FAILURE ISN'T BAD, IF YOU TURN IT TO ADVANTAGE

          Now wait a minute, we hear you say, how can you turn the worst thing that ever happened to your professional career into something positive ? Quite a few ways, as we will elucidate  below :

Suppose you're involved in some Airship venture; you have poured years of your work-effort, your life blood, your creativity, and --- probably --- your life savings into the design, construction, and testing of an airship. Then , in front of the whole world ... FAILURE !

You don't even want to think about it anymore, let alone CONTINUE or REBUILD, or MODIFY and TRY AGAIN. You're ashamed to face your friends, your supporters and employees, your investors, or even look at yourself in the mirror. You decide to take up a new interest, completely different from building airships, like golf, OR stamp collecting.

You can take a different tack and possibly turn loss into victory: Just categorize what you have done and its sad result from a Failure into a Valuable Asset .  Here's how :

1. Admit it to yourself. Tough, but you only have to deal with yourself !

2. Don't automatically blame it on yourself. See Awful Example below.

3. Analyze the problem carefully ! You may prevent someone else from repeating your mistake and, by converting your openly and honestly admitted error into experience and error, prevent some other earnest adventurer, working on a parallel project, from making the same mistake.

4. Let People Know !  Oh, no ! You can't face your friends, your business colleagues, or all those media people that you persuaded to listen to your plans for the past three years.  Don't abandon all mention or discussion of your project. You may have a dozen brilliant ideas hidden away in that experience or intermingled with one causative error in judgment. Let the world --- or at least The Airship World --- benefit from your mistake. It might not even be a mistake; it might just be an Act of the Gods, like the weather, or the poor quality of goods from a careless provider of materiel.  It might even have been (or even most likely was) something that, had you thought about it. might have been prevented .

5. Use the Internet to publicize your misstep. That way you can publicize the information, the technique, or the problem without asserting your responsibility or your culpability to the world (or your stockholders) .  

6. Construct a Cautionary Tale : Here's a real-world Awful Example : A former friend and colleague had put together a small company to DBP (Design, Build, and Produce) a small Lighter-Than-Air craft to be used in biological research. He built a successful working model and stored it at a friendly small airport --- OUTSIDE --- without making certain that someone secure it properly against the occasional high wind gusts that are not uncommon here in StormLand. The strong winds apparently shredded his work of several years to ... well, shreds. He just walked away from the ruins of the project, even walked away from the clever URL and company name, and "got a job".

His efforts on this worthwhile project might well have borne fruit had he used his error to provide a valuable lesson in weather security to the rest of the airship world. He might have been able to raise more funds, provide a great deal of useful information and guidance in the construction and proper storage and stowage of Airships --- one potentially quite useful to an entire scientific field . Nope ! He "Put it all behind him" in the current parlance of amateur Psychobabble, even though his sad tale might have served as a      valuable Cautionary Tale and useful preventive measure .   

Maybe, just maybe, he might have started again on the same project, using all his data, information, and experience to build another small airship and utilize it to add significant impetus to an important aspect of biological science.

It might even result in some eager Blogger starting up a periodical Blog called The Journal of Unsuccessful Scientific & Technological Information, Challenges, & Errors.                           Lovers of Acronyms, take notice, please !                                                    

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N.B. We would welcome hearing Comments, Cautionary Tales, and Useful Errors from your life experience and work, particularly as they relate to AIRSHIPS . Please write to this (suitably disguised) Internet address:     

HYBRID PELTA [at] HOTMAIL [dot] COM

BACKWARD RAN THE "WHAT IF". TIME MACHINE UNTIL REACHING April 1, 1902 :

Posted not that long ago on another web page or BLOG :

April 18, 2010 at 5:18 am

Hi folks,
This new idea for high speed, high altitude, solar powered Cargolifter airships is the ultimate investors dream. You can say such a design could be used for anything at all. Eg Cargo or passengers, Fuel free greenies ferry service, HAA, Hybrid airship and military jobs. You name it, this is the way ahead!!
As long as you define cargo as one thin pilot and his small lunchbox, high speed as more than 10 mph, high altitude as above a few thousand feet and flying as something that you only do on calm sunny days, in the small print this could be a real investment gem. Almost as good a return possible as the old real Cargolifter fiasco in Germany, may their greenhouse project rest in peace.
See. http://www.airshipblimp.com & http://www.airship.me
Regards
Bond, James Bond.

