Timeline for Why are airships not more popular?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 22, 2020 at 2:29 | comment | added | Zeiss Ikon | Yep, you''re right. I was thinking you'd do it with a little breeze, using dynamic lift, but you'd still have to vent a bunch of gas to get heavy, even if you did it gradually before the drop instead of suddenly after or something in between, when the load touches the ground (vent to let the load's weight come onto it; when the cable has near zero load, unlatch and fly away until the mast is up). | |
| Mar 20, 2020 at 20:17 | comment | added | Mark | @ZeissIkon, lower a ground crew, collapsible mooring mast, and ground equipment, and simultaneously vent off a few tons of excess lift with sufficient precision to keep either the ground crew or the equipment from falling more than a foot or so as the airship rises. Hovering an airship requires three-axis control, and near the ground, the engines and control surfaces can only cover two of those axes. | |
| Mar 20, 2020 at 19:32 | comment | added | Zeiss Ikon | Airships can hover (match speed against a ground wind). No reason they couldn't lower a ground crew, collapsible mooring mast, and ground equipment from below the gondola, at least in steady conditions. | |
| Dec 2, 2014 at 19:41 | comment | added | Jan Hudec | @MatthewPeters: No, it couldn't. The anchor line can only bear load along the line. So to resist wind/current moving the ship sideways, it has to also apply some downward force to the ship. If a waterbourne surface ship is pulled down a bit, it's buoyancy increases significantly, so even strong force won't sink it. But there is no similar effect for airship, so it would descent readily until a strong gust of wind would slam it to the ground. Note that submerged submarine would have the same problem; anchors only work well for surface vessels. | |
| Dec 2, 2014 at 19:33 | comment | added | Jan Hudec | @PeterKämpf: Well, with underslung cargo the airship could descend until the cargo touches down, then descend more until the ropes are not tensed and now the ropes can be untied and the airship is not loaded. And it should be possible by inflating the air ballonets and compressing or releasing some lifting gas. Maintaining the ship in position so it does not drag the cargo along the ground would still be pretty complicated. | |
| Dec 2, 2014 at 14:35 | comment | added | Matthew Peters | You bring up some great points. I am not a balloonist at all but am just curious... The challenges here do not seem too difficult to overcome. Perhaps this is another question but could an airship use anchors similar to waterbourne-ships? Obviously, they would operate in a different technical manner, but if you could have two (1 aft, 1 stern) wouldnt that provide enough pressure to keep the ship steady? | |
| Dec 2, 2014 at 10:52 | comment | added | Peter Kämpf | Absolutely right, and if the payload is heavy, things will become more complicated still. Now the airship has to take up ballast as it is unloading the payload. Water or sand must be plentiful at the remote drop point. It is always funny to watch how in the movies people hop off a ballon, and the balloon just stays on the ground. Won't happen in real life. | |
| Dec 2, 2014 at 10:01 | history | answered | Mark | CC BY-SA 3.0 |