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.
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.
Straight out of Southland Tales! (Score:2)
The Treer MegaZeppelin!
The best movie no one has ever heard of (I even have the graphic novel pre-chapters...)
Do you bleed?
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Still waiting to see two Treer Saltair SUVs in a driveway making baby SUVs
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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?
No one ever heard of? I love that movie.
No one rocks the cock like Krista Now!
Pimps do not commit suicide.
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Only the cool kids have heard of it...
Freaking great movie! Like watching 1990s SNL on acid.
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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.
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I don't want to speak to any of that, but still, they are cool!
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Will they be playing tunes from Led Zeppelin I when it takes off?
Perhaps if it goes over like one.
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+1 Exactly. Not everything needs to have utility, some projects are worthy just by being inspirational. See the pyramids.
Have you forgotten about Ben Carson ? (Score:2)
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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You can't be a true villain without your own airship.
(I'm surprised Donald Trump hasn't got one. Then again, he has no class...)
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(I'm surprised Donald Trump hasn't got one. Then again, he has no class...)
He's not rich enough for that.
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Well, yeah. Pointless, but cool. Like the Spruce Goose, or Stratolaunch.
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Well that's an emotional argument if I ever heard one. Airships are not great for transporting people but the rising cost of operating airplanes combined with increased concern over their environmental impact means that they are looking increasingly attractive for cargo shipment.
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Soon the tiny amazon drones will deliver their tiny packages from their amazon warehouse air ships docked over your city.
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Airships are not great for transporting people ...
As we learned in the Archer [wikipedia.org] episode Skytanic [fandom.com] (s1e7):
Captain Lammers: The [Atlantic] crossing takes twenty-four hours.
Archer: Are you joking? What?
Captain Lammers:: Rigid airships combine the pampering of a cruise ship with the speed of —
Archer: Some other slightly faster ship? Uh, hello, airplanes? Yeah, it's blimps. You win. Bye.
Plus, you know, "The hydrogen!" :-)
Lammers: For the last time, you idiot! It's not hydrogen! It's helium!
Lana: And what about that are you still not getting, exactly?
Archer: Well, obviously the core concept, Lana. Sorry I didn't go to space camp.
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Also, 24 hours is insanely fast for a rigid airship to cross the Atlantic.
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If it doesn't work, he'll just blame those very factors. And if it does su
Re:Airships are a backward technology. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Airships are a backward technology. (Score:5, Informative)
Readers Digest (blast from the past?!) has an article on why we don't even see the Goodyear blimps much anymore.
https://www.rd.com/article/why... [rd.com]
tldr; it's really expensive, like $100k per flight. Maybe Brin's vanity project has improved on helium leakage, etc. But honestly, there really isn't use case for a dirigible that isn't done better, faster, cheaper from existing tech. Pathfinder has a 4 ton cargo capacity...but a Chinook helicopter can transport up to 12 tons a lot faster and more reliably. The focus should be on carbon-neutral aviation fuel
I personally am concerned about humanity exhausting our helium supply on crap like....party balloons and this current project. Helium is not something we can manufacture, and getting helium from Saturn will be really, really expensive
Re:Airships are a backward technology. (Score:5, Interesting)
We should be filling party balloons with hydrogen, or with a still-buoyant hydrogen-nitrogen blend. Yes hydrogen is flammable, but a party-balloon sized amount has about enough fuel for a science-class-acceptable explosion, not for real damage.
Re:Airships are a backward technology. (Score:4, Insightful)
We should be filling party balloons with hydrogen, or with a still-buoyant hydrogen-nitrogen blend. Yes hydrogen is flammable, but a party-balloon sized amount has about enough fuel for a science-class-acceptable explosion, not for real damage.
And it makes for much more memorable birthday parties.
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I'd think we should do it the other way around (not that I'm okay with helium party balloons). Hydrogen makes a lot of sense in airships, it gives twice as much lift as helium and airships can be engineered to minimize the risk.
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it gives twice as much lift as helium
Actually, hydrogen gives only about 8% more lift than helium because buoyancy is the difference between the specific weight of air and the buoyancy gas.
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Why Not Build Villages Up There?? (Score:2)
Why ever come down? I mean, use EV multicopters to visit back and forth but I don't see why a large airship couldn't be generally self-sustaining. Layer the top with solar films, pull in moisture from the clouds, churn that into hydrogen, and use aquaponics for food and a water treatment system. The higher the altitude the less the outside oxygen to risk any combustion with the hydrogen, also cooler so... very safe. Eventually, equipment would wear down and require replacement but generally, I think you
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Sounds like it would be a bit harder to do than the concrete city-ship idea.
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Since they use separate bladders inside the rigid envelope, I wonder if they could use hydrogen for the inner bladders, but still seal the envelope and use nitrogen around them to prevent fires. When enough hydrogen has diffused into the envelope nitrogen to become a problem, just flush with fresh nitrogen?
