This was nowhere near the only deadly airship disaster, nor was it the last, but that’s not really what ended airship travel. With the advances in airplanes by the end of World War II, lighter-than-air ships just couldn’t compete. Even postwar piston aircraft were cruising at more than 3 times the speed of most airships with range to make nonstop transatlantic crossings, and once the jet age really started to take hold in the ’50s it was all over. I mean, by the ’60s multiple countries had started supersonic passenger aircraft programs. Not a lot of success there, but still there were nowhere near enough customers to support commercial service on airships when faster, cheaper options existed.
Yup, no one is going to hop an airship when they can get somewhere in a fraction of the time. The only difference might be cost, but spinning up a zeppelin industry likely couldn’t compete in terms of ticket price compared to jets.
There are a handful of Zeppelin NT semi-rigid airships flying around nowadays. If you want to see a landing and start, I recorded this a few years ago.
If they have a future it’ll be moving stuff, not people. If it’s faster than a container ship and can carry more than a plane then it could have a valuable niche.
They also have a potential advantage in moving large things.
For instance wind turbine blades, which are quite difficult to move by trucks. Airships don’t require infrastructure for the transport or delivery and could rope it down to sites with difficult terrain.
I would think a large team of purpose-built remote controlled quadcopters would be cheaper, faster, and more maneuverable than a zeppelin for that kind of application. Assuming we don’t have to go huge distances (say, from an inland port or a railway to final destination).
Maybe better for last-mile. Zeppelin could probably get you close but unless you’re building in a large open field, it’ll be difficult to get it exactly where it needs to be.
Sure that would be a solution too. An airship would have an advantage in not using energy to stay up, so it could theoretically fly very long distances with heavy weight, where drones would need constant energy depending on both the weight and distance.
I’m not saying it is a good idea in practice, but theoretically it might make sense.
What airships need to do is become like cruise ships. Put an amusement park and a casino up there, I’m sure nothing bad will happen.
The problem is weight. The heavier the load the bigger the gas bag needs to be to carry that load. The whole thing very quickly gets out of proportion and considering they were using hydrogen the heavier the load the riskier it was.
Modern airships are helium-based, but helium is way too expensive to ever be commercially viable on a large scale.
Just go back to using hydrogen. It’ll be a blast!
Some solar panels on top of the balloon, nowadays you can even create your H on the go from the H2O in the air!
You don’t use up the hydrogen in operation, so you don’t need to create it on the vehicle. Attempting to do so would just add weight and probably wouldn’t work anyway as I suspect the amount of energy you would require to convert water into hydrogen is a lot more than a few solar panels could ever provide.
The issue is hydrogen is just inherently dangerous. Compounded by the fact that no one really cares anyway because airships don’t have a purpose to exist in the modern world outside of a very few niche scenarios.
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planes crash every day
in 2021 there were 21 commercial* plane crashes, zero fatal.
*couldn’t find data including non-commercial flights. i welcome corrections citing such data :)
edit: i think i am wrong, see roscoe’s comment below
Boeing working hard to fix this
It’s absolutely true. General aviation aircraft crash all the time, more than once a day.
For some reason I couldn’t find an FAA Administrator’s Fact Book for anything more recent than 2012 (statistics for 2011 on most things, 2010 for some).
In 2011 there were 1450 general aviation accidents, about four a day.
In 2010 there were 450 general aviation fatalities.
Edit: Here are some NTSB numbers for 2022. General aviation had 1205 accidents and 214 were fatal with a total of 339 fatalities.
Commercial plane crashes /=/ plane crashes.
358 deaths due to plane crashes in 2022 in the US. Anon included cars so this “commercial” distinction doesn’t necessarily hold weight since the crux of the comparison is that other industries have been allowed to operate despite fatal accidents. And cars are included which are individually operated machines and not mass transit.
still no plane crash every day tho lol
i couldn’t find data including non-commercial crashes. i welcome corrections.
358 crashes in a year is close enough to an average of one per day that it’s pretty fucking pedantic to say "but not every day - especially given that most of the time that people say something happens “every day” it’s being used loosely, not literally.
“People get shot by cops every day” is a phrase that is effectively accurate, even if nobody happened to be shot on, say, February 21st.358 deaths due to crashes*, not the same as crashes themselves as multiple can die per crash
i came into this conversation with a light (pedantic) heart and an open mind. i am still willing to he corrected but cussing me out does nothing buddy.
This is what happens when your view of history is essentially the historical equivalent of pop culture. You end up saying idiot things on an idiot website for idiots.
Lots of people died in airships, the Hindenburg was the most exploding and dramatic, but it was not the first and only instance. In fact the Hindenburg was made up of parts from a previous airship that had also crashed.
It wasn’t just one zeppelin. The US Navy experimented with airship aircraft carriers and both of them were lost in stormy weather. They’re giant bags of gas, which means that turbulent air is a big problem.
