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Sergey Brin's Airship Gets FAA Clearance (ieee.org) 74

Mark Harris, reporting at IEEE: Expect traffic on the 101 highway in Mountain View, California, to be even worse in the days or weeks ahead, as motorists slow down to watch Google co-founder Sergey Brin's 124-meter long airship Pathfinder 1 launch into the air for the first time. IEEE Spectrum has learned that LTA Research, the company that Brin founded in 2015 to develop airships for humanitarian and cargo transport, received a special airworthiness certificate for the helium-filled airship in early September. That piece of paper allows the largest aircraft since the ill-fated Hindenburg to begin flight tests at Moffett Field, a joint civil-military airport in Silicon Valley, with immediate effect.

The certificate permits LTA to fly Pathfinder 1 within the boundaries of Moffett Field and neighboring Palo Alto airport's airspaces, at a height of up to 460 meters (1500 feet). That will let it venture out over the south San Francisco Bay, without interfering with planes flying into or out of San Jose and San Francisco International commercial airports. In a letter supporting its application for the certificate, LTA wrote: "Pathfinder 1's experimental flight test program is to demonstrate and establish the flight envelope for the airship.... LTA's test plan is tailored to include substantial indoor and outdoor ground testing, using a build-up approach to gradually increase the flight envelope." The huge airship will initially be attached to a mobile mast for outdoor ground testing, before conducting about 25 low-level flights, for a total of 50 hours' flight time.

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Sergey Brin's Airship Gets FAA Clearance

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  • The Treer MegaZeppelin!

    The best movie no one has ever heard of (I even have the graphic novel pre-chapters...)

    Do you bleed?

    • Still waiting to see two Treer Saltair SUVs in a driveway making baby SUVs

    • The Treer MegaZeppelin!

      The best movie no one has ever heard of (I even have the graphic novel pre-chapters...)

      Do you bleed?

      No one ever heard of? I love that movie.

      No one rocks the cock like Krista Now!

      Pimps do not commit suicide.

      • Only the cool kids have heard of it...

        Freaking great movie! Like watching 1990s SNL on acid.

        • Only the cool kids have heard of it...

          Freaking great movie! Like watching 1990s SNL on acid.

          Probably the best display of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's acting ability in any single film ever. His two main characters being complete personality shifts, which he often does in the same scene, and there are some serious actors that could not have pulled that off.

  • Cool.

    Seems like I hear about a dirigible project announced about every three years or so, but most of them never get to the flight stage. Glad to see one flying!

    The most serious problem with dirigibles of the early 20th century was that they are very vulnerable to weather. But we have vastly better weather prediction now, and satellites observing 24/7.

    Love to see this take off! The helium supply shortage might cut down on the future applicability, though.

    • There was another company, Aeroscraft, which was building a similar dirigible in the Navy airship hangars in Tustin CA over a decade ago, for the same ostensible mission of delivering cargo to areas without airstrips. Sadly, the hangar building roof broke during a storm in 2013 and the airship was heavily damaged by falling debris. Since that time, the firm seems to have backed off giant airships and has been selling aerostats to the military.
  • by bickerdyke ( 670000 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @10:58AM (#63953035)

    A bit smaller, but not the "first Airship since the Hindenburg": https://zeppelinflug.de/en/zep... [zeppelinflug.de]

    And then there's of course the failed Cargolifter.

    • A bit smaller, but not the "first Airship since the Hindenburg": https://zeppelinflug.de/en/zep... [zeppelinflug.de]

      Didn't say the first Airship since the Hindenburg. It said the largest Airship since the Hindenburg. Zeppelin NT lifts is only 75 meters.

      And then there's of course the failed Cargolifter.

      Alas, that one never got built.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      A bit smaller, but not the "first Airship since the Hindenburg": https://zeppelinflug.de/en/zep... [zeppelinflug.de]

      And then there's of course the failed Cargolifter.

      The problem with airships is that they're really vulnerable to inclement weather. There were worse airship disasters than the Hindenburg that were less famous like the R101 and USS Akron (pardon if the spelling is incorrect) but they were lost due to bad weather.

      Makes sense when you think about it.

      This just seems Sergey just admitting he desperately wants to be a Bond villain.

