[IW] Zeppelins mean Alternate Timelines. So, how are they made feasible?

[Schedim]

Years, and years ago i was also playing around with the Zepp-dominated alternate reality. Basically my reverse engineered world come up with these constraints/changed physical laws in order to make it work:

1) Weaker metal bond = more difficult to build efficent combustion engines, (this led to some other interesting features in this world, much weaker gun technology for instance, more steam engines etc)

2) Better lift gas readily accessible (gas pockets with a strange Helium-like anti-gravity gas, sorta).

3) Different weather patterns/weather control magic ... some kind of avoid the bad weather effects seemed to be of need!

Actually the weaker metal bond was the most interesting feature to spin ideas from, it just has to be a tiny tiny bit different in order to make a totally different world..

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Schedim

Years, and years ago i was also playing around with the Zepp-dominated alternate reality. Basically my reverse engineered world come up with these constraints/changed physical laws in order to make it work:

1) Weaker metal bond = more difficult to build efficent combustion engines, (this led to some other interesting features in this world, much weaker gun technology for instance, more steam engines etc)

This is the one that doesn't work. LTAs need light weight at least as much as winged airplanes.

The Z-1 probably had better gasoline engines than the 1st Wright Flyer did. Europe led the US in internal combustion engine technology til (at least) sometime around 1940 or so. I strongly suspect that Von Zeppelin was better financed than the Wrights too. :)

Weaker metal hurts zeppelins in other areas too. All the zeps of the 1st 3rd of the 20th century and state of the art aluminum superstructures. Because of their smaller size it was actually easier for early airplanes to get by with wood, fabric and wire.

I don't believe there is really any physical alteration that will favor zeps over airplanes in the long run. Superpowerful lifting gas helps but until it hits the point that you are floating what are the equivalent of seagoing warships it's still going to come up short.

[Pragmatic]

David Brin's Earth had the use of zeppelins, if I recall. Nothing major, just used to transport a scientist across some arctic tundra, if I recall correctly. It was more fuel efficient than the use of overland or heavier-than-air vehicles.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

David Brin's Earth had the use of zeppelins, if I recall. Nothing major, just used to transport a scientist across some arctic tundra, if I recall correctly. It was more fuel efficient than the use of overland or heavier-than-air vehicles.

Almost certainly untrue for any level of tech assumptions.

Lighter than air vehicles can hover at no energy expediture and that's their niche. Point a to point b they just aren't as good at. The drag penalties for the gas bag is just too large.

[Spudzill]

I postulated a setting where there was a world jumper with the gate enhancement but the limitation: only one world. This was a world where humanity never developed. He settled a small resort town on America's west coast and sold oil rights to the big oil companies of " our" earth. As people came through wanting to settle for Religious, Social experiments and companies wanted to travel to exploit the natural resources of this earth they were confronted by a staggering lack of infrastructure. ( No roads,GPS, or airfields) They turned to the best alternatives: Helicopters and Dirigibles. The fuel economy of the airship was a major factor in its adoption. Thus, a company took an airship from the equivalent of So. California down to the Southern tip of the African continenet so that they could mine for diamonds. Also the central areas of North America and the steppes of Russia were particularly useful to explore via airship.

[Bill Cameron]

[QUOTE=Spudzill;864603]The fuel economy of the airship was a major factor in its adoption.[quote]



Spudzill,

As Fred Brackin already and correctly pointed out, there is no fuel economy. I'd also like to know how airships were moored once they reached their destinations. "Airships" do not equate "no infrastructure requirements".

Thus, a company took an airship from the equivalent of So. California down to the Southern tip of the African continenet so that they could mine for diamonds.

A small flotilla of motor-sailors would have been a far more logical and useful choice, especially when you consider the amount of supplies, tools, and other freight needed to be moved. Watercraft can travel across oceans and up rivers while requiring much less infrastructure at their final destination than an airship will.

In fact, water transport in your uninhabited, infrastructure-free world is the best choice in nearly all situations, just as it was in actual history before much of our world's transportation infrastructure was either developed or built.

Also the central areas of North America and the steppes of Russia were particularly useful to explore via airship.

Until the weather turns bad and, without satellites overhead, your corporate-operated airships crash just as often and horrifically as their 1930s USN counterparts did.

While airships are "kewl" additions to any RPG session, we mustn't kid ourselves that they're actually useful beyond a very small technological and historical niche.


Bill

[David Johnston2]

I don't suppose the version where they have weather controllers so the size of the gas bag is a virtue for their wind propulsion counts.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I don't suppose the version where they have weather controllers so the size of the gas bag is a virtue for their wing propulsion counts.

"Wind" propulsion maybe?

Ships with big sails go faster than equivalent hulls with less sails because the drag of the water has to be overcome.

This doesn't apply to gasbags. They're all floating in mid-air and all travel at the same speed.

This is related to why magical flying ships need magical keels and rudders. Maybe a sort of innate resistance to the wind too. Otherwise they just float along at the wind's speed and direction.

[Joseph Paul]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3906846/Mi...anAir-Vehicles

Highlights-
Fuel efficiency better than airplanes. Retracted. Now I can't find the reference either.
Serious doubt for competing in tranportation for some parameters.
Military Strategic Lift applications still a go.
Lots of argument over costs of operation due to very different assumptions and definitions both pro and con.

See post 41 for info on how some modern designs are handling low-speed ground handling. The US Navy got ground handling down to a few men and some mechanical mules with constant tension winches. Massive hangers are really not needed. A modern blimp company puts their's into a hanger about twice a year for maintenance and the rest of the time it is moored outside.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3906846/Mi...anAir-Vehicles

Highlights-
Fuel efficiency better than airplanes.

I couldn't actually read the document due to useless formatting but the fuel efficiency claims are almost certainly false on a point A to Point B basis.

The LTAs might use less fuel on a per hour basis or something like that but once you multiply gallons per hour by hours necessary for the trip that advantage is going away. There really isn't any way around the drag penalty.