Thursday, September 1, 2011
10:32 PM 
Helios Airships Airships are better than quadcopters in almost every single way. There, we said it, and it feels great. The world's current obsession with quadcopters as UAVs for purposes ranging from surveillance to carrying aid to remote villages is completely ridiculous. Something inside me tells me that it has something to do with man's obsession with toys. The fact is, an airship outperforms a quadcopter in 99% of situations.
1. Mission Duration
Easily the biggest advantage over quadcopters, whose flight times are usually limited to about 20 min or less, a solar-powered airship can keep on trucking for (literally) weeks without stopping for anything. Try adding some humanitarian aid weight to that copter, and it'll get across your front lawn before puttering and crashing onto your poodle. We really have to laugh when we read articles like this.
2. Payload Capabilities
Mission duration is
directly impacted by the weight of the copter and its payload, but an airship
doesn't care about the weight of what it's carrying because if more payload is
needed we'll just simply make the airship larger for the client. We could carry
an M1-A1 tank from Kansas to Iraq without stopping at Shell if we wanted to.
Quadcopters simply do not have the power to carry a heavy payload over long
distances. At least until scientists create far denser lithium-ion
batteries.
BLIMP
BLIMP
3. Less
Maintenance
Airships have far fewer moving parts than quadcopters, therefore they receive less wear and tear per working hour. The biggest problem with any airship is to keep the helium inside the envelope. However we're very close to being the very first ones to solve this issue, and we're very excited. Anyhow, the rate of loss is not so much as to make airship not viable for market.
4. High Altitude Missions
Airships have far fewer moving parts than quadcopters, therefore they receive less wear and tear per working hour. The biggest problem with any airship is to keep the helium inside the envelope. However we're very close to being the very first ones to solve this issue, and we're very excited. Anyhow, the rate of loss is not so much as to make airship not viable for market.
4. High Altitude Missions
An airship can be made to fly in the outer
atmosphere for scientific, tourism, and surveillance without any issues. You can
fly our surveillance drone so high that it is barely visible by the naked eye
from the ground, but it's still able to count the hairs on your head (apologies
if you're bald). It's well out of range of small arms fire, and hitting it with
a flak cannon would be like trying to use a carnival BB gun to shoot a tic tac
off of your head at 1,000 paces. Not to mention that it's got an almost
non-existent radar signature. HYBRID AIRSHIP
5. More Flexibility
While you can use a
quadcopter to do a variety of things, an airship can do more, because it's able
to fly higher, longer, and carry more. And they can be made into all shapes and
sizes. You can make it fly across the office to grab a stapler, or to deploy a
missile from 50,000 feet onto your target's head. Carry 10 tons of water and
release over a forest fire? No problem. Cell phone tower? Sure. You tell us what
you need it to do, and we can build it for you . .
5. More Flexibility
While you can use a
quadcopter to do a variety of things, an airship can do more, because it's able
to fly higher, longer, and carry more. And they can be made into all shapes and
sizes. You can make it fly across the office to grab a stapler, or to deploy a
missile from 50,000 feet onto your target's head. Carry 10 tons of water and
release over a forest fire? No problem. Cell phone tower? Sure. You tell us what
you need it to do, and we can build it for you . .
QUADCOPTER
What You Can Take
Away
We've outlined the biggest advantages above, but most of them are inter-connected; a quadcopter simply doesn't have the capability to do anything useful unless you're a soldier needing an instant battlefield overview. And even then, if an area is known to be a hotspot, military personnel could simple deploy an airship overhead for the duration of the entire war, and give it light maintenance once a month. If you're thinking about using a quadcopter for anything practical, call us instead. If you're looking for a cool toy you can chase your poodle with, buy a quadcopter.
We've outlined the biggest advantages above, but most of them are inter-connected; a quadcopter simply doesn't have the capability to do anything useful unless you're a soldier needing an instant battlefield overview. And even then, if an area is known to be a hotspot, military personnel could simple deploy an airship overhead for the duration of the entire war, and give it light maintenance once a month. If you're thinking about using a quadcopter for anything practical, call us instead. If you're looking for a cool toy you can chase your poodle with, buy a quadcopter.
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