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OUR THOUGHTFUL RESPONSE , DATED circa 1902 :

Good Day, Auto-Mobile Enthusiasts,

This new proposal for the design and construction of  Mercedes-Benz Auto-Mobiles is the ultimate investor's fantasy. Apparently, these German dreamers are claiming that Mercedes-Benz Auto-Mobiles can be used for anything at all, e.g., carrying and conveying freight or passengers. civilian or even military purposes. Name it, this is being touted to be the way ahead !!

As long as you define cargo as Madame and her one shopping bag of goods purchased at a downtown merchant ; high speed as three miles an hour (not as fast as one good Shire horse ; distance as (what are these auto-mobiles achieving now?) under five miles ;  travel defined as moving slowly along a flat road surface that has been carefully smoothed for her convenience directly from the Quackenbush Department Store to Madame's house ; and shopping expeditions as something you do only on sunny days. ... Oh, and factor in the weight of the Auto-Mobile Operator (I'm confident that Madame will never agree to becoming an engineer and operating the vehicle herself) and the oil or other preposterous substances needed to stoke the fires , which might    --- might ! --- carry Madame and her newly acquired valuables for the advertised five mile range of operation. Children will run alongside, laughing and spinning their hoops. Oh, dear, there's a large area of mud from yesterday's rain deposited on the surface. Perhaps the children will help brush up the surfaces with the pails and shovels from their latest trip to the seashore, so that the wheels will carry the vehicle smoothly without jolting her or the Operator of this preposterous entourage.  ...

And where will this oil-substance come from ? Please do not laugh, good Readers !  ... from the lands of the Sheik of Araby, where apparently large quantities of this terrible, slimy, sticky material is now being extracted from out of the ground by the hundreds of gallons... apparently, a chancy thing at best !

... but wait. We've just learned that this oil-for-fuel cannot be utilized in its natural state ! It must first be "re-fined" into Gas-o-lene --- what a terrible trade name for this dangerously explosive fuel ---  after it is pumped out of the soil in the Middle East

[Query for the investor : who owns this barren desert wasteland? Will they willingly put up with English adventurers roaming their land seeking supplies of oil ?].  ... and in what vessels will it be carried from the sandy desert to the Refinery and thence to Madame's horse stables [where else to store it until it is (oh, so, carefully) poured into the onboard storage tank thoughtfully provided by the Mercedes-Benz manufactory?] 

... Oh, wait, this Auto-Mobile must also now carry not only Madame, her Operator, and the weight of this machine, but also the fuel ... calculated by our best scientists as ten gallons (a day's supply) at six pounds per gallon --- another sixty pounds !

Hark ! What was that terrible explosive sound ? No ! Not the continual deafening bang-bang-rattle of the propelling mechanism .  Air has leaked out of the rubber tyres supporting the vehicle ! The whole support mechanism is now compromised. Will Madame have to carry along a mechanical compressor to pump atmospheric air back into this tyre ? Is she expected to walk home from this desolate landscape with the goods that she has acquired in her shopping ?

But then, what is the advantage to building and purchasing this Auto-Mobile, if it is to be subjected to these random stops, fits, and starts ?

Gentlemen (and Ladies) --- please consider all the impossible obstacles mentioned above --- and much more as the mechanism is unbelievably complex, constructed of a melange of unavailable iron and steel parts, certainly NOT obtainable at your local stable or smithy . 

We won't even go into consideration of this Chimera as an investment ! ... and neither will you, if you are not taken in by these Prussian Charlatans and their Arab co-conspirators.

Dear Friends, stick to your beautiful and trustworthy Draft Horses.

With only your best interests at heart,                                                    I remain, yours, etc.

James  Stock

James Stock, of Percival, Stock, & Fotheringly,   Investment Counsel

WHY THE EMPHASIS ON TRANSPORTING CARGO AS OPPOSED TO CARRYING PASSENGERS ?

In one of our several previous lives (Software development, Academician of a Dean-ish sort, Consultant, Editor of technology material), I was a staff member on two interesting short line railroads --- serving as consultant and development staff person . It became pretty clear that the railroads lost money on passenger traffic, but more than made up for it in freight income.

This encouraged them to divest themselves of their passenger burden and those short connecting lines on which they really lost money by selling off, OR in one spectacular bravado corporate maneuver, actually trying to give away short line branches. That was a phone call my corporation received one bright and sunny day that had our senior staff staring at us in disbelief : "They want to give it to us?? " .

That lesson has stood us in good stead in our later career efforts. I keep current to the best of my ability in the fields of airship development and changes in the maritime business. Folks, stick to Airship Cargo ! In particular, step in where an Airship's unique ability to skim harmlessly over the ice and snow, over the ocean surface, avoiding the many difficult passages (sinuous rivers, locks and dams, pirate-infested waters) and concentrating on fulfilling needs , can pay off in many ways . Trying to create needs by offering beautiful tourist operations may succeed for a while, but remember, always, that Fed Ex and UPS have succeeded by focusing on Core Competencies and determining what services are needed.

Apparently, it wasn't enough to witness video presentations each week of impossible (well, maybe improbable) voyages on ice roads in the Arctic. It took Dr. Barry Prentice, an expert in the previously almost unknown academic discipline of Logistics, was able, by means of his Airships to the Arctic Conferences, and his excellent marketing skills in distributing information in both written form --- Conference Proceedings --- which we strongly commend to you and in Power Point video format, to make his point. One of his effective techniques was to bring in a powerful combination of Provincial officials (that's state governments to us Yanks), academic researchers, and major Airship manufacturers prepared to build multi-million dollar prototypes, thanks to DARPA and daring entrepreneurs, and a clear demonstration of the need for this form of transportation. Dr. Prentice deftly avoided any politically-tainted arguments about global warming, holding forth the high risk video-taped efforts of the Ice Road Truckers as incontrovertible evidence of the problem.

Dr. Prentice was able to achieve that through a combination of Conference sponsorship by a first-rate, reputable, accredited, Province-level University together with imaginative commercial TV producers and an open-minded television channel. He has since then segued that into a separate non-profit organization called ISO Polar.

All this occurred just as the extraordinary value of Polar assets were being recognized for the first time :
1. the vast mineral wealth, including not just oil and natural gas, but also the rare earth minerals that are finding uses in new and critically important high technology.
2. the melting of Polar ice caps, forming and disclosing the possibility of the Northwest Passage that had been sought as almost a Holy Grail for hundreds of years.
3. the Awakening Maritime Provinces, in particular Newfoundland and Labrador, which, with the concurrence and assistance of the Canadian Federal government, realized what natural resources and biological treasures existed in an area that had previously been known mostly for its edible fishing resources. Working together, Federal and Provincial governments provided financing and infrastructure (there's that potent word again) for the establishment of marine biological laboratories of major significance. Working in harmony with informational articles in such esoteric --- but seminal --- publications as Maritime Technology Review and Marine Log ("marine" meaning saltwater rather than the "soldiers of the Navy"), they were able to inform a huge sector of important and significant members of the business world about the opportunities. ... another smart move.
4. Russia's recognition of the geopolitical importance of this area that had previously been closed off to them. The Russian regime was swift to react --- in the salty old saying of the American South, "Their mothers didn't raise no fools".
Ta-da ! A new shorter, cheaper, safer route between Russia and Europe, avoiding many potential military, predatory, economic, meteorologcal, and geographic hazards.

Then, having achieved marketing momentum (we hope that there is such a concept; if not, feel free to use it, we haven't trademarked it yet), he moved over the whole kit-and-Kaboodle to an independent non-profit organizational mode, and is moving the Conference over --- at least temporarily --- to the United States (am I correct?) .

... and much more to follow, as they say on TV advertisements.
    

AIRSHIP HISTORY CROPS UP AGAIN, AGAINST MY BETTER JUDGEMENT

Why is it that

1. In the development of ships at sea, a Titanic can go down in 1912 with vast loss of life, but the continued development of ships at sea did not even slow down. Apparently, that was acceptable to the world.  BUT

2. a Hindenburg airship can have an accident in 1937, with a minimal loss of life, and the entire development of airships comes to a grinding halt --- in people's minds .

How does Conventional Wisdom operate to produce this anomalous effect ?

We have devoted this Web Log to the Future of Airships, yet the question of History's Influence continues to intrude in people's minds ?

THE TWO-TIER AIRSHIP GALLERY --- The Tiger and the Mouse

Doesn't it seem as though there are actually two separate streams of output by airship designers and manufacturers :

1. The DARPA- and National Defense-motivated (and financially rewarded) makers who turn out (or, at least present galleries of PHOTOSHOP photographs of) designs of incredible complexity and capability ... you know (exaggerating for effect) , the billion-dollar airships that are a mile long, can stop a speeding bullet at the outer skin of the very-high technology envelope; that can perform persistent surveillance for 25 years without landing or refueling; that can design, build, and launch a Pleiades spaceship from an onboard laboratory; that travel at a speed of Mach 2.0 ; and are fueled by asteroid dust !

It's almost as though the first automobiles were produced in two factory models, electrically-powered golf carts and 200 mile-per-hour Lamborghinis

Unfortunately, they never seem to be completed or to appear on one's roads.

