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Cargo Airships Are Happening

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Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#241

Post by Ajedi32 »

jandrese wrote: post #231
Ajedi32 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think "docks with extremely strong mooring structures" is a particularly difficult problem to solve? A giant metal hook anchored in concrete attached to the ship with some steel cables doesn't seem like it would be that difficult for a team of smart engineers with a multi-million dollar budget to figure out a good design for. Certainly not so difficult or expensive as to threaten to make the entire con…

Historically the difficulty isn't in building the mast, it is in preventing the airship from being smashed into the mast by the wind. Or in dramatic cases flipping end over end because it was only moored on one location.

Interesting. Why a mast and not just the ground? Pull up the mooring lines (probably more than the amount needed to actually hold the ship, for redundancy), connect them to the ship, then pull on the lines with winches until the ship is on the ground. That's basically how seafaring ships work... are there any unique challenges with airships?

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#242

Post by jandrese »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #241
jandrese wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically the difficulty isn't in building the mast, it is in preventing the airship from being smashed into the mast by the wind. Or in dramatic cases flipping end over end because it was only moored on one location.

Interesting. Why a mast and not just the ground? Pull up the mooring lines (probably more than the amount needed to actually hold the ship, for redundancy), connect them to the ship, then pull on the lines with winches until the ship is on the ground. That's basically how seafaring ships work... are there any unique challenges with airships?

The unique challenge is that everything is way up in the air and constantly moving around.

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#243

Post by psunavy03 »

emmelaich wrote: post #217
voidUpdate wrote: post #93

> "But for air freight service, end-to-end delivery takes a week or more, involving multiple parties: in addition to the air carrier and freight forwarder, at both the origin and destination, there is a trucking company, a warehouse, a customs broker, and an airport. Each touchpoint adds cost, delay, and the risk of theft or breakage." How does an airship solve any of those problems? Its still got to go through custo…

My reading is that it doesn't solve it, it just indicates there is a market for non-urgent freight in which airships could compete.

That exists and it's called ocean freight. Air freight is where you pay a premium to get a small amount of stuff there NOW. Ocean freight is what you use when you need 15 shipping containers of stuff there in a couple of weeks.

Whether there is any market for an "in between" mode is an open question, and it's the business case of these airships for better or worse.

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#244

Post by echelon »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #136
echelon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (slang) Extremely good at something (usually a video game). >> 20 kills? Dude, you're cracked. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cracked

Except for the very online, I think meaning 5 > (slang) Crazy; crackpot. is more common in every day use than meaning 4 >(slang) Extremely good at something (usually a video game). Neither the Merriam-Webster dictionary nor the Cambridge dictionary[0] list meaning 4, further hinting that it is a use that is mostly occurring in niche online communities. Note that I'm not saying meaning 4 is incorrect [1]. There's no s…

It's generational. Gen Alpha increasingly use "cracked" to mean talented.

Even "S-tier" has crept into the non-gamer vernacular. My wife and her friends - not gamers - are using it.

TikTok spreads this stuff like wildfire.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cracked

https://www.tiktok.com/discover/what-does-cracked-mean-in-sl...

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#245

Post by anticensor »

nickff wrote: post #213
hazmazlaz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee that's not going to be a viable option. No nation, especially China or the USA, is going to allow an aircraft free access to land unknown cargo at a random warehouse without going through customs. It's going to have to land at some kind of airfield just like a cargo plane would.

I am not sure what US law on the matter is, but many countries have what are known as "bonded warehouses", which store uncleared goods within the destination country. Are you a customs expert? If so, please comment on whether the US has an equivalent.

Not a customs expert, but a short research suggests bonded warehouses do indeed exist in the United States: https://openjurist.org/title-19/us-code/section-1311/bonded-...

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#246

Post by svilen_dobrev »

bee_rider wrote: post #156
dylan604 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just cover the thing in solar, and run it on electric. Add a couple of wind turbines too. I mean, the whole concept is preposterous, so why not just lean into it?

Solar powered airships floating around the world, following the prevailing winds, accepting durable goods by… catapult or something, delivery by chucking it out the window over populated areas. Paint them some nice pastel colors and we’re in Solarpunk world.

how about people? why only freight?

enter the Jump-o-cabin, press The Button, be catapulted into airship 3, fly to somewhere else, get parachuted down..

Bonus: the just-landed Jump-o-cabin can be used as free-standing toilet. uh, Was already used as...

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#247

Post by numitus »

dylan604 wrote: post #146
xnyan wrote: post #6

The (biggest) problem that keeps airships from practical use is that they are huge sails. Big sails mean even small amounts of wind can be powerful forces acting on the airship. In the air a big push from the wind might be safely managed, but if you're near anything solid such as the ground, you can get smashed to bits. To safely operate a suitably efficient (large) airship, we'd need both huge specialized docks with…

Just cover the thing in solar, and run it on electric. Add a couple of wind turbines too. I mean, the whole concept is preposterous, so why not just lean into it?

I calculated, than the airship with 100tonns capacity, and wind speed 25m/s require 25tons trust to compensatecthenwind. It is Boeing jet engine, not Electric fan require.

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#248

Post by withinboredom »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #182
withinboredom wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you call yourself an engineer and work on the hyperloop. Literally only takes about 30s of thought to realize it is an impossible idea.

Please reveal the impossibility of the idea?

Sure.

If you put it above ground, you are a few short bullets from killing everyone in the loop. Hitting a wall of air in a vacuum at hundreds of miles per hour is going to be like hitting a brick wall. Ask any reentering spacecraft.

The same problem exists underground, the weakest points being the stations themselves which can be bombed.

A failure in the system itself (even just a power outage or malfunctioning equipment) would mean people suffocate inside after a matter of minutes.

So, sure, it is possible to create it, but it is impossible to make any sort of safety guarantees. In other words, literally any other mode of transport would be safer, including a hydrogen-filled dirigible.

So, sure, the concept itself might be possible, but an engineer doesn't concern themselves with possible. That is for scientists. An engineer considers what is realistic AND possible, because that is an engineer’s job: to make the possible real. This cannot be real; literally no regulator would ever sign off on it.

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#249

Post by pclmulqdq »

Qwertious wrote: post #123
pclmulqdq wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people lionize trying ideas that are known to be dumb and/or impossible? Is it because we just no longer believe that things truly are impossible (or dumb)? The ideas that all turn out to be "impossible" successes are ones where the math or physics bears out the idea but the engineering is "impossible." Hyperloop (and vacuum train systems for the ~100 years they were called that before the Musk rebrand) had ph…

>Why do people lionize trying ideas that are known to be dumb and/or impossible? Because airships are really cool.

Great, form an airship club. Stop throwing $100 million after $100 million of your investors' cash at your hobby.

Re: Cargo Airships Are Happening

#250

Post by pclmulqdq »

frickinLasers wrote: post #237
Qwertious wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do people lionize trying ideas that are known to be dumb and/or impossible? Because airships are really cool.

Because airships are simple and cheap, and as the blog post says: if they can get cargo point-to-point across the Atlantic, they will put air freight out of business. If they can't do that, at least they could be competitive.

Ships are simple and cheap. Airships are known to combine the drawbacks of ships (slow, weather-dependent) with the drawbacks of airplanes (needs to be light so it can fly).

That is not a winning combination for putting any kind of freight carrying out of business. The main reason people use air freight today is to get something from one continent to another in 24 hours. Airships will never do that.

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