The Empire State building had a airship mooring point at the top, but the constant updrafts meant the airship would be pointing nose-down while unloading.
They’re just too unwieldy in all but the most calm conditions that there’s not much use for them beyond writing “Ice Cube is a pimp” in the sky.
Looking at what happened to every Zeppelin that Ferdinand von Zeppelin built you start to get a good picture on why it’s maybe not the best idea. I got to hand it to him though, dudes got dedication.
LZ1: damaged during initial flight, repaired and flown two more times before investors backed out causing the ship to be sold for scrap.
LZ2: suffered double engine failure and crashed into a mountain. While anchored to the mountain awaiting repairs a storm destroyed it beyond repair.
LZ3: built from salvaged parts of LZ2. Severally damaged in storm. After LZ4’s destruction LZ3 was repaired and was accepted by the German military who eventually scrapped it.
LZ4: suffered from chronic engine failure. While repairing the engines a gust of wind blew the ship free of its mooring and struck a tree causing the ship to ignite and burn to the ground.
LZ5: destroyed in a storm.
LZ6: destroyed in its hanger by fire.
LZ7: destroyed after crashing in a thunderstorm.
LZ8: destroyed by wind.
LZ9: this one actually worked and survived for three years before being decommissioned.
LZ10: caught on fire and destroyed after a gust of wind blew its mooring line into itself.
LZ11: destroyed while attempting to move the ship into it’s hanger
LZ12 & LZ13: both flew successful careers before being decommissioned a few years later.
LZ14: destroyed in a thunderstorm.
LZ15: destroyed during an emergency landing.
LZ16: was stolen by the French.
LZ17: decommissioned after the war.
LZ18: exploded during its test flight.
LZ19: damaged beyond repair during an emergency landing.
LZ129: the Hindenburg.
LZ127: retired and scrapped after flying over a million miles.
LZ130: flew 30 flights before being dismantled for parts to aid in the war effort.
Same logic applies to nuclear energy. More people fall off of hydroelectric power plants or drown or something, or fall off of wind turbines, than get poisoned by radiation from a nuclear power plant
The danger of nuclear isn’t so much on the daily stats of what actually went wrong, but in the tiny risk of having huge problems. The worst case scenario for a Chernobyl style disaster is actually losing huge parts of Europe. Even in well run plants, if enough things go wrong at the same time, it could still mean losing the nearest city. These “black swan” events are hard for humans to think clearly about, as we are not used to working with incredibly small chances (like deciding to plan for a 1000 year storm or not).
Basically every nuclear disaster has been very very preventable. And even then in incompetency, it was a small chance.
Preventable, but they still happened, even with the crazy security at plants. But what you’re saying is like “we’ve only had small earthquakes so far, so there are likely to be no big ones”. When it’s really absolutely the other way around.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12
Still haven’t found a good way to get rid of nuclear waste, which remains dangerous for a long time.
We know what to do with it, the same thing countries like France do, deep isolation.
The problem with America, is the same problem we have for any federal level infrastructure. The states have too much control and are prone to NIMBY campaigns.
imho “deep isolation” isn’t a solution, it’s kicking the can down the road.
Improving the power grid would increase the available supply without causing problems.
it’s kicking the can down the road.
Why? And what would be the alternative?
Even if we don’t start relying on more nuclear power, nuclear waste is still going to be produced. Even if it’s just maintaining the nuclear power we have right now, or just dealing with an aging nuclear arms cache.
I don’t see how kicking it down the road is really a problem in this scenario, as that’s pretty much all you can do with nuclear waste, wait until it’s not dangerous.
Improving the power grid would increase the available supply without causing problems.
That’s kinda a general statement… Part of improving the power grid could be interpreted as including more nuclear power.
The imperative in this scenario isn’t just making sure we’re not “causing problems”, it’s moving towards a power source that minimizes our dependence on fossil fuels.
It’s “kicking the can down the road” vs ecological collapse.
I don’t see how kicking it down the road is really a problem in this scenario, as that’s pretty much all you can do with nuclear waste, wait until it’s not dangerous.
So, by your own words, there’s no safe way to get rid of nuclear waste besides storing it and hoping things will work out.
Also, nuclear plants would take as long to build as other, safer methods.
by your own words, there’s no safe way to get rid of nuclear waste besides storing it and hoping things will work out.
I think you’re purposely misconstruing the meaning of safe. I think deep isolation is a proven method of safely storing radioactive material until it decays.
You are claiming it’s unsafe, or “kicking the can down the road”, but haven’t explained your reasoning. Perhaps if you had any examples of how deep isolation has failed, or ways you think it will fail, it may strengthen your argument
Also, nuclear plants would take as long to build as other, safer methods.
Again, you are claiming things are safer, but haven’t explained how? All forms of energy production have their positive and negative attributes, however safety isn’t really a problem usually attributed to nuclear energy.
