The disastrous flights of rigid, hydrogen-filled zeppelins such as the Hindenburg and the helium-filled USS Akron are black marks against the idea of passenger airships. To this day, the idea of what a zeppelin could accomplish seems limited to flying over stadiums or acting as glorified hot air balloons.
Still, there's hope. New zeppelin technologies being put into use by companies such as SkyCat of Britain and Germany's Zeppelin NT would bring us more robust, more dynamic airships. Airship frames made of proprietary synthetic materials, for instance, would be stronger than steel and durable enough that a leak would take hours to cause any effect. Vertical lift technologies would also enable the airships to take off and land on their own, rather than having to be tethered to docks by ropes.
SkyCat has several designs in the works, from freight vessels to passenger blimps. Still, you probably won't see an airport full of zeppelins any time soon: despite using no fuel (which gas-guzzling air carriers would love), they top out at a sluggish 100 mph and have severe weight restrictions, which means not a lot of passenger per flight.
SkyCat and Zeppelin NT, via Wired
CORRECTION: The Hindenburg was indeed filled with hydrogen. The correction has been made. The Akron, however, was a helium-filled zeppelin and went down due to operator error rather than a problem with the gas. Readers The_Doctor and Harry Bergeron, thank you.
editor@dvice.com
By The_Doctor at 5:26 PM ON 06/10/08
Actually, boththe Hindenburg and the USS Akron were filled with hydrogen, not helium. Helium is an innert gas, so it would not explode as in the mentioned accidents. On the other hand it is MUCH more expensive.
By Harry Bergeron at 5:27 PM ON 06/10/08
From the first 'graf: Hindenberg et al were HYDROGEN zeps, not helium....
By EnOne at 8:46 AM ON 06/11/08
Flying cruise lines. Use these to go across the land like cruise ships go across oceans.
By aerocrat at 11:36 AM ON 06/11/08
Sorry.
I was surprised to read about SkyCat project. Except SkyKitten prototypes in 2004 this project gave nothing till bankruptcy in 2005. You could sauy about Cargolifter or Helistat project also...
Today really industrial airship is designing in frame military concept in Lockheed Martin: WALRUS project, perhaps else - hybrid (airship+jet)Dynalifter... And probaby in Russia - alive projects of airships with 20, 55, 70, 200 tons of payloads (company DKBA - around Moscow - former "Dirigeablebuilder of the USSR" - www.dkba.ru).
If you wanna know more welcome to original russiqn LJ-blog AEROCRAT CONCEPT (in Russian here (aerocrat.livejournal.com) and the translated reading in English that (www.worldlingo.com/wl/services/S1790.5/translation?wl_srclang=ru&wl_trglang=en&wl_rurl=http%3A%2F%2Faerocrat.livejournal.com%2F20331.html&wl_url=http%3A%2F%2Faerocrat.livejournal.com%2F))
Let's go on discuss over modern airship theme...
By Traveler at 11:44 AM ON 06/11/08
For the last 20~ years, the "rebirth" of the airship has been here. The cost to revenue equation never seems to work.
By blimpship at 3:17 PM ON 06/11/08
The SkyCat / SkyKitten is indeed in limbo as Aerocrat said, but the Lockheed P-791 is a VERY similar design and is an actual flying prototype.
Also look up the Massaud Manned Cloud and Aeroscraft ML-866 if you want to see some of the newer airship designs - by the way Zeppelin is a tradename of the Zeppelin company, so in general, all airships shouldn't be refered to as zeppelins they are airships, blimps or dirigibles
By skycat at 3:49 PM ON 06/11/08
skycat is very much alive, the skykitten prototype flew successfully long before LM's very similar project, the main man behind skycat is Roger Munk anyone who knows anything about modern airships will know his name, the main man behind the very successfully skyship 500 and 600 ship that have been flying successfully for over 20 odd years and still flying strong today, the company has continued the skycat project after many financial difficulties of the last few years, they have restructured and are now called hybrid air vehicles and operate and flight test from the world famous British airship sheds at cardington bedfordshire, england, home and birthplace of the R101, www.hybridairvehicles.com