MY CHOICE OF AIRSHIP IS ... and the Undisputed Winner is ...

After all the long dissertations that seem to stretch on about this wonderful new era in Airships ---- let's call it the Airship Renaissance ---- here's our firm's pick for the Airship of the Future, one that encapsulates all the best features of What's Coming Next, together with the rationale that dictated each aspect of the choice :

A Hybrid Craft --- where the lift is provided by a combination of
                     static lift --- lift provided by a lifting gas displacing an equal amount of heavier air , and
                     aerodynamic lift --- where some lift is provided by airflow over a suitably designed                        airfoil, using the Bernoulli Effect  

1. Unmanned (Shocked?)
Training of controllers is much shorter and less demanding than selecting only pilots of general aviation or military conventional aircraft and then training them in this entirely new skill. The necessity of the usual crossover from pilot has not been proven to our satisfaction, as demonstrated by current military requirements. The military services don't have the luxury of time, and the fact that their controllers are better than just good enough is good enough for us. Amusingly enough, one of the indicators of success as a controller --- NOT a requirement --- is that applicants for the training have previous experience as a ... hold it for this one ... radio-control model aircraft hobbyists. That tells us something !

2. Lighter-than-Air Dirigible --- that is, an aircraft that can be Directed (steered) rather than flown subject entirely to the winds

3. Lifted by Hydrogen, not Helium, as the lifting gas (now there's a surprise)

4. Powered by a Fuel Cell --- a relatively recent development in eenergy circles, converting the fuel which varies, directly into electricity throgh the use of catalysts and "dry" chemical processes

5. Providing electricity to the electric motors (rather than diesel or gasoline) very efficiently

6. Provided with the capability of snapping on the accessories that perform the mission, so that the airship has great flexibility in mission type

7. and Rented or Leased out (rather than sold) to the ultimate user so that, in effect, you sell the same product over and over --- a much easier accomplishment for expensive equipment, and ensure that the Operator is highly trained and experienced, and repossession of the asset is relatively easy, if necessary. 

The Economic Value of Airships

Yesterday's post began a critique of an article in ScientificAmerican.com, a usually sober and authoritative source . Quoting from the on-line article :

"In 1950, Theodore von Karman, one of the founding fathers of ... aeronautical engineering, published a paper entitled What Price Speed ? Specific Power Required for Propulsion of Vehicles.
[now updated by faculty at Imperial Colleege, London].
von Karman showed that if you take a vehicle's horsepower divided by its weight and speed , yoou can see how efficient that vehicle is compared to other vehicles."

The article goes on to argue, essentially, that the reason for the lack of progress in airship development is due to their comparative inefficiency as transportation.

Well, there's a lot more to that story than the author provides his readers. First, some brief background on the situation :

Dr. Barry Prentice, of the University of Manitoba, is to be strongly commended for his tenacity in pursuing vital North American concerns in the North circumpolar regions. He began his crusade to wake up international interest in the once-forbidding regions that stretch around the North Pole for such an enormous distance north of Canada, through areas which were once considered of no interest because they were so unnavigable, so difficult of traverse, and so seemingly bare of value, of resources, and of people.


BUT, time and paradigm shifts changes all things. Three critical variables shifted :


1. the brutal economic facts of the discovery of priceless mineral resources in that area,

2. the realization of the sudden accessibility of these areas because of the opening of the Northwest Passage attributable to climate change, and

3. the interest of the area as a geo-politically and strategically important region.


Travel requirements and political control exerted their inevitable influences. Suddenly, the Middle East, with its almost Biblical politics and its quasi-monopoly on oil, has begun to diminish in importance. Entrepreneurs in other countries began to dig their giant globes of the Earth --- with their three-dimensional perspectives on trade routes --- out of the executive offices where they had served as room decorations for centuries.

Suddenly, these peculiar-looking vehicles called Airships began to make a great deal of sense. Why?


1. They didn't need roads

2. They didn't need a complex infrastructure like long runways, often impossible to construct in the Northlands

3. They didn't require the huge initial cost --- in the billions --- to construct the spider web of access roads which ground travel appeared to require. Furthermore who would provide or finance them ?
That's a very large dollar figure that is rarely factored into developmental planning or assessment . Remember that mining companies are in the business of locating and extracting minerals, not in the business of building roads.

4. Airplanes --- even great ones like the DeHavilland Beaver ---- have limitations on the size and weight they can carry and require major construction of runways, landing strips, and airports, as well as refueling and repair facilities.

5. Can you say "broken truck axles"?

6. Native settlements, as they increased in complexity, have come to depend on external resources --- even to outboard motor parts for boats used in arctic mammal hunts

Where is the concern for Efficiency now?) .


The people who say, "Ice Roads? Why don't they just travel when they can?" must be living in an ivory tower world. Immediate need and unexpected emergencies constantly intrude into our Real World . It's a world in which, every day, conditions are evolving that force new realities upon development and support in the circumpolar regions, which in turn force the adoption of new modalities on the planners.


The hard-nosed, gimlet-eyed businessmen and investors associated with mining, logging, and natural gas exploration companies ask "What is the best way to do that?" and suddenly find themselves becoming strong supporters of airships to meet arctic heavy lift needs.