      • I like the idea of a huge airship for a Bond villain....

        Not unrealistic as the space station in Moonraker, but still a symbol of a huge, inflated ego... but then again a nod to the humble low tech of the beginning of last century....

  • Helium? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mustafap ( 452510 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @11:01AM (#63953045) Homepage

    IS this really a good use of Helium? It's getting rare and medical uses are a better place to put it than a rich boy's play thing.

    • by jd ( 1658 )

      I would absolutely agree, although it's possible that there are countries doing natural gas extraction that aren't doing helium capture. If Google wants to fund the development and deployment of helium capture technology in regions that don't currently have it, then I'm fine with them using helium in an airship.

    • IS this really a good use of Helium? It's getting rare and medical uses are a better place to put it than a rich boy's play thing.

      You know the Macy's Thanksgiving parade [wikipedia.org] has been a regular thing since forever, right? I'm not arguing that is a good use of helium, and I don't think they even attempt to recapture it. I am only arguing that if you have a valid, scientific argument, (and you well might, you probably do, I don't know), then I suggest you take it up over there.

      • by narcc ( 412956 )

        More than one thing can be bad at a time, you know. Though if you're looking for the worst waste of helium, a few giant cartoon characters in an annual parade is going to top the list. I suggest you do some reading.

        • More than one thing can be bad at a time, you know. Though if you're looking for the worst waste of helium, a few giant cartoon characters in an annual parade is going to top the list. I suggest you do some reading.

          Please allow me to rephrase my original argument so I am not misunderstood.

          The NYC children's parade is gonna happen in a month, and all the helium used will be wasted, same as always since before WWII. What to do?

          Sergey's blimp will consume vastly less helium than a single parade and will strive to conserve all of it. Compared to the annual Thanksgiving parade's consumption and waste, no problem that I can really see, not being an expert with regards to helium.

          The advantage of dirigibles as I understand th

          • by narcc ( 412956 )

            Sergey's blimp will consume vastly less helium than a single parade

            That's not likely. We don't know exactly how much Sergey's silly toy uses, but we can guess. At ~400 x 66 feet, it has a volume of ~1.4 million cubic feet. Each Macy's balloon requires between 12k and 15k cubic feet of helium. With 30 balloons, that would be just 450,000 cubic feet, though some reports say they only use around 350,000 cubic feet. Even if we use a very low estimate for Surgey and high one for Macy's, its clear that the parade uses significantly less.

            and will strive to conserve all of it.

            It's laughable to claim that they'll

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      The helium shortage is a myth! It is a lie perpetuated by Big Noble Gas to drive up prices! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
    • It's an amazingly stupid and irresponsible vanity project. Not only is it a huge waste of a scarce resource that should be conserved for medicine, science and technology industries, but airship projects always end in grief because nature is stronger than any billionaire understands.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Apparently there are different grades of helium. The stuff used in party balloons is not the same as medical/scientific grade helium, which is where the supply problems are.

      So I guess it depends what this thing uses.

  • Was actually intended to fly helium.
    The US refused to sell them gas due to the history of German use of lighter than air craft and post WW I prohibitions on the Hindenburg company building LTA

  • Can’t think of a worse use of a finite resource than this. And birthday balloons.
    • by Burdell ( 228580 )

      As compared to what other uses exactly? This is one of those popular myths that go around regularly, that balloons for kids are wasting helium when we need it for MRI machines... but it isn't true. The helium used for balloons and such is essentially already "waste" helium, not pure enough (nor purifiable) for medical uses. It's what's left over from those processes. There's no competing use... if there were, it'd cost more (because somebody would be buying it for those other uses).

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        That doesn't really make sense. Helium comes mostly from natural gas. It's very impure to start with, and it's fairly easy to purify.

        We don't have a helium shortage. People are looking to the future when we will have a helium shortage for various reasons. In the meantime, you can still fill up all the kids balloons and MRI scanners you want, although the price has gone up.

      • Hey, don't /tell/ them about the Price Mechanism!

  • This is the only one I've personally seen in action https://twitter.com/avnawards/... [twitter.com]
  • Jets? Yeah, it’s blimps. You win.
  • Airship Ventures flew out of Moffett Field for a few years in the 2010s. It was pretty cool to look at.

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