September 14, 2011
Airships!
One of the Brickmuppets Crack Team of Science Babes takes a moment from her...research...to relay this news from exotic Canukistan.
It's...technical...
It seems that the Canadian air transport company Discovery Air has entered into a contract with Hybrid Air Vehicles to provide heavy lift airship services to the remote areas of the Canadian taiga and tundra.
This is actually a big deal. These airships are much better able to handle winds than conventional airships and heavy lift requirements in remote locations would seem to play to their strengths.
These ships have been tested off and on for a decade now by the US DOD, but as far as I know the only military use for them has been the recent contract for a surveillance airship for the US Army. This is much more significant, because, it seems that the technology is now mature enough that they are getting commercial contracts.
The ships currently offered have lift capacities of up to 200 tons , but there are vehicles in development that have a 1000 ton payload.
Unlike normal airships these vehicles are generally trimmed to be slightly heavier than air, which makes them much better ships in a storm, they can still do vertical takeoffs and hovering via their thrust vectoring systems. For the vast Canadian Arctic these ships could indeed be a boon in opening up the wilderness.
If they work out there they could have any number of civilian and military applications., from container transport to passenger liner to Coast Guard cutter.
'Science Babe' is by Sakamoto Mineji
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It's...technical...
This is actually a big deal. These airships are much better able to handle winds than conventional airships and heavy lift requirements in remote locations would seem to play to their strengths.
The ships currently offered have lift capacities of up to 200 tons , but there are vehicles in development that have a 1000 ton payload.
Unlike normal airships these vehicles are generally trimmed to be slightly heavier than air, which makes them much better ships in a storm, they can still do vertical takeoffs and hovering via their thrust vectoring systems. For the vast Canadian Arctic these ships could indeed be a boon in opening up the wilderness.
If they work out there they could have any number of civilian and military applications., from container transport to passenger liner to Coast Guard cutter.
'Science Babe' is by Sakamoto Mineji
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:06 PM
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I think Lockheed worked on a more promising hybrid design
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=71
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=71
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Sep 19 23:47:46 2011 (9KseV)
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