Airship

Display Name SG

Recently I been thinking about why is the use of airship so rare in the world.
Seriously it really has a lot of advantages as compared to flying craft like helicopters and aeroplane.
An airship basically float in the air by filling a large portion of itself with lighter gas.
This tremendously reduce the consumption of fuel. This is an important point, as the fuel has become about 30% of the total operating cost to run an aeroplane.
Due to the save of fuel and cost, it is hence beneficial to the environment.
On top of this, it can stay afloat for a long time. The power can be switched off totally even with a few tonnes of weight, and it will still stay in the air, with no worry of sudden failure of engine.

Seriously, airship has the potential to replace other aircraft and ships in many areas.
It has the advantages of vertical landing like helicopter yet bigger loading capacity, can stay still in the air and able to move faster than ship and vehicles on ground.
It is a good choice for transportation of goods and other task that require long term establishment, can even equip it with a radar to provide a 24 hour surveillance for our air territory, a floating petrol station.

We really should start to put more resource in the R&D of this flying object, don't always let others lead the technology. What you all think?

Kommissar SG

Airships are incredibly huge, slow and fragile. In a military scenario, a few bullets would take an airship down. How would an airship fair against any fast aircraft? When you take the size of a helicopter and an airship into consideration, I would rather have the smaller, faster, better armoured helicopter. As opposed to a huge and slow floating target filled with potentially flammable gas, hydrogen.

I have no idea how an airship would be a floating petrol station. Also, airships can't reach high altitudes like other aircraft can.

In a nutshell, airships are just too big, slow and weak to be put into any military use.

gaoxingdcf07 SG

Too slow and too blardy huge liao ~~

airship is slower than a helicoptor and it use hydrogen which is flammable...

if wan to use a refulling petrol station,where is it going to stores it fuel and the boom ???

not practical leh!!

JasonC SG

hmm... so the refueling aircraft are supposed to approach the balloon, no airship, stop, then refuel?

That aside, SG's not big- saves even more resources to have the planes refuelled on the ground?

crimsontactics SG

Hey TS, how long does a airship takes to travel from SG to San Fran? Answer that and you'll know why the airships went extinct.

Display Name SG

In a nutshell, airships are just too big, slow and weak to be put into any military use.

The airship nowadays is not those used in world war 2 anymore, it is much faster, safer and high tech. Take a look at this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyHook_JHL-40
It is also not filled with hydrogen, but helium.
We are now talking about tranportation, military is only one of the areas that can make use of it. Even if the body is made of the same material like other aeroplanes, it takes the same number of missile to be killed. Not to mention this airship is not for fighting at the front if it is ever used for military purpose.

arball SG

from what i know, there was talk some time back in the US abt r&d into this area of devlopment, however, didnt recieve any updates, apparently, it was found that airships were much more efficient than aircraft, being able to transport huge amounts of cargo at a time, however they are also highly vulenerable to unpredictable weather situations

yea, air ballon for radar platform was out already, in usa again... economical way to have a awacs up 24/7

arball SG

yea, air ballon for radar platform was out already, in usa again... economical way to have a awacs up 24/7

16/f/lonely SG

Airships still find niche areas.

Problem is I can't remember where I read that from. Laughing

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

Basically if blow wind blow, you'll have some trouble...

cairocks SG

If the awacs airship has a lower trashhold for strong winds than airplanes, then there will be a known opportunity of lapse in radar coverage against possible attacks.

Display Name SG

Basically if blow wind blow, you'll have some trouble...

An airship can be very heavy, the full load capacity can be 100 tonnes or even more. Although it has equivalent power to lift it up, but doesn't mean any wind of normal strength can blow it away so easily.
It can land at any area without the need of runway, and not being blocked by ocean or hill.

Display Name SG

Just some thought, those media company can also use this to extend the coverage of their TV & radio signal, or mobile phone network.

Display Name SG

As for the floating petrol station, it can provide fuel to helicopter in many ways. One way is to build a small landing area on the airship for the helicopter to land, repair and replenish before continuing the trip.
Since we going to own F-35 which is capable of vertical landing. Then this floating petrol station can apply to F-35 as well thus double or triple the combat range.
Why not use ship instead of airship to refuel petrol? Speed is one concern, most importantly airship can ignore any geographic hindrance.

We can even improve the AWACS airship, and make it like a small flying carrier to station unmanned aircrafts which is smaller and more stealthy. The radar should have larger detection range than enemy aircrafts, so when it detect any approaching enemy aircraft, it will launch some unmanned aircrafts to counter strike. The unmanned aircrafts in order to remain stealth, can just rely on the AWACS to track the location of the enemy aircraft.

Shotgun SG

I liked the unmanned air-refueling platform concept they showed in STEALTH. Unmanned airship that refuels. I thought that it was a pretty good concept except that I prefer a flyin-boom over a probe-system.

arball SG

hmm...

big ballon fuel station would be a huge target.... (large... slow... target....)

abit bad to have the thing crashing down... huge fireball falling on you.....

Shotgun SG

hmm...

big ballon fuel station would be a huge target.... (large... slow... target....)

abit bad to have the thing crashing down... huge fireball falling on you.....

Haha, I think you misunderstand the concept of either mid-air refueling or airships.

For aircraft to tank in mid air, both the tanker and the aircraft needs to be level and moving at about 300kts. So its as large and slow as a regular KC-135, and the KC-135 is MANNED.