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And they can be serious luxury.
This is the R101 dining room [mediastorehouse.com], which as you can see, definitely beats even first class in a modern aircraft.
R101 interior photos [airshipsonline.com] in general suggest a very high standard of luxury is possible.
With cruise ships packing more and more people on to them, the amount of actual luxury on board is necessarily much lower. And although there are superyachts that doubtless have very fine dining on them, the few photographs I could find suggest that it's never better than the R101 and often
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And they can be serious luxury.
This is the R101 dining room [mediastorehouse.com], which as you can see, definitely beats even first class in a modern aircraft.
R101 interior photos [airshipsonline.com] in general suggest a very high standard of luxury is possible.
With cruise ships packing more and more people on to them, the amount of actual luxury on board is necessarily much lower. And although there are superyachts that doubtless have very fine dining on them, the few photographs I could find suggest that it's never better than the R101 and often much more crowded.
I would imagine the serious luxury crowd would be perfectly happy with a dirigible.
The point of the superyacht is the exclusivity, for which you'd need your own airship.
I doubt it's cheaper to float a luxury experience than float it, still, I can imagine super-rich floating around on airships just for the experience.
Think. Different. about airships. (Score:2)
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Looks like a cafeteria.
Some of the Airbus concept advertising preceding the A380 looked like actual luxury. Turns out nobody except a Saudi prince or two actually want that. We'd rather sit in a seat with a TV, or maybe a Lazy Boy with a TV for eight to twenty hours for a very small fraction of the price.
Or cram into a compartment on a megaship with five thousand of our closest Noro virus carrying friends. I don't understand why anyone cruises. For about the same price you could charter an actual yacht for
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And a good read regardless
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It's pretty hard to beat silent. I could see luxury cruises, floating restaurants, daytrip tourism, weddings, extra private meeting places, high altitude surveillance; there's plenty of niches for dirigibles.
I think airships will come into their own when we can bungee-jump off low-flying airships and hang just above the ocean.
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It's pretty hard to beat silent. I could see luxury cruises, floating restaurants, daytrip tourism, weddings, extra private meeting places, high altitude surveillance; there's plenty of niches for dirigibles.
extra private meeting place [youtube.com]
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That all depends on how expensive they are to run. And how much clear air-space there is. And how much helium is available.
FWIW, I *like* the idea, but I'm not sure it's practical even with ordinary billionaires as the customers. (Owning one may be status, but may not be practical for more than about 10 people on the planet. And there are other ways to buy status.)
OTOH, it would be v. nice if I'm wrong.
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Aircraft are better in some respects, but are fairly narrow and the failure of the A380 (and the lack of a commercial A400) would suggest that aircraft are reaching the limits of what they can do in terms of carrying capacity. The A380 had roughly twice the carrying capacity of an A350-1000 but had poorer fuel consumption per passenger (which actually caught me a bit by surprise as two A350-1000s would have to have more deadweight than one A380). The A380 also had less cargo capacity than a single A350-1000
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The A380 had the misfortune of being designed right before we decided twin engine planes should be able to fly pretty much anywhere. You could certainly build an A380 size twinjet (Boeing is getting up there with the 777X) that would be cheaper per passenger seat than anything smaller. The problem is that "passenger seat" thing. You've got to fill it. And apart for a few routes mostly involving Dubai, smaller airplanes that fly more frequently direct to smaller places are much more popular.
You know, as much
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The industry is perfectly capable of providing regular, safe, and affordable supersonic flight, but they're just not allowed to. And they're perfectly capable of the Blended-Wing designs you mention, but industry monopolism and regulatory conservatism prevent there
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"Some other, slightly faster ship? Hello, airplanes? Yeah, it's blimps. You win."
Thanks Archer for hilariously explaining how stupid this is [youtube.com].
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The cargo application makes more sense, but the whole concept is flawed in general. Air is an unreliable medium of transport except with altitude and speed, neither of which appear to be in the cards for this.
I have to wonder whether Brin actually believes anything will come of this, or just thinks airships are cool.
Re: Airships are a backward technology. (Score:2)
They learned the wrong lesson from the first time. Instead of making a safer hydrogen airship they filled it with scarce and critical helium. Airships might well make actual sense if you make them big enough but using helium does not.
Cool! (Score:2)
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.
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Is that the one that looked like a big flying butt?
Oh, nm, I just checked and that was Airlander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Not the first (Score:3)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
The Hindenberg (Score:2)
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
What a waste (Score:2)
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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).
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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.
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Hey, don't /tell/ them about the Price Mechanism!
Where did Sergey get the idea for an EV Blimp? (Score:1)
Ring, ring, hello? (Score:2)
Airship Ventures (Score:2)