Why not a live aboard blimp?

[vegasguy]

Why not a solar/wind/bio fuel powered blimp?

You can use compressed air guns to kill hordes as you hover just above them.

Any looters you just hide in the clouds..

[majorhavoc]

Sooner rather than later, you're going to need to land to take on new supplies. These things are impossible to operate without a ground crew and anchoring facilities. The slightest breath of wind will send the craft skittering away from it's landing point.

[JeeperCreeper]

[Mikeyboy]

Why not a solar/wind/bio fuel powered blimp?

You can use compressed air guns to kill hordes as you hover just above them.

Any looters you just hide in the clouds..

Good news...You have a Blimp

Bad News...looters have biplanes



Anyway its weird that the Hindenburg disaster, an event that happened 77 years ago pretty much killed the notion of using blimps commercially for transportation. I seen tons of articles over the last decade that airships are making a big comeback, and yet they are still not out there. Plenty of Cruise ships have sunk and thousands have died, from the Titanic to recently with the Costa Concordia, but people still take cruises. Yet one blimp burst into flames partly because it used unsafe hydrogen instead of helium, and I doubt anyone today would pay money get on a modern zeppelin. Anyway here is an article about modern solar airships.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/21/busin ... index.html

[JeeperCreeper]

Problem with blimps, is the margin for error. In a plane or boat, if the engine dies or something fails, it can coast or float or have some sort of emergency protocol. With a blimp, if the engine dies, you can't control it. If it leaks, there's no emergency landing. In a perfect world, blimps are great. But we don't have the technology to force an imperfect world to have perfect criteria.

[Doctorr Fabulous]

Blimps cost big bucks, and the interest rate on your loan would be...sky high.

[itzybitzyspyder]

Blimps cost big bucks, and the interest rate on your loan would be...sky high.

Oh, the humanity...

[JeeperCreeper]

You could try this. It'd be a good evac/exfil/egress plan if your BOL gets overrun and you need to go Oscar Mike, bruh



Or go the bargain route and keep it casual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUg8pArZbCs

[mystic_1]

In a plane or boat, if the engine dies or something fails, it can coast or float or have some sort of emergency protocol. With a blimp, if the engine dies, you can't control it. If it leaks, there's no emergency landing.

To be fair, I don't see much difference between a drifting uncontrolled boat and a drifting uncontrolled blimp. Likewise I see a lot of similarities between a leaking boat and a leaking blimp.

One advantage to a sinking boat: many humans can swim. One advantage to a "sinking" blimp: No sharks*.

mystic_1






* assumes absence of Sharknados

[shrapnel]

Blimps cost big bucks, and the interest rate on your loan would be...sky high.

Oh, the humanity...

Plus when you factor in inflation, the cost will just skyrocket.

[itzybitzyspyder]

Blimps cost big bucks, and the interest rate on your loan would be...sky high.

Oh, the humanity...

Plus when you factor in inflation, the cost will just skyrocket.

Always the rocketeer!

EDIT: raconteur

[JeeperCreeper]

In a plane or boat, if the engine dies or something fails, it can coast or float or have some sort of emergency protocol. With a blimp, if the engine dies, you can't control it. If it leaks, there's no emergency landing.

To be fair, I don't see much difference between a drifting uncontrolled boat and a drifting uncontrolled blimp. Likewise I see a lot of similarities between a leaking boat and a leaking blimp.

One advantage to a sinking boat: many humans can swim. One advantage to a "sinking" blimp: No sharks*.

mystic_1



* assumes absence of Sharknados

As an experienced "semen", ooops I mean "seaman"... I would say unless you wanna go skydiving, there are many perks to a boat.

Boat:
-engine dies, you can still steer with a rudder. No rudder, then use the emergency paddles. No emergency paddles, create drag to use with currents.
-boat sinks, go to a life raft. No life raft, wear life preservers. Both ways, hope the water isn't cold.

Blimp:
-engine dies, have fun being victim of the winds. Steer or not, you're still 1000's of feet in the air
-blimp leaks, hope its a slow leak (under pressure so doubtful it will be slow for long). You're still 1000's of feet in the air
-decide to bail out, learn to fly or hope you have a 'chute. You're still 1000's of feet in the air

The blimp does get style points though, you paint "goodyear" on the side, NASCAR fans will flock from miles around to see a supposed race.

