Are Airships the Future of Aviation? 

Are you ungrateful poorer people can now fly due to the fact that they are now jammed into the aircraft? If you want to enjoy kicking back in a recliner seat drinking champagne, you will have to upgrade your ticket to premium economy or business class and pay the same price as what passengers did back in the 1960s.

@@bena8121 We live in a day and age where everyone wants to find a victim. (sigh). Have a great day.

Nope. A Chicken Little one.

Yeah it's bullsnot

…and if you compare LZ dirigibles præ-&post-WW1, you discover that what's understood as a "Zeppelin" in fact is a Schütte-Lanz construction. Zeppelin now is active in construction equipment, Lanz was a prolific maker of agricultural machinery, now part of John Deere. AFAIK all of the air ships proposed today (after #Cargolifter in the 1990s) aren't rigid, as the frame would cost too much weight.

🤓🤓

to go into orbit you would have to be going 30 kilometers per second, an airship could obviously not go that fast, and the energy needed to launch it into orbit would do something idk

Sempre pensei nisso. O dirigível não seria rápido para decolar, mas poderia servir de plataforma de decolagem de alta altitude. Uma espécie de porta aviões (ou foguetes) voador, eliminando metade da viagem na atmosfera, e permitindo os foguetes decolarem com menos atrito com o ar.

@@whatare9731 an airship could lift a rocket up to high altitude, though.

@@whatare9731 I mean, if the airship is big enough, it COULD be a launch platform for a rocket's upper stage, completely negating the need for a first stage. Using an airship, you can make an air-launch SSTO.

@@johnadler6987 I know that, it seems like a very good alternative to throwing a satellite into orbit

"once they exploded they don't just fall to the ground" The Hindenburg didn't "explode", but burned. And imagine the same loss of lifting gas and hull material in such short time (seconds) in a higher altitude, not just 100 feet above ground! Without air resistance from the hull and without lift by lifting gas, an airship falls from the sky like a stone.

Ah thanks so much, glad you enjoyed the video.

Yeah, we're spent about an entire century demonstrating that airships are not particularly useful, and we're still doing it. Check out the history of the Airlander, especially it's final moments when it got destroyed in a moderate wind. That's what we can expect from Airships.

$100,000 a flight

@@RideAcrossTheRiver 320 euros a flight in Germany. But of course just a short sightseeing-flight over Friedrichshafen. Yes, long-distance-travel by airship would be again very expensive. But short trips (e.g. instead of ferries) could probably be made affordable for a broader range of customers.

@@701983 Nah. it'll just be something that'll be kept overpriced to ensure poor folk end up not travelling anywhere--ever. That's how it's done in Canada

@@RideAcrossTheRiver I don't comment the alleged intention of making travelling more expensive. But just to be clear: I didn't mean "cheap", when I said "affordable". It will still be more expensive than the conventional alternatives (e.g. ferry ship). But perhaps not prohibitively expensive like helicopter flights.

@@701983 Doesn't really matter. 15-minute cities and Zoom obviate need for travel

I don't see this as being especially viable for mass travel either. Electric airplanes are already in development and despite the end of production for the 747, current jet airplanes aren't going anywhere soon. It's more likely that as electric aircraft become more viable, those will phase out gas engines.

Thank you! I really appreciate the feedback.

According to HAV, the Airlander 10 airship can take off and land in crosswinds of up to 30 knots which is only slightly lower than the maximum for a Boeing 737. Naturally airships will always be more prone to high winds than airplanes though and they also have slower cruising speeds so lack the ability to avoid bad weather as quickly.

@@theupshift2190 Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about. I would hate to be caught in sudden high winds and bad weather in one of these. I’d much rather be in a jetliner in turbulent conditions than an airship.

I suppose, IF airships will play a role in future passenger transport, it will rather be for short distances. But "less than 800 km" can be covered by battery electric planes as well in foreseeable future. And with fuel cell electric planes. Faster, cheaper, no need for helium. So the only advantage will be "no need for a runway". Which could work for some cases.

"The only advantage" referred to passenger transport in a narrow sense (not sightseeing). Of course, for a couple of other niches, other advantages could also count.

