bike tyre to neutralise the lifting power of helium, why has it taken until now to make the technology work?

    1. MrXavia

      Re: I'm curious

      Because there has been little research into the technology,

      the great thing is that advances in other areas really make this a possibility now..

      Lighter/Stronger composite materials,

      Lighter more efficient & powerful motors (Brushless digital things) enabling the compression.

      the idea itself is not new, its just the implementation is now possible!

      The Hindenburg disaster killed off the Airship as a means of transport (even though the only people that died were killed by the fuel or jumping before it touched the ground... No one died as a result of the Hydrogen fire itself... And with modern flame retardant materials I am sure a Hydrogen airship could be built segmented enough that even a gas bag exploding would not destroy the whole ship)

      1. Don Jefe

        Re: I'm curious

        The Hindenburg and the very public US Navy airship failures all combined to kill off the technology. Look up pictures of the Akron (I think it was anyway) ground crew member dangling from the mooring lines (he falls right after the image was captured. He dies.) as well as the twisted wreckage with human limbs poking out. Those pictures got a lot of press and scared everyone off.

        1. graeme leggett Silver badge

          Re: I'm curious

          The R100 drove into a French hillside in 1930 and it didn't stop German work on airships nor people choosing to fly on them in preference to trains or ships.

          There may have been the novelty value at the time, so why not exploit it again.

          1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

            Re: I'm curious

            "The R100 drove into a French hillside in 1930"

            R101 did. The R100 flew to Canada and back and was then scrapped after the R101 disaster and shutting down of the Imperial Airship Scheme.

            1. graeme leggett Silver badge

              Re: I'm curious

              mea culpa - I typed in a hurry and got it (embarrassingly) wrong.

      2. Frumious Bandersnatch

        Re: I'm curious

        I am sure a Hydrogen airship could be built segmented enough that even a gas bag exploding would not destroy the whole ship)

        ISTR that they used that logic with the TItanic, too. Interestingly, they reckon that if the captain had just ploughed straight into the iceberg the ship wouldn't have sunk. As it happened, the evasive action gouged all along the side, breaching many bulkheads in series. I can imagine that an airship pilot would probably take the same sort of evasive action in similar circumstances.

        Now if they had something like an aerogel with the ability to absorb a lot of hydrogen in the case of a leak ... though maybe not (since the resulting fuel/air mix might actually make any explosion more potent than pure Hydrogen).

        1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

          Re: I'm curious @Frumious

          " I can imagine that an airship pilot would probably take the same sort of evasive action in similar circumstances."

          Not sure there are *that* many icebergs floating around at a few thousand feet... I've been in and out of a cloud or two, but never met a flying iceberg!

          1. Frumious Bandersnatch

            Re: I'm curious @Frumious

            > never met a flying iceberg!

            There was a Michael Caine film called "Blue Ice". Imagine some mixup in plumbing between the toilet systems and the gas compression system and voila: lighter-than air icebergs :)

          2. Robert Helpmann??

            Re: I'm curious @Frumious

            I've been in and out of a cloud or two, but never met a flying iceberg!

            And I hope you do not! To paraphrase Pratchett, you have to be careful when flying through clouds as they might have rocks* in them.

            * Rocks of this nature are more typically referred to as "mountains."

        2. Don Jefe

          Re: I'm curious

          The Hindenburg burned anyway. It didn't explode. Filling a soft envelope (or envelopes) with pressurized flammable gas in a daily use machine is dumb. The Nazis didn't even want to use hydrogen, they wanted helium but we wouldn't share.

          Besides the lift advantage at all but very high altitudes is fairly minimal with Hydrogen vs Helium. At airship scale, at intended altitudes and combined with safety concerns all sum up to mean Hydrogen is an unnecessary risk with little real advantage; other than availability and this technology appears to mitigate the availability/cost concerns as well.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: I'm curious

            "They wanted helium but we wouldn't share"

            In our defense, they were totally acting like a bunch of fucking Nazis.

            1. Don Jefe
              Happy

              Re: I'm curious

              I didn't know that everyone didn't know the Hindenburg was a Nazi aircraft. Two guys at work didn't believe me and I had to find pictures. Isn't it odd how things get swept under the cultural rug when they turn out really embarrassing? It isn't actively hidden, just nobody talks about it, then everyone forgets.

