Airships Continue into modren era
- Thread starter WngMasterD
- Start date
Apologize if I've missed something. What happened to the hydrogen gas for the airships. US. WOULDN'T sell to Germany. How are the ships gonna fly? BTW I mentioned this in another post on movies-A film is coming up in September which show airships including some moored to buildings, etc. Called SKY Captain in the World of Tomorrow. Number two: where are they going to have landing facilities with storage for the airships? Can't be Naval Air stations? Freight on the airships? 
David S Poepoe
Banned
ED(Mister) said:Apologize if I've missed something. What happened to the hydrogen gas for the airships. US. WOULDN'T sell to Germany. How are the ships gonna fly? BTW I mentioned this in another post on movies-A film is coming up in September which show airships including some moored to buildings, etc. Called SKY Captain in the World of Tomorrow. Number two: where are they going to have landing facilities with storage for the airships? Can't be Naval Air stations? Freight on the airships?
If you've seen the spoilers - I mean trailers - you'll know that a few airships are shown blowing up. Of course its been show recently that the fantastic pyrotechnic of the Hindenburg explosion was due more to the doping compound on its hull of the airship rather than the burning hydrogen. It just goes to show you how much the image of the disaster is burned into our collective memory. I suspect that an aerial chase scene around helium filled airships wouldn't have been all that visually impressive.
The spire of the Empire State Building was designed to serve as a mooring mast so that passengers may be loaded and unloaded. The British built a fairly similar tall mooring mast in Canada which the R100 moored. These tall mooring masts were suppose to be the centerpiece of the British airship passenger service to India. At the base was a large building from which hydrogen would be pumped up the mast to refill the airship. The tall mooring masts were to be used only for passenger airships, freight hauling airships would probably land a airfields. Of course, if one had a company providing the same services as UPS or FedEx one could moor directly in the city to offload packages.
If you look at the safety record of hydrogen vs helium filled airships then one can get the idea that hydrogen lifted ones were the better idea. Before ww2 the following post-ww1 build helium lifted airships were lost
Shedanoah (US-structural failiure)
Arkon (US-structural failiure)
Macon(Dito)
Hydrogen lifted lost:
Hindenburg
R101 (Brit, overloaded)
While helium is obviously the safer substance as far as a fire is concerned, it`s far higher price and it`s lower lift (Around 600 gramm per cubic meter as opposed to 1000 gramm for hydrogen) forced the designers to lighter structures which in many cases failed, especially if safety valves for overpressure are blocked as in Shedanoah.
Hydrogen gas can be produced either from Water, applying electricity or forem vairous chemical componds like oil or natural gas.
Shedanoah (US-structural failiure)
Arkon (US-structural failiure)
Macon(Dito)
Hydrogen lifted lost:
Hindenburg
R101 (Brit, overloaded)
While helium is obviously the safer substance as far as a fire is concerned, it`s far higher price and it`s lower lift (Around 600 gramm per cubic meter as opposed to 1000 gramm for hydrogen) forced the designers to lighter structures which in many cases failed, especially if safety valves for overpressure are blocked as in Shedanoah.
Hydrogen gas can be produced either from Water, applying electricity or forem vairous chemical componds like oil or natural gas.
David S Poepoe
Banned
chrispi said:
All too true. I think they will have the same sort of safety gear that a modern airliner has - life vests in the eventuality of a ditching at sea. It would be likely that there would be enough inflatable rafts would be carried to hold passengers and crew. For the most part if the airship is not on the ground the likelihood of an individual walking away from a crash would be about the same (if not better) than that of any airplane at the moment of take off or landing. There are inherent dangers to air travel in all its forms. There have been loads of airplane crashes and no one has suggested passing out parachutes.
In a helium airship crash, as can be demonstrated by looking at the losses of the US airships, the death toll was remarkably light when compared to the hydrogen airships (both war time and peace). If I'm not too mistaken the Zeppelin Company, tho it lost a few zeppelins in pre-Great War peace time accidents, didn't suffer any fatalities until the loss of the Hindenburg.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
David S Poepoe said:
The death toll in hydrogen airships was pretty low, too. It is not widely known that only a third of the passengers and crew aboard Hindenburg were killed.
R101 was another story, but that ship experienced a huge hydrogen explosion caused by the crash jamming an engine into the hull. One might also note that R101 was sent on a long flight before it was anywhere near completing trials.
Akron & Macon were good designs very badly marred by only attaching the fins to two structural rings instead of three - the result of a demand by the military for better rearward visibility.
Akron suffered disastrous loss of life, but that was due to crashing in the ocean at night during a storm. Macon suffered only two casualties when she went down.
Roland Wolf said:
You left out a few other post WW1 hydrogen ship disasters:
ZR2/R38 - Structurally unsound British airship bought by US which broke up and burned on a shakedow flight
Dixmude - Former WW1 German zeppeling used by French - believed to have caught fire and exploded in a thunderstorm over the Med.
Roma. Large Italian semi-rigid bought by US Army which hit tension wires and exploded/burned.
But I basically agree with you. German commercial operation with hydrogen-filled commercial ships (no passenger loss of life over 30 years until the Hindenburg disaster) would suggest that, properly built and handled, there was nothing particularly unsafe about using hydrogen as the lifting gas. But the fact remains that the potential for catastrophic disaster was there and even the Germans knew they'd have to switch eventually to helium to maintain public confidence even before the Hndenburg exploded.
The early 1920's Vickers airship designs shown on the referenced web sites certainly show how airplanes might have been pushed out of the market for long-distance air travel had they come along just 5 years later. Even with OTL technology it seems to me if the British had spent millions of pounds getting such a system up and running by the mid-late 1920's, planes might still have been frozen out of long-range and heavy load transport until the 1940's. Britain's success in thiw would likely have led to the US (at least) following suit. One question/comment, though. It seems to me that placing the heavy passenger promenades on top of the ship would be structurally and aerostatically unsound - plus all you'd have a good view of would be the sky.
zoomar said:
I don`t mean to be nitpicking, but I mentioned post WW1 construction and Zeppelin which rules out the acciendents you mention. Zeppelins constructed during WW1 were made for war, saftey margins were not the best. Italia and Roma weren`t Zeppelins but semi-ridgids. Their accidents weren`t really related to the lftings gas, but for the fact that these ships could have never taken off with Helium.
Of course Airship construction would have had to switch to Helium if it were to continue, but I wanted to make the point that it wasn`t the sole problem.