iirc the Hindenburg was designed to use Helium as lift gas, the switch to Hydrogen was overhasty done after the US denied the export.
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It doesn’t look like anyone I know…
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right, so the pilot is sitting in he nutsack…er…cockpit…er…WHAT?
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I just don’t get it… I don’t see any hiney/ass/butt.
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Be thankful.
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I immediately thought of a scene from Ensign Pulver, But I can’t find a clip.
Was Butty McButtFace taken?
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I don’t know if it’s been ten years, but I’ve been thinking it for awhile, whenever I encountered a picture of it. “But no,” I said to myself, “I shall not mention it, for that would be juvenile.”
Eh, it looks like an arse. It’s out, and hopefully I can just forget it now.
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For what it’s worth, I read an article recently that called bullshit on the idea of an impending helium shortage. Sounded halfway informed to my utterly ignorant of the issue mind.
As an aficionado of airships, this butt-shaped design is nothing new, as the other poster mentioned in specifics. But apparently there are real issues – they couldn’t even get a (large) stationary aerostat over Baltimore to behave!
First thing I thought. Did no one say anything?
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Obvious Lululemon branding opportunity.
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The idea of enormous airships as cargo lifters or passenger vessels seems unlikely to me, but I do think that small, autonomous solar-powered airships have a great future as long-linger hi-res observation platforms, and may prove useful for wide-area internet connectivity as an alternative to LEO satellite constellations.
See, f’rex, the Thales Alenia “Stratobus” proposal.:
Solar-powered drone airship 20km up in the stratosphere? (-:
(Though they claim to handle 90kph winds, so…like, 56 mph or so.)
“And I will call it… Boobovaginicus delecta!”
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and lots of other well-informed people. Von Karman’s argument is even stronger than that poster lets on.
But the Stratobus is different.
The vehicle needs enough buoyancy for the the motors, solar panels, batteries, and payload. Sounds doable, since the payload is only electronics.
The fact they seem to think they can do the design work and build a prototype for only $20 million is encouraging.
Still, winds regularly reach a 100 mph in the stratosphere, so we’ll see if the stratobus evades the fate of so many other airship projects: failure in an unexpected storm.
I like big airships and I cannot lie.
You other brothers can’t deny…
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