AirLander take off then 2nd Flight Mishap
 

Well, according to the website it's a $50Billion market...
https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/

I just can't fathom how well it can do with headwind or side wind.


The 10 model as seen here will have a bigger brother, the 50 that is supposed to be able to carry 50tons (That's metric Tonnes).
Be nice to see the loading ramps and tie down racks.

Isn't this just a Helium balloon with a few tiny fans for steering?


Flight:
World's largest aircraft the Airlander takes first flight in UK

Certainly looked impressive and I imagine on a still day it could be quite useful.
Will it get buyers or make $$ for it's makers, in an ongoing market we will have to wait and see.

never heared about the Zeppelins ?

I think they might mean currently! :ugh:

Having seen the Cargolifter fail in Germany and the US abandoning this concept any value remains to be proven.

impressive engineering but I doubt it'll sell - too weather dependent TBH

It will never have a side wind for more than a moment........

If one appears, it will miraculously disappear almost instantly.

Balloons are funny like that.:ok:

Yes, if the Germans and US can't manage it, what chance have some Brits got?

Nice attitude.

I once had a flight in a smaller blimp out of Cardington. The thing that was noticiable was the large number of ground crew needed. I think they may have had free help from a scout group or Air Cadets or the costs would be significant. Presumably this isn't the case with the air lander?

Maybe better think about your's, my friend.

Huge airships failed 100 years ago. This is why we have aeroplanes today.

readywhenreaching,

Don't be silly - you can't expect the meeja to remember one war back, never mind two !

Airlander 10 Technical Data
Envelope Volume: 38,000 m³ (1,340,000 ft³)
Overall Dimensions: - length 92 m (302 ft) - width 43.5 m (143 ft) - height 26 m (85 ft)
Endurance: 5 days manned
Altitude: up to 16,000 ft (4,880 m)
Speed: - cruise 80 Knots (148 km/hr) - loiter 20 Knots (37 km/hr)
Total Weight: 20,000 kg (44,100 lbs)
Payload capacity: up to 10,000 kg (22,050 lbs)
Envelope
Helium filled, laminated fabric construction hull. The hull’s aerodynamic shape, an elliptical cross-section allied to a cambered longitudinal shape, provides up to 40% of the vehicle’s lift. The internal diaphragms required to support this shape allow for a limited amount of compartmentalisation further enhancing the fail-safe nature of the vehicle. Multiple ballonets located fore and aft in each of the hulls provide pressure control.
Landing System
Profiled pneumatic tubes / skids on the underside of the two outer hulls provide for multi-surface ground operation including amphibious capability. On the production version skids are ‘sucked-in’ for a clean-in-flight profile.
Power Plant
4 x 325 hp, 4 litre V8 direct injection, turbocharged diesel engines. Two engines mounted forward on the hull and two on the stern of the hull for cruise operation. All four are configured with ducts with blown vanes to allow vectored thrust for take-off/landing/ground handling operation.
Cabin and Payload Capability
Located on centreline; comprises 4 primary areas as follows:
Flight Deck:
1 pilot station and one observer seat. (Two pilot station in production version.)
Large transparencies for excellent all-round visibility.
Cabin:
Passenger and/or Payload area measuring 3.2m x 7.2m x 1.7m. Larger area on production version.
Mid-body:
Centreline payload beam for externally slung loads.
Aft-body:
Fuel tanks and additional payload space


Cruise 80kn and usually going to be pobbling around in winds of 10 - 40kn so somewhere between 1000 and 2900 miles a day; probably mostly about 1500nm/day.
Endurance: 5 days manned. Hmm, FTL?

You are quite right.

Everything that failed 100yrs ago is impossible forever.
No amount of advances in materials and propulsion technology will make any difference.

Thank you for clearing that up.:rolleyes:

So what are the advantages you see in this technology?
A sigint plattform to loiter around for weeks, maybe. A rich man's helicopter? Not.

I don't have a clue!

That is zero reason to say it won't have a use though since I, like you, have done zero research on the subject. People with millions to throw around have decided it is worth a punt.

Great. Well done them for trying something different.

The whole of human history is full of "idiots" trying and retrying stupid ideas.
Imagine if the innovators had given up on helicopters after the first ones didn't work.

Do you know what the fully laden fuel consumption is?

I can't see the shipping industry feeling threatened.

From the tech link on their site, they claim lift off the upper aerodynamic shape. But they don't seem to have thought out the lower shape. But if they are claiming this lift to be used for payload, then lift will be proportional to airspeed. i.e. if they decide to "loiter", they will descend.

Well, that's one reason why the thrust is vectored, to allow level flight at different speeds. I expect (though I don't know) that the 20kt loiter speed will come with some downward vectoring.

Are they going to get someone from the Swiss Railways to ensure it runs on time?

What time? What timetable? How to build a schedule without huge margins for weather delays?

It all sounds too technically minded and not commercially convincing.

