[constant thinker]

I don't know if anyone here reads Popular Science, but in the February issue there is a knew airplane/blimp hybrid. I find it to be very intresting and would love to take a ride in it. Would anybody else?

It is called the Aeroscraft. It is filled partially with helium. The helium only carries about 2/3 of the airships weight so it's not a true blimp. This thing is massive and dwarfs a Boeing 747 parked next to it! It's 165 ft (50.3m) h x 244 ft (74.4m) w. It has a range of over 6,000 miles (9,656.1 Km) and carries around 250 passengers. What's amazing about this thing though is it's 3 propellers are electric and run on fuel cell technology. The only time it fires up a conventional jet engine is for landing and take off which it does vertically. A prototype is under devolpment and the airship is expected to be operational in 2010. The company building this is the Worldwide Aeros Corporation. It has about a 400-ton payload and is fairly aerodynamic for its size. It's expected uses are not only as passenger ships but as cargo ships. Popular Science says this thing has a high chance of production.

Here is the company's website:
http://www.aerosml.com/main.htm
and some pictures of what it will look like
http://www.aerosml.com/gallery1.htm

[billnotgatez]

There are probably less than 50 commercial airships flying in the entire world at this time. Most of them carry fewer than a dozen people as payload. Many only carry a pilot and cameraman. Aeros and Lockheed were selected from a group of about 30 to design a very large airship. Not since the 1930’s have any airships been built nearly that large. I say airships since blimps are a subset of airships and are smaller. The larger airships had a rigid frame surrounding gas bags rather than the floppy envelope of a blimp. The government will select Aeros or Lockheed to build the best design. So Aeros has a fifty / fifty chance of getting the contract. Well you know that Lockheed has more clout so we will see if it really is a fair fight.

This large airship project is called WALRUS and has nothing to do with hotels. It is a department of defense project and will be used for deploying a large force or logistics (500 tons) at a safe location near a battle site. In other words behind the friendly lines where no enemy fire can get it. There are a lot of other parameters the design must meet to qualify. They have to do with buoyancy control and landing ability in limited size unimproved areas. The hybrid airplane blimp concept may not be able to meet these guidelines.

Many in the airship community are looking forward to this project succeeding. The military seem to be able to get this going where the private sector has not been capable of getting it off the ground. The hotel thing may never happen. The fuel cell idea is probably pie in the sky for now.

Most here might think this is not a chemistry topic, but much of what goes into this project is due to materials being designed for this special use.

[constant thinker]

I don't think of this as chemistry either, which is why it's under the Generic Discussion board.. I just thought it was intresting how finally there was plans to construct a large airship again. Although from the article that I read, I don't consider it a true airship although I've been calling it that. My defination of a true airship is something that is lighter than air. The helium this thing is carrying only carries 2/3 of its weight, so it's not lighter than air.

I did not hair about the milatary looking into airships again. That's pretty cool. I personally would buy a ticket to fly across say the continental United States. I'm hoping the "luxury hotel in the sky" (that's what the article called it) will go into production.