We had previously defined and distinguished two principal means of operational
lift for airships : aerostatic (where the principal lifting force was derived
from the buoyancy of an enclosed lighter-than-air gas such as hydrogen or
helium) and hybrids (where the aerostatic lift is augmented by lift
derived from air passing over an airfoil, such as a wing or other curved
surface, and which requires at least some forward motion of the airship).
My attention has been called to a still finer distinction which was thoughtfully drawn by Edward Pevzner, of Aeroscraft in Montebello, California, when he spoke as one of the principal presenters at Airships to the Arctic V, the fifth in the series of those first-rate conferences conceived and produced by Dr. Barry Prentice, on the faculty of the University of Manitoba in Canada.
Pevzner distinguishes the source of lift for Aeroscraft --- his firm's airships --- from other hybrids. One can't do better than quote from that segment of his "Airships to the Arctic" Power Point presentation entitled "Combined Lift Air Vehicles (sic) Concepts" . Aside : Like most scientists and engineers educated in Europe, he does very significantly better in English than most Americans would do in the non-English engineering literature. A Danish woman of our acquaintance used to define "illiterate" as someone who could speak or write fluently in only one language.
He explains that --- as we all presumably know --- our normative idea of an airship generates lift through the buoyancy of entrapped lighter-than-air gas (Archimedes Principle). It's the same lifting force experienced by a boat in the water, where it is called a floating force.
Our conventional idea of a hybrid airship adds to that "floating on air" static lift the aerodynamic lift provided by Bernoulli's Principle, which requires air to travel over a curved surface affixed by design onto the airship, either through the shape of the craft (the iconic "Deltoid Pumpkin Seed") OR by an alar --- wing-like --- surface affixed to the airship for that purpose .
My attention has been called to a still finer distinction which was thoughtfully drawn by Edward Pevzner, of Aeroscraft in Montebello, California, when he spoke as one of the principal presenters at Airships to the Arctic V, the fifth in the series of those first-rate conferences conceived and produced by Dr. Barry Prentice, on the faculty of the University of Manitoba in Canada.
Pevzner distinguishes the source of lift for Aeroscraft --- his firm