Longer than an A380 with half the payload of an A320.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/...1477294186.jpgit took off and landed without 100 chaps on ropes. it did bounce a bit on landing, but it was the first go :)

it's main advantage seems to be that it doesn't need a runway, like a helicopter, and can carry 10t, unlike a helicopter. and 2 week endurance. which it needs with a 90kt top speed.

Since I've been saying for years that the only use for passenger rail (in most of the US) is to deliver people to the dirigible field, I think I can be counted as something of an LTA skeptic. But with 80 knots in hand, headwinds at AirLander's operating altitudes aren't likely to be a problem; low level winds aloft are usually moderate. And in terms of costs and transit times, headwinds and tailwinds should average out.

One thing to keep in mind is that the earlier failures of LTA were because rigid dirigibles were fragile, and so disaster-prone. Modern design and construction should avoid that, leaving LTA to succeed or fail on economic factors alone; and while AirLander may be too small to carry a payload profitably, dirigibles are the only form of aircraft where the square-cube rule works in their favor.

They also have a big enough surface area and a low enough power requirement that the modern lightweight solar panels as seen on the solar aircraft that just flew round the world might actually provide a significant proportion of the power requirement.

It's going to make watching "Ice road truckers" a bit boring though.

take off
fly
land
repeat

I've thought of some uses.

Ultra endurance ISR obviously.

Ultra long range SAR. (mid Atlantic)

Long range/endurance ASW. Potentially extremely quiet and easily fast enough to track a sub in all but the windiest days.

Airborne cruise liner.

I'd pay to see some of the worlds amazing spots from the air. Imagine Machu Pichu from a smooth slow quiet platform...

The AirLander would, in my opinion, be an excellent option for humanitarian aid flights where runways are limited and in short supply.

Imagine how useful an AirLander would've been just after the awful Nepal earthquakes :ok:

There is a niche market for these in transporting and delivering/placing loads like say a 10 ton transformer to a remote location and placing it accurately on its 'plinth' . The task would otherwise require remaking roads, long careful low-loader transport then cranes with the site prepared for the cranes. I would think that operations in remote areas could keep a small fleet busy. There may also be a task to deliver offshore windmills to their sites or carrying maintenance crews to offshore windmills and delivering them to the gearbox nacelle by winching them down. There are no shortages of potential tasks.

Biggest cause of failure of the early airships was that they used hydrogen. Modern airships use helium, which is not flammable.

how it works

60% lift from buoyancy, 40% lift from aerodynamics, +/- 25% from vectored thrust.

I assume that's a very simplified account of what really happens - obviously at take off it can only have a maximum of 85% lift, and climbs, but in the cruise with 100% it has to stay level
and that's without mentioning the 10t of cargo it may or may not have

The ground handling is a pain, it needs huge hangars nobody has to safely store it and ops are weather dependant like nobody else's while the cost are high and payloads and speeds are low.

Still not convinced?

Compared to what?
Lets compare it to an airliner.
That needs an enormous runway at every single place it ever lands. Lets say for an A380 in excess of a billion £ for an airport.

Well, build them at the places it needs storing?

I will agree with that in part, because he weather problems are different, but not necessarily worse. How many other aircraft can just move out the way of a weather system for a day till it passes?

Far too early to have any chance of making that statement. For many uses, it's average speed to destination of load may be spectacularly faster, and costs may be orders of magnitude cheaper.
Many loads have entire roads built purely for a single cargo.
Entirely dependant on load and destination.

Sounds to me as though, in order to accomplish these sort of tasks, the craft would require an "auto-hover" capability. Which, for what is effectively a huge sail, would be something of a challenge.

Not really any different than all the rig support vessels and numerous other ships that have similar tasks. With 4 ducted fans, it should be possible?

The physics involved is beyond me but the differences in mass and surface area combined with the difference between the media in which these vessels operate would make this something of an over-simplification. wouldn't it?

Could be interesting if it got caught in a heavy rain shower while carrying a maximum load? All that surface area carrying a few millimetres of water is going to add tons (tonnes) of extra weight. I assume the designers have factored this into their calculations to give an adequate safety margin of lift.

Presumably, the current trials are without the 10 tonne payload.

How will they compensate for the additional weight

Total weight is quoted to be 20 tonnes - does that include the payload or will it gross at 30 tonnes?

A whole bunch of airship crashed with no fire, or crashed and caught fire as a result of the crash, which is distinctly different than crashing as a result of fire.

At 80 knots, the Airlander ain’t going to either.

And other people with millions to throw around have already thrown millions at it, and after seeing the results first hand, decided not to throw more millions at it.

The idea that the fact that someone is spending money on it proves it's viable is absurd.

The 20 tonnes quoted is the all-up (gross) weight i.e. empty weight + fuel + payload.

>The idea that the fact that someone is spending money on it proves it's viable is absurd.

Likewise, the idea that the fact that others have refused to spend more money on it proves that it is not viable, is equally absurd.

Wow!

Must be windy on your planet, because here on earth ships that can only do 17kts seem to manage to move out the way of most nasty weather systems...:rolleyes: