The (biggest) problem that keeps airships from practical use is that they are huge sails. Big sails mean even small amounts of wind can be powerful forces acting on the airship. In the air a big push from the wind might be safely managed, but if you're near anything solid such as the ground, you can get smashed to bits.
To safely operate a suitably efficient (large) airship, we'd need both huge specialized docks with extremely strong mooring structures to keep wind from smashing the airship into whatever is near it, and a system (such as a 3-axis propulsion system on the airship) that is capable of counteracting wind force acting on the airship when it's near the ground or other solid objects and not docked.
Despite the many attractive advantages of airships, there's yet been anything like a good solution to this problem. There are other challenges too (what do you do when you drop off your cargo and the airship wants to shoot up into the air? Vent gas? Rapidly compress your gas?), this is just the biggest.
> There are other challenges too (what do you do when you drop off your cargo and the airship wants to shoot up into the air? Vent gas? Rapidly compress your gas?)
Not to detract from your overall point, but you do the same thing you do when burning fuel while cruising: Add ballast.
Yes, but how do you add ballast to an airship while it is underway? Simple: condense water out of the exhaust like the zeppelins did.
One challenge I've heard of is: If you carry 100 tons of cargo from point A to point B in an airship, for the airship to return to point A, it needs to take on another 100 tons of new cargo (or ballast), or it needs to vent (or compress) lifting gas, in order to maintain the correct buoyancy. I wonder what the best approach is here, & how it affects the economics? Is water ballast safe & cheap enough, or is there a better way?
Cargo airships will not happen,in any land based area where wind happens,ie :anywhere
this has been hammered flat on numerous aviation
engineering forums
the only way around the guaranteed ground handling
debaucle is to engineer mega structur masts for anchoring,which will need to have a circular pad underneath,where the cargo would have to follow the LTA,as it pivots in the wind so back to a debaucle,with lots of smashing stuff
one possibility is airship to ocean ship transfers
where wind drift can be managed.....sort of
could be made to work for passengers snd small cargo that loads through the central pivot in the mast
still the anchoring phase will always be very high risk
I see this brought up every few years but nothing ever seems to happen. I used to live not far from the Weeksville station in NC and would occasionally see flights from there. Would love to see these all over. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/weeksville-dirigible-han...
The (biggest) problem that keeps airships from practical use is that they are huge sails. Big sails mean even small amounts of wind can be powerful forces acting on the airship. In the air a big push from the wind might be safely managed, but if you're near anything solid such as the ground, you can get smashed to bits.
To safely operate a suitably efficient (large) airship, we'd need both huge specialized docks with extremely strong mooring structures to keep wind from smashing the airship into whatever is near it, and a system (such as a 3-axis propulsion system on the airship) that is capable of counteracting wind force acting on the airship when it's near the ground or other solid objects and not docked.
Despite the many attractive advantages of airships, there's yet been anything like a good solution to this problem. There are other challenges too (what do you do when you drop off your cargo and the airship wants to shoot up into the air? Vent gas? Rapidly compress your gas?), this is just the biggest.
> There are other challenges too (what do you do when you drop off your cargo and the airship wants to shoot up into the air? Vent gas? Rapidly compress your gas?)
Not to detract from your overall point, but you do the same thing you do when burning fuel while cruising: Add ballast.
Yes, but how do you add ballast to an airship while it is underway? Simple: condense water out of the exhaust like the zeppelins did.
One challenge I've heard of is: If you carry 100 tons of cargo from point A to point B in an airship, for the airship to return to point A, it needs to take on another 100 tons of new cargo (or ballast), or it needs to vent (or compress) lifting gas, in order to maintain the correct buoyancy. I wonder what the best approach is here, & how it affects the economics? Is water ballast safe & cheap enough, or is there a better way?
Cargo airships will not happen,in any land based area where wind happens,ie :anywhere this has been hammered flat on numerous aviation engineering forums the only way around the guaranteed ground handling debaucle is to engineer mega structur masts for anchoring,which will need to have a circular pad underneath,where the cargo would have to follow the LTA,as it pivots in the wind so back to a debaucle,with lots of smashing stuff one possibility is airship to ocean ship transfers where wind drift can be managed.....sort of could be made to work for passengers snd small cargo that loads through the central pivot in the mast still the anchoring phase will always be very high risk
I'd bet a bunch of former SpaceX engineers will figure out a solution.
I see this brought up every few years but nothing ever seems to happen. I used to live not far from the Weeksville station in NC and would occasionally see flights from there. Would love to see these all over. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/weeksville-dirigible-han...
Time to order a leather hat, goggles and a scarf.