Whatever Happened To Airships?

Airships are great! Anyone who's even seen a picture of one will agree...unless it’s that picture. You know the one, the "Oh the humanity!" one. Anyway since that unfortunate moment airships have slowly dwindled from our collective consciousness, except in the form of wistful steam punk imaginings and a few ambitious companies trying to bring them back. The logic of the comeback is sound. With fuel costs rising along with concern over emissions conventional heavier than air travel is becoming problematic. Planes need a lot of juice not to mention huge runways to land. Also a lot of people worry that they’re going to fall out of the air. I don’t know if they’d be happier in an airship but it’s a thought. Airships, being lighter than air don’t so much crash as slowly sink to the ground. They expend far less fuel to fly. With modern materials like carbon fibre it would be relatively easy to design an airship that’s much lighter and therefore more efficient. Their propellers could be powered by electric motors and solar panels across their huge surface. They could lift huge volumes of cargo into remote places without the need for any infrastructure. They also look great.

                So why the conspicuous absence of airships? The obvious culprit is the Hindenburg Disaster. Television wasn’t long out at the time and nothing sticks in a person’s memory like a huge ball of flame on their screens. It’s a shame really. It’s very difficult to explain to people after the fact that it was a very unlikely event. Airships are inherently safe and it was a combination of bad engineering, bad luck and bad politics that led to its destruction. The Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen but it had (sensibly) been designed to use helium. Unfortunately for the Zeppelin people, helium was very hard to come by in 1937. The Americans who pretty much had a monopoly on the stuff wouldn’t sell it because of something called the helium control act of 1927*. The only other option was hydrogen which, when combined with an outer skin which may have been effectively thermite, was a recipe for disaster. So we wound up with a horrible accident and airships were left with horrible reputation.

                Their exile from the world of mainstream aviation may be coming to an end. A few projects are underway to design and build an airship for the 21^st century. The Aeroscraft is an airship that can vary its buoyancy allowing it to load and unload freight without worrying about floating away when it’s emptied. This setup allows it to take off and land vertically with little or no ground crew and to land on rough unprepared surfaces, literally anywhere there’s room to land its enormous bulk. The Aeroscraft will be built in 20, 60 and 500 tonne capacities. The prodigious size of an airship which can lift 500 tonnes would be something to see! Another design is the Boeing/SkyHook JHL-40. It’s a hybrid craft which will be part helicopter, part airship. It will be capable of lifting 40 tonnes of cargo while the weight of the craft itself will be negated by the helium. I think it’s a pretty neat idea but the lack of real photos the skyhook makes me worry about the project. There’s been a lot of talk about the resurgence of airships but more often than not promising designs flounder at a certain phase of development. A recent example it the cancellation of the U.S military’sLEMV airship project earlier this month. It was claimed that the project was cancelled because the LEMV was designed for use in Afghanistan, a war quickly drawing to a close. Other reasons cited included the LEMV’s failure to live up to expectations. A big feature of the LEMV’s design was its purported ability to stay aloft for 21 days straight. When it came to testing however it only lasted six days. The LEMV joins a line of military airship designs which have been shelved in recent years to say nothing of the numerous civilian designs that have failed to deliver. I’m still hopeful however. The fact that there’s so much interest and so many attempts being made to create a modern airship means the idea holds promise and maybe someday soon we’ll no longer be stuck with boring old aeroplanes.

* The U.S had been very stingy with helium until 1996. The National Helium Reserve used to contain over a billion cubic meters of helium. Now they’re selling it off. Artificially lowering the cost of helium and when it runs out the price will skyrocket. Buy into helium now! Or don’t, what do I know?