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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 01 2014, @05:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the Not-so-heavy-metal dept.

Wakaranai writes:

"BBC News has a video report that a UK company, Hybrid Air Vehicles, is developing helium-filled hybrid airships for passengers and cargo.

The first prototype was 91 m long, and was built for the US Army. However, the military project was scrapped due to budget cuts, and the airship was returned to the UK. A larger vehicle is on the drawing board.

One of the companies shareholders is... err.. Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden!"

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Saturday March 01 2014, @03:34PM

    by TheRaven (270) on Saturday March 01 2014, @03:34PM (#9138) Journal
    To add some concrete numbers, the total cargo capacity for this prototype is 1225kg for a 21-day flight (or 5000kg for a shorter one - it's not explained why, possibly due to helium leaking out over time and reducing maximum lift, or needing to carry compressed helium to reinflate the balloons).

    The fuel numbers are interesting: 3100 liters/day, 80 knots, 1225kg of cargo. That means that, per day, it travels at most 1920 nautical miles, so uses about 1.3l of fuel per nautical mile per ton. To put that in perspective, a 747-8F (new freight variant of the 747) has a 140,000kg cargo payload, has a fuel capacity of 230,630l and a range of 4,390 nmi. That means that it uses about 0.38l of fuel per nautical mile per ton. The airship just about beats that if you assume the 5 ton load.

    Being able to vertically take off and land in a field is an advantage in the kind of disaster relief role that they are apparently aiming for, but I find it a bit hard to understand how they manage such poor fuel efficiency. I'd guess that it's because keeping a modern aeroplane aloft doesn't actually use much energy and the fat shape of the dirigible means that it suffers a lot more from drag.

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 03 2014, @07:07PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 03 2014, @07:07PM (#10159)

    "I find it a bit hard to understand how they manage such poor fuel efficiency."

    The smaller the engine the lower the efficiency. I imagine the little weed whacker engines on the blimp are not terribly efficient compared to the giant 747 engines.

    Also the 747 flys extremely high altitude, lower air resistance.

    Finally I imagine there's a huge fudge factor to account for wind, and its going to be brutally expensive pushing that blimp into headwinds.