[3cyl]

I was blown away by this idea

[itzybitzyspyder]

Blimpin' ain't easy...

[Mad Mike]

Not a valid comment - that was hydrogen - way too flammable. Today helium is used - no problems.

[majorhavoc]

I feel a little bad that we're deflating OP's idea. It's a sound concept, but the premise is full of holes.

[Evan the Diplomat]

Because what happens when you flush?

[mystic_1]

As an experienced "semen", ooops I mean "seaman"... I would say unless you wanna go skydiving, there are many perks to a boat.

Boat:
-engine dies, you can still steer with a rudder. No rudder, then use the emergency paddles. No emergency paddles, create drag to use with currents.
-boat sinks, go to a life raft. No life raft, wear life preservers. Both ways, hope the water isn't cold.

Blimp:
-engine dies, have fun being victim of the winds. Steer or not, you're still 1000's of feet in the air
-blimp leaks, hope its a slow leak (under pressure so doubtful it will be slow for long). You're still 1000's of feet in the air
-decide to bail out, learn to fly or hope you have a 'chute. You're still 1000's of feet in the air

The blimp does get style points though, you paint "goodyear" on the side, NASCAR fans will flock from miles around to see a supposed race.

You can shoot a blimp full of SEVERAL HUNDRED 5.56-sized holes and it'll continue to fly for hours:

A series of vulnerability tests were done by the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency DERA on a Skyship 600. Since the internal gas pressure was maintained at only 1–2% above the surrounding air pressure, the vehicle proved highly tolerant to physical damage or to attack by small-arms fire or missiles. Several hundred high-velocity bullets were fired through the hull, and even two hours later the vehicle would have been able to return to base. Ordnance passed through the envelope without causing critical helium loss. In all instances of light armament fire evaluated under both test and live conditions, the airship was able to complete its mission and return to base.

So, slow leak... Check!

Drifting on the wind? Nothing to hit! Take your time, fix your shit, and move along.

Decide to bail out? Go to a life raft. Hey, Indy did it....


Thanks for joining is for another episode of Blimp My Ride!



Next week: 10 Tips for Avoiding Embarrassment while Venting your Gasbag

[Mountainsquid]

Why not a solar/wind/bio fuel powered blimp?

You can use compressed air guns to kill hordes as you hover just above them.

Any looters you just hide in the clouds..

Like Majorhavoc says, you need substantial ground crews just to land the dang things. It's why the "airship panic" of the late 1890s was almost certain bullcrap.

[Stercutus]

It does solve the "disposal of human body wastes problem".

[raptor]

Actually no one mentioned the key problem with lighter than air aircraft. Bad weather.

Thunderstorms and high winds play havoc with LTA aircraft. They travel at relatively slow speeds (less than 100mph) so running from bad weather is more difficult. They cannot climb above most bad weather like heavier than air aircraft so they tend to spend their days below 10,000 ft bumping through the worst of the weather. Their size likewise means there is a lot a physical area upon which the weather act.

They are interesting air craft but as a long term home not so good.

[offcamber]

This thread made me chuckle, but then it made me wonder what is actually required to get a blimp pilot licence, lol.

I had no idea, but apparently there are zero blimp training schools outside of the companies that own and operate blimps.. it's all on the job training.

That and the fact that there are only about 25 blimps and 55-60 blimp pilots in the whole world..

Hmm.. gotta love ZS, now I know a whole bunch of useless info about blimps!

[Das Sheep]

Not a valid comment - that was hydrogen - way too flammable. Today helium is used - no problems.

Most people used helium back then too, but America made most of it and was not willing to sell it to Germany.

Blimps and Zeplins used to be a lot more common, but cheap fuel made jets and planes way more popular for everything. The US military is building blimps now for moving vehicles and supplies into and out of places where its unsafe for Helios and you can't land planes. The Zeplins don't really go e two ducks about small arms fire and can take a lot of RPGs or manpad hits before they crash or are disabled.

[grennels]

Some of the problems would go away if you kept it permanently moored. Just crank it down when you need ground access.