I think they're better suited for cargo.

The Empire State building never hosted dirigibles. The "dirigible mooring mast" on the Empire State Building is a complete scam. It was built to make the building taller than the Chrysler Building and serves no purpose other than making the building taller. It was never intended to moor dirigibles and never has, other than a single privately owned blimp that docked there briefly as part of a publicity stunt. And even if it were practical to moor large dirigibles, how would you get passengers to and from the gondola? (you couldn't) The photograph of the US navy airship "Los Angeles" moored to the Empire State Building is a "composite" meaning that it was a pre-photoshop fake. That never happened.

@@andrewalexander9492 I didn't know it was a scam, my bad Doesn't mean it's not feasible so, holding the dirigible parallel to the top floor and with a retractable ramp of some sort.. I would love to see that one day

There are some. An airship doesn't need as much infrastructure on problematic terrain than a train does. It is far more complex to move a train over (or under) big areas of water or through mountains. As well as the railway-net needs constant maintenance.

Doesn't need rails for example

As the size goes up, the lifting capacity goes up squared. The largest airships will be able to haul massive payloads....such as the proposed "Flying Whale" to haul cargo in northern Canada. Flying Whale airships can carry about 60,000 kilograms of cargo, which is about 30 per cent more than Canadian North's airplanes can take.

Cargo makes more sense to start with.

@@wadexyz totally agree, but they're simply too vulnerable to weather events to be used for much (and rail is faster over land, so they face the much wilder weather of oceans plus the distinct risk of total and sudden loss, as happened to both US Navy airships)

The amount of helium produced by EVERY kind of fusion tec is negligible compared to the demand.

The permanent annoying buzzing would result in an alarming society, expect mass shootings and suicide to increase exponentially.

@@PlumSack79 yeah I heard that criticism before. But the thing you gotta understand is that airships dont have to work to stay in the air so that is instantly gonna drop the decibels a few notches and with different technologies like stirling engines and fuel cell's I bet you can get a near silent one.

Just wait until they throw out anti-gravity

They don't have to release or compress gas, they don't need to be lighter than air. Just enough air to be light. As stated in the video, new dirigible designs incorporate features like wings and engines that provide lift. So don't think of it as VTOL like a hot air balloon. Put on a landing gear and have it launch itself like an airplane. Power on the engine for takeoff, so it starts moving forward. Once it picks up speed, the wings will generate enough lift that the dirigible becomes lighter than air. Ascending and descending can be controlled entirely by airspeed, as in an airplane. Just slow down, and the airship will descend. Speed up, and it will ascend. There should be just the right about on helium so that at cruising speed the airship stays at the same altitude. The helium could then be sealed in, and wouldn't ever have to be replaced! The engines don't need to be very powerful since they're just moving a floating balloon at slow speeds. All they're pushing against is wind resistance. They could be quiet and efficient. It's a great use for hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen can be generated anywhere from any abundant source of electricity. It's far more practical for aircraft than huge battery packs. The problem for conventional aircraft is where to store the large volume of hydrogen, but that's no problem with airships which have hardly any limitations on cargo volume. Weight is still a factor, but much less limited than with other aircraft. I think it's worth experimenting to have some controllable and perhaps collapsible sails to harvest wind currents in the sky. Quiet, free energy to contribute to windspeed.

@@Paelorian what is this wonder material that contains helium without loss? It only exists in your imagination right.

Hey, thanks so much! Glad you liked the video.

I basically agree, but I don't like such exaggerations. Passenger capacity depends on the size and design of the airship. Airlander plans aircrafts for >90 passengers. Top speed of airships is rather between 70 and 80 mph. Even LZ 120 Bodensee (1919-1928) had a top speed of 82 mph and carried up to 30 passengers. And it had only a tenth of the volume of the Hindenburg.

Imagine the passenger capacity of LZ 129 Hindenburg, if they had spared 90% of the fuel capacity (for up to 16.000 km range) and would have installed seat rows instead of cabins, dining room, smoking lounge,...!

🤓🤓