These questions must be answered, and sooner rather than later :


1. Who will pay for access roads?
2. Who will fund the initial capital costs?
3. ... with no clear Return On Investment? Who will wait the 10 to 15 years for this ROI ?
4. Who will own and control these part-time highways ?
5. Who will deflect the impatience of the shareholders?
6. Who will determine the priority of appropriating the building costs?
7. Isn't it the truth that the need for investment capital is often inversely proportonal to its availability, often with self-appointed naysayers arguing that it's all unnecessary and inefficient.


When you ask "Why is it taking so long to get flying, viable airships to market?" , please add to all those impedimenta the following major considerations :


1. The very long certification times for new modalities of air travel.
2. The uncertainty of the certification processes and requirements for these unfamiliar airships
3. The lead time to educate pilot operators in an unfamiliar operational process
4. The resistance and mind-sets of legislators and bureaucrats
5. ... and, finally, the opposition of theoreticians concerned with efficiency who can prove mathematically and (in Captain Queeg's memorable phrase) " beyond a shadow of a doubt that the strawberries were stolen".

The clearest determinants for reality checks on aeronautical progress, customer acceptance, and widespread use are not mathematical equations for efficiency, but rather the purchasing practices of the military and paramilitary (police) services. They choose the best tools for the job, test them with infinite care, and back their bet with billions of dollars. For proof, just check the latest airship procurements; you'll find them under "Purchases" in Defense Industry Daily, NOT in 60-year-old theoretical engineering texts.

Helium Hokum Revisited and Ravaged

There is an on-line periodical named "ScientificAmerican.com" that I'm sure many hold in great regard. However, they recently published an article by an independent design and systems engineering consultant, which continues the history of bad reasoning and misguided information that has dogged airships ever since the days of Santos-Dumont and that, unfortunately, will furnish still more authority to those who oppose airships.

The article, Helium Hokum, is subtitled "Why airships will never be part of our transportation infrastructure".

It contains such vitriolic statements as that, during the author's lifetime, roughly five billion dollars (in today's dollars) have been spent chasing airships for transportation, money that could have been spent building a lot of road and a lot of track, of which the only result has been a vast mountain of paperwork --- most of which ended up in local landfills.

Whew !

He goes on to say that the Airship Renaissance has always been just around the corner since about 1945, but that the only result has been the employment of a bunch of engineers who just don't get the simple fact of engineering science that, in his words, the only true measure of the result is efficiency ---- how fast can you go for how cheaply you want to get there.


In Jan Huss's penetrating phrase, "O Sancta simplicitas !" ; in this article, what a gross oversimplification .


Judging all means of transportation solely on the basis of "efficiency" --- and a very narrowly construed expression of efficiency at that--- is equivalent to judging all vehicles solely on the basis of miles-per-gallon.

If you're a suburban housewife driving on average American roads, perhaps that is one criterion by which you might want to choose the best transportation for you.

If you're in an army tank under fire, assigned to destroy an enemy emplacemenet, NO.

If you're racing in the Indianapolis 500 , NO.

If you're driving the Queen of England to Parliament, NO.

If you're a teen-age boy trying to impress a girlfriend, NO.

... and on and on !

The British have a wonderful aphorism, "Horses for courses", that is, choose the tool to suit the job.

The presumption of the article, that all transportation can be judged by the single criterion of efficiency, borders on bad logic.

Let's consider the very real and present problems presented by the wide variety of missions undertaken by our military services, despite a wide variety of obstacles and environments.


1. They must anticipate that the transportaton infrastructure of the area to which they have been dispatched will be damaged or destroyed. The military unit might be required to carry and disembark a brigade-sized unit to the Point-of-Need in three-to-five days, with no facility prepared to receive it. .. and do it in the dark, silently, landing on uncertain terrain, land or water.

2.Consider the case where they encounter incompatible rail gauges, as in the Baltic States, or a single rail line that is blocked or destroyed.

3. ... or where access in mountainous regions is hampered by bridges and tunnels.

4. ... or if the transportation is over the untracked Arctic tundra


Clearly one could go on forever --- exaggerating for effect --- reciting the vast number of impediments that they may encounter, where the ONLY means of transportation is designated "advanced lift platforms that are not dependent on improved airports and seaports". Why on earth (literally) then, would one even begin to discuss efficiency. Cost per mile ??? Miles per gallon ?!?


OR consider the need for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) of an area, as when the U.S. Coast Guard was assigned the task of persistent surveillance of our southern borders, often hovering in one spot for days on end. Efficiency ? A textbook engineer with little imagination would probably slide-rule it at INFINITY ... or ZERO .


Too military for you ? Stay tuned for discussions of the logistical support of oil and precious minerals exploration in the Arctic, an ongoing responsibility that Dr. Barry Prentice, of the University of Manitoba, has kept our eyes focused on for many years ... or the logistical and humanitarian support of people in the Arctic ... not just food and fuel, which can be determined in advance, but also the evacuation of injured or ill personnel in the event of a medical emergency.

These ---- and many other real world needs --- exist for which considerations of efficiency must be set aside . Stay tuned.