2. The backyard-bred, manufactured, and launched 15- to 50-foot simple models that actually fly and can be readily seen on YouTube .

I'm thinking of wonderfully successful airships like Dan Geery's HyperBlimp out of Utah in the United States or the Swiss Mini-Zepp, both of which keep soldierin' on (in the old Army phrase), and which quietly sell their models to organizations in the Near East and Cambridge.

It makes one wonder whether, perhaps, they should get together and produce a useful working prototype with specifications somewhere in the middle ... you know, like a classic, working 1957 Chevrolet .

... in our present case, an airship that meets the relatively modest requirements of eliminating the need for the Ice Road Truckers, and that would be useful enough to satisfy the need for Dr. Barry Prentice's Airships (to the) Arctic.

My guess is that until they do, we will continue to read utter nonsense by unlettered, unkowledgeable Forum participants who deny that an airship can ever travel in weather conditions with wind speed of more than 5 knots.

Remember the old saying by Voltaire in his Dictionnaire Philosophique :         "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien"  :   " The Best is the Enemy of the Good !"

I have an old friend --- knowledgeable, funny, extremely bright --- who had been polishing his Harvard Ph.D. thesis for about 50 years, as it did not meet his own incredibly high standards for submission. Sadly, he passed away his past year, without ever having achieved his life goal.

....Well ? What shall it be, ladies and gentlemen ?

Hydrogen as a Lifting Gas for Airships ? You must be mad !

I have hypothesized the use of hydrogen as the lifting gas for my Ideal Airship , despite the screams of "Oh, the Humanity" by onlookers trying desperately to remind us of the Hindenburg disaster, 1937.

Consider that

1. More people are killed by automobiles in any two urban American counties in one weekend than died in the crash of the Hindenburg, yet you may well have driven the kids to their soccer match this afternoon without any fear.

2. A couple of nasty military helicopter accidents will cause more casualties than the Hindenburg's crash. Yet, we haven't abandoned the helicopter, that inherently unstable flying machine that MUST keep flying to remain aloft.  

3. We have learned a great deal about new materials, about hydrogen handling, and about flying conditions since 1937 than can be imagined by naysayers, know-nothings, and detractors

4. The U.S. Navy --- a notoriously hard-headed and practical service --- continued to use blimps (much more vulnerable than the airships we are advocating, and with much less technological advancement in those World War II years) very successfully in hundreds of off-shore flights, in their successful anti-Nazi U-Boat campaign all throughout the war, long after 1937.

5. Advances in technology since the beginning of airship development have proceeded faster and far beyond similar advances in technology in, for instance, the steam locomotive in its early beginnings.

6. The advantages of airship freight logistics in areas without infrastructure, and at far less cost, are staggering and, in any other milieu, would have resulted in development at speeds far beyond that of nuclear weapons, or hunter-killer submarines.

... and on and on !

Yet, thanks to the power of the Internet and the viral voice of the uninformed, most people will quote their foolish comments as Truth and Wisdom, especially regarding how difficult hydrogen production is because of the very high temperatures required in its manufacture. One-Track minds !

What is not often brought to mind (far beyond Auld Acquaintance) is the availability and use of hydrogen right now .

Some hard statistics :

1. Hydrogen is a major resource in the chemical industry. Billions of cubic yards of hydrogen are utilized in gasoline production to get rid of the sulfur.

2. Hydrogen is needed to create ammonia, of which our country uses at least 109 million tons  every year for use in the production of fertilizer .

3. We check our food labels every day while shopping for butter (at the recommendation of our physician) because H2 is used to harden fat, so that butter spreads easily on bread. It's the motivation for the use of those magic words "partially hydrogenated" on food labels.

4. For reasons with which we are unfamiliar, but which we are assured are critical, hydrogen is used as a carrier gas in the semi-conductor business.  

5. One German city currently has 14 buses running through city streets using hydrogen fuel.  

... and yet the Uninformed still continue to write Forum entries stating that production is prohibitively expensive or wasteful of energy.

Neither do most misinformed folks think of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) an essentially free source of intense heat (especially in Florida and much of the South and Southwest); instead they quote the high cost of producing heat energy for catalysis  by the use of fossil fuels like (Golly !) coal.

Also remember that we are not advocating the wasteful disappearance of the hydrogen used in airships; we are recommending its storage in ballonets for lifting purposes. At worst, we suggest its use as fuel in H2 fuel cells, in which function it morphs into the formation of water vapor. No carbon footprint ! no noxious fumes ! no carbon particulates fouling the air !

Please think before you write, folks, or you'll wind up looking pretty foolish !