Article

2004-05-01 Home Front: Tech

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Super Hose 2004-05-01 12:56:47 AM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 When other kids were drawing ME 109s with 18 machine guns spewing hot lead I was designing a line of fighting blimps. Main armourment was a 32 ft. long stainless steel nose needle backed up by a pair of semi-automatic blunderbusses. Singnals were by flag only. It were a stately ballet o death.

Posted by Shipman 2004-05-01 11:28:00 AM|| 2004-05-01 11:28:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 I have often wondered why Army never pushed for cargo blimps.A blimp carrying a container w/6-8 M-1s could easily cruise at 120mph-5,6 times faster than oceanic transport,and not requiring a long runway like conventional a/c(C-17 only carries 1 M-1).Build a dozen or so,store all but 1 or 2.Rotate 1 or 2 thru storage and flight status to keep aircrew current.In emergency take from storage,fill 'em up and have the capacity to land a battalion of armor anywhere in world there is flat surface.Airdrop/helo in tank crews.If containers are pre-wired(collapseable for storage)add power and have an HQ/med/barracks/etc. building.

Posted by Stephen 2004-05-01 3:04:06 PM|| 2004-05-01 3:04:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Long story actually Stephen. To summarize, problems kept arising for ballast during take off and landing (lets say you used water or sand for example). As you were loading or unloading the ballast had to be unloaded and loaded at the same rate in order not to have the blimp tear its moorings off and go sailing straight up. When you're talking about several thousand tons of cargo this a LOT of sand/water we're talking about, but in essence this was just one of the problems that kept cropping up. Another was helium or hydrogen leakage based on which design you went with. And even FUEL and power generation (while fuel consumption would stay relatively flat over time, this was based on the assumption that there would be relatively little headwinds encountered). Mainly these problems were noticed if the airship ever encountered cyclonics or harsh headwinds. At an average speed of 100km/hr any major headwind would drastically reduce the blimps speed and increase power consumption. Then finally you encounter the payload to speed ratio which directly affects cost and revenue generation. Essentially what it ended up showing was that running an airship costed roughly 50-150% more than running even a 747 (one study showed that it costed roughly 21.6 cents per revenue-ton mile for the 747 vs 35.7 cents as a lower bound on the airship, even though the airship was given a larger payload). The speed issue still is what kills any airship cargo transporter idea for mass amounts of airships. About the only way for the airship cargo conveyer idea to survive right now is if it gets military funding.

Posted by Valentine 2004-05-01 4:13:49 PM|| 2004-05-01 4:13:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Okay, Valentine, point taken, we'll only use the blimps in the hunter/killer rolls.

Posted by Shipman 2004-05-01 5:11:30 PM|| 2004-05-01 5:11:30 PM|| Front Page Top

20:52 Aris Katsaris
09:08 docob
02:28 Jen
02:18 Atomic Conspiracy
01:22 Mr. Davis
00:53 Mark Espinola
00:40 A Jackson
00:04 Anon666
00:03 B
00:00 Edward Yee
23:56 B
23:55 Edward Yee
23:52 Bomb-a-rama
23:48 Phil Fraering
23:28 B
23:19 B
23:13 RWV
23:12 B
23:12 joe
23:08 B
22:56 RWV
22:53 Frank G
22:49 Frank G
22:47 Aris Katsaris