05-12-2018, 03:29 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
To emphasize this, a particularly massive modern heavy-lift airship might be able to lift as much as one to two train cars worth of cargo (Though few make it to even one), which ranges from less than to slight more than a modern heavy-lift cargo plane. Airships are super-low throughput, which eliminates them from the bulk-transport market. That leaves express delivery, a niche that cargo planes already fill far better.
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05-12-2018, 03:44 PM | #32 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
So there needs to be a niche that airships can fill. What would that niche be?
- Not cost effective to build a runway. - Roads, sea and rail have to be removed as options Maybe harvesting a resource from a canopy or operating near the arctic circle? Skimming something off the surface of the ocean without disturbing the surface?
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05-12-2018, 04:30 PM | #33 |
☣
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
Basically, as it stands, an airship cannot really compete with a train, or an airplane, or a ship. If one of those does the job, it will almost certainly do it better. But they can, in effect, function like a large, slow helicopter. Most of the serious work in large airships seems to be aimed at delivery of material too big for local infrastructure (e.g. large prefabricated elements to remote construction sites).
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
05-12-2018, 04:56 PM | #34 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
… with a large element of "We want to build an airship, what's an application that we might get investors for?" The number of failed projects makes that pretty clear.
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05-12-2018, 06:25 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
Quote:
Unfortunately that's been better filled by blimps than large rigid airships.
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Fred Brackin |
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05-13-2018, 05:07 AM | #36 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
For example, the former USA of Crimson Skies is balkanised and in a cold war, so rail lines are cut because they're too easy to invade along; ships can't do much within the continent; and large aeroplanes don't exist because hey look over there it's Goering.
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05-13-2018, 09:02 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: L.I., NY
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
I haven't worked out whether it actually makes sense, but I've sometimes wondered if fossil fuels were much scarcer and development of solar PV was earlier, would airships coated with thin-film PV would work as an explanation dirigibles being widely adopted. They would have more surface area than planes, and a lower power requirement to stay in the air.
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05-13-2018, 09:10 AM | #38 |
Join Date: Feb 2013
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
I think they even divided the boroughs of New York City into separate countries.
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05-13-2018, 10:18 AM | #39 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
Quote:
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Fred Brackin |
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05-13-2018, 11:42 AM | #40 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Why Dirigibles?
This is one of the few issues with LTA you actually have some hope of addressing in a realistic setting. Better weather forecasting telling you where not to try to fly doesn't necessarily require superscience.
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