Time is generally an actual criticism of nuclear power, but a lot of length of time isn’t really inherent in the actual construction of the power plant, which can be completed in as little as 3-5 years. It’s usually the same problem as your first claim, the governments inability to deal with NIMBY campaigns and private interest.
private interest.
Yup. No big companies campaigning to get nuclear power. Nope, nary a one.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/investors-are-turning-bullish-nuclear-2023-11-16/
Nuclear just isn’t a good short-term value proposition so most people are dismissive of it. Plants take along time to create and are generally expensive. Not to mention the NIMBYs who would rather dump tons of chemicals into local riverways, air, and land with coal than have a clean-burning nuclear plant within 10 miles of their city.
Wind and Solar are cheaper now, and we won’t have to trade a dependence on oil from foreign countries for a dependence on uranium from foreign countries. We won’t in the future have to hear about how the people of Kazakhstan will greet us liberators when we invade the country to establish freedom and have to pretend it’s merely a coincidence they happen to have the energy resources we’re dependent on.
They kinda suck, and this isn’t likely to change.
The Hindenburg was 245m long, carried around 50 crew plus 60 or so passengers. It needs all that length to have enough volume to lift that many people. The laws of physics are a limitation here; even figuring out a vaccum rigid air ship would only slightly improve this (it’s a neat engineering problem, but not very practical for a variety of reasons). Maybe the crew size could shrink somewhat, but the fact is that you’ve got a giant thing for handling around 100 people.
An Airbus a380 is 72m long and carries over 500 passengers and crew.
The Hindenburg made the transatlantic journey in around 100 hours. You could consider it more like a cruise than a flight–you travel there in luxury and don’t care that it takes longer. You would expect it to be priced accordingly. In fact, given the smaller passenger size compared to the crew size, I’d expect it to be priced like a river cruise rather than an ocean cruise. Those tend to be more exclusive and priced even higher.
Being ground crew for blimps was a dangerous job. You’re holding onto a rope, and then the wind shifts and you get pulled with it. This could certainly be done more safely today with the right equipment. Don’t expect the industry to actually do that without stiff regulations stepping in.
Overall, they suck and would only be a luxury travel option. Continental cargo is better done by trains. Trans continental cargo is better done by boats. There isn’t much of a use case anywhere.
To be honest it’s pretty unfair to compare something built before humans sent anything into space, vs something after we’ve made it to Mars. There is over 60 years of innovation between the Hindenburg and the airbus.
So what you’re saying is we should expect Elon Musk to start a zeppelin company at some point in the near future.
Airships only make sense in a world in which the economy takes into account ecodestruction. Kind of like wind-powered ships. If we didn’t know what GHGs do environmentally, which offset any short-term efficiency gains provided by burning hydrocarons, nobody would ever dream of abandoning these miracle fuels. So you can only examine the efficiency of airships with hydrocarbons off the table entirely.
They do plenty of ecodestruction. If we had them now, they’d be fueled by hydrocarbons. That could hypothetically be batteries in the future, but batteries good enough for that could do equally well in airplanes.
The material used in making them rigid also has a carbon cost.
Don’t forget that they are huge, you could fit a lot of solar power on them, given that it would be light enough
It wouldn’t be light enough. Panels weight about 19kg each for a 1x1.7m panel. This can probably be slimmed down for the application, but probably not by enough. Perovskite promises a lighter weight panel, but they still have longevity issues that are being worked out in the lab.
Why not put those panels on a boat instead? Or in a field and power a train?
"Thin film solar is light weight at 7-10 ounces per square foot. "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_solar_cell
Your 1 panel at less than 2 sqm weighs as much as more than 6 square meters of thin film. The 40 or 50% better relative efficiency doesn’t make up for the increased square footage. What kind of wattage would we even need?
Hindenburg used 4x 735kW diesel engines which need to be powered constantly (almost 3MW overall). That is the output at the shaft, which means we need electric motors that match that. Fortunately, electric motors are pretty efficient.
Thin-film can do 80-120W per m^2. That’s the rating when the sun is shining directly on them. We’ll assume it’s flying above the cloud layer and don’t need to worry about that.
At the top end, it will take 24,500m^2 of panels. Hindenburg had a length of 245.3m and diameter of 41.2m. If it were a cylinder (because I don’t feel like doing the math on its actual shape), it would have a surface area of 35,000m^2, but that includes the underside. It’ll probably pick up some power being reflected off the clouds or the earth’s surface, but you’re probably only getting 60% of the full power averaged over the entire surface.
Which is closer than I thought it would be, but not quite enough to power the motors if they were 100% efficient, and dropping it to the real world 85-90% won’t help. Neither will accounting for its actual shape.
Hindenburg had a cruising speed of 131km/h, so solar electric would just be pegged to a lower top speed assuming we didn’t touch any other parts of the design.
I think efficiency gains in propeller tech, changes in crew and gear requirements, structural materials, and the rest of it would make it feasible.
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There’s a von zeppelin suite.
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