Ready for a New Mode of Air Transportation?

JoeUser said:
This. Helium is needed for all sorts of technology...wish we weren't so wasteful of it...once it's gone it's fucking gone. People don't seem to realize this.
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so we need a space program to mine helium on the sun or jupiter. let's wait another 16 years and see where we are. we're probably still going to have a "war against terror" and are arguing about which god is the only true one (out of thousands to choose from).
 
JoeUser said:
This. Helium is needed for all sorts of technology...wish we weren't so wasteful of it...once it's gone it's fucking gone. People don't seem to realize this.
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no kidding, try buying UHP grade He at the dive shop...you would think you were getting gold nuggets for what they charge...
 
For transporting cargo this could be huge. Imagine Walmart using these instead of lorries.
 
Black guy in video has that look of "oh HELL NO I'm not test piloting that thing!" on his face.
 
This technology failed once. That's why you don't see them in the air now. Just like x-ray machines in the shoe store!
 
DeathFromBelow said:
If these things are going to be used for cargo why not use hydrogen and fly them remotely?
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Was wondering much the same, myself.

If the thing goes up in flames...so what? Nobody is on it.

Indeed, it's a bit safer than airplanes from the 'desirable for hijackers' angle, too. Try crashing this into the side of a skyscraper! Aluminum? Sail cloth?? ROFL - it'll just crumple like a tissue!
 
Quartz-1 said:
For transporting cargo this could be huge. Imagine Walmart using these instead of lorries.
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Airships really aren't suited for carrying cargo. Using Helium, looking at the density at sea level, to get 1kg of mass off the ground requires around 1 cubic meter of helium, so to carry anything remotely heavy would not be practical.
 
Tudz said:
Airships really aren't suited for carrying cargo. Using Helium, looking at the density at sea level, to get 1kg of mass off the ground requires around 1 cubic meter of helium, so to carry anything remotely heavy would not be practical.
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AIUI the Aeroscraft has a cargo capacity of 80 tonnes. That's two container lorries' worth.
 
Quartz-1 said:
AIUI the Aeroscraft has a cargo capacity of 80 tonnes. That's two container lorries' worth.
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Isn't it 66 tons? So about 60 metric tons, so it needs about 60,000 cubic metres of helium + the weight of the thing itself (probably $200-300k worth of helium alone) and is about the size of walmart. It doesn't sound all that practical to me :p Who knows though, maybe one day we'll see 100s of airships floating through the sky each morning to make deliveries. To me it seems more like a specialty thing when you need to transport something by air to an area that doesn't have a runway.
 
SGA76 said:
Not sure I'd want to be flying in anything that could be brought down by a slingshot or pellet gun....
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It would take a long time for a hole from a pellet gun to exhaust the helium in that. Even hitting it with a rifle would not make it crash quickly, but cause it to slowly leak its gas, and if it has self-sealing baffles even that wouldn't be too much of a problem. It's a very, very slow and quite juicy target for a shoulder-fired missile though.

The only spying I see this thing doing would be from fairly high altitude - which would still be a bad idea on hostile areas where SAM sites are a threat, so that means any spying done with it will be domestic.
 
Phoenix333 said:
The only spying I see this thing doing would be from fairly high altitude - which would still be a bad idea on hostile areas where SAM sites are a threat, so that means any spying done with it will be domestic.
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If the sun hits it right the military could use it as a solar death ray!
 
k1pp3r said:
If the sun hits it right the military could use it as a solar death ray!
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I wonder how long it will take for that quote to end up on the Godlike Productions board. I'll add some additional paranoia to it: The beam would fry the brains of anyone wearing a tinfoil hat! :cool:
 
Phoenix333 said:
It would take a long time for a hole from a pellet gun to exhaust the helium in that. Even hitting it with a rifle would not make it crash quickly, but cause it to slowly leak its gas, and if it has self-sealing baffles even that wouldn't be too much of a problem. It's a very, very slow and quite juicy target for a shoulder-fired missile though.

The only spying I see this thing doing would be from fairly high altitude - which would still be a bad idea on hostile areas where SAM sites are a threat, so that means any spying done with it will be domestic.
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boeing actually has a blimp like devices that they use in Afghanistan over major bases/hot ones. It hovers about 30.000 feet over the base for about a month if i am right and have all sorts of neat tech on it, IE: Thermal, IRNV, laser guidance, long range optics, etc.
Quite difficult to shoot down with an RPG at that height, any MANPAD would have a hard time getting a heat lock on it, think about it. Although any decent radar guided SAM would be able to shoot it down i would imagine. Not in the army, just from what i have read about it.
 
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