            2. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

              Re: I'm curious @David W.

              But you wouldn't share it with the Brits either...

              1. Don Jefe
                Happy

                Re: I'm curious @David W.

                The British are Ok to have a beer with or maybe go to a match with, but you really can't trust them. Besides, the helium hoarding era was completely the doing of the then nascent Party Balloon Insustry. The unimaginable scale of horror and slaughter of WWII was the only thing that stopped them. Party balloons just weren't popular during rationing then recovery from the war. Another unintended, but happy, side effect of global conflict.

    2. Steve Todd

      Re: I'm curious

      You have bike tyres pressurised to 8 bar? I really wouldn't want to run a tyre much above 3 bar and car tyres run closer to 2 bar.

      1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: I'm curious

        Routinely, road bike tyres run at 100psi, with professional road racers up to 150psi. That's a range of 7-10 bar.

        GJC

        1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge

          Re: I'm curious

          Also, it's just occurred to me that you don't need to make the helium heavier than air. Just compressing it to two bar will reduce the buoyancy somewhat.

          GJC

      2. leaway2

        Re: I'm curious

        My bike tyres are 110 psi. As a general rule of thumb, if the bike has drop handle bars, the tyres will be this pressure.

  2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    "helium ... compress it to the point at which it is heavier than air"

    What I don't quite understand is, when the helium is compressed in a tank it is taken out of the hull. The hull being rigid maintains its volume so the helium taken out of it must be replaced (I can't believe that it could resist low pressure), probably by air. Is there some sort of diaphragm within the hull to separate helium from air or how does it work?

    1. Justicesays

      Re: "helium ... compress it to the point at which it is heavier than air"

      Rigid airships are essentially just a load of weather balloons stuffed into a vaguely aerodynamic frame. The outside "skin" is just to stop things blowing around etc. It doesn't hold in gas, that is stored in interior "cells".

      So having air vents etc isnt really a problem.

      1. Evil Auditor Silver badge

        Re: "helium ... compress it to the point at which it is heavier than air"

        Justicesays,

        Thanks!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Optional

    Fuck! I'm trapped in Groundhog Day

    Someone help me pleeeeeaaaaaaaasssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/07/aeros_trials_cosh_airship/

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12110386

    1. MrXavia
      Facepalm

      Re: Optional

      The first one would be when it did the Hanger testing, the FAA just cleared it for outdoor testing, so it took them 8 months, not too shabby really!

      and The British one is a blimp/plane hybrid, NOT a rigid airship...

  4. codejunky Silver badge
    Joke

    You couldnt hit the broad side of a barn

    Yeah... well you couldnt hit a Walrus with a shoulder launched missile

  5. Benchops

    Paint it green

    with exchangeable cargo hold and a big white "2" and I'll buy one

    1. Pet Peeve

      Re: Paint it green

      As cool as this ship looks, I don't think that International Rescue wants to putter along in an airship. Thunderbird 2 was supersonic, wasn't it?

      1. monkeyfish

        Re: Paint it green

        Sure, but maybe you could take the airship and strap a couple of hypersonic jet engines to it? Thunderbird 2 will be left for dust!

    2. Boothy

      Re: Paint it green

      Glad I wasn't the only one who thought the same on first look! :-D

  6. Benchops

    Cargo/ballast

    Great article, lots of knowledge imparted there, thanks!

    If the lighter than air gas is in cells, how about strapping a cell to each item of cargo (person) of a size that doesn't quite counteract the cargo's (person's) weight.

    That way you don't even have to land, you just open the trapdoor under them and let them gently waft to the ground. That'll definitely work.

    1. Roger Greenwood

      Re: Cargo/ballast

      You go first.

    2. hamcheeseandonion
      Coat

      Re: Cargo/ballast

      I wonder if there's anything they could feed the self-loading cargo, that would make them fart helium?

      Just a thought...

      Btw.. mine's the one with the perpetual motion device in the pocket.

    3. lunatik96

      Re: Cargo/ballast

      somehow I hear the Jetson theme, his boy elroy ...

  7. Simon Rockman

    Where will the test flights happen?

    The article says FAA approval, so presumably in the US, but where?

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