Will we see a new generation of airships roaming our skies? Head to https://www.odoo.com/r/veritasium to start building your own website for free.If you’re l...
My main issue with anything that flies and doesn’t have wings is that, if anything bad happens, it’s straight to the ground and everyone (probably) dies. Planes can at least glide if there’s an engine failure.
That said, we still have helicopters and hot air balloons, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t have dirigibles as well.
Helicopter can also go into autorotation mode, i.e., to “gently” land even with engine failure. I think airships has no moving parts, what’s safe, and with the gas leak, I think it is rather slow process, so it would be easy to gently land.
Yep, airships aren’t overpressurized like a balloon - any leak will be extremely slow, as the heavier ambient air gradually displaces the helium inside the airship through whatever hole might be created. As I understand it, one of the big maintenance issues they have is even finding the holes from normal wear and tear. The usual failure scenarios involve storms with huge pressure changes.
My main issue with anything that flies and doesn’t have wings is that, if anything bad happens, it’s straight to the ground and everyone (probably) dies. Planes can at least glide if there’s an engine failure.
That said, we still have helicopters and hot air balloons, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t have dirigibles as well.
Helicopter can also go into autorotation mode, i.e., to “gently” land even with engine failure. I think airships has no moving parts, what’s safe, and with the gas leak, I think it is rather slow process, so it would be easy to gently land.
Yep, airships aren’t overpressurized like a balloon - any leak will be extremely slow, as the heavier ambient air gradually displaces the helium inside the airship through whatever hole might be created. As I understand it, one of the big maintenance issues they have is even finding the holes from normal wear and tear. The usual failure scenarios involve storms with huge pressure changes.
Helium could be detected with some specialized detectors, but I suppose approximately – so, as you said, finding exact leak place is challenging.
If it was even slightly heated couldn’t you maybe visualize it with thermal imaging?
I suppose so, if some heater would be placed to heat the helium.
Sure unless the thing that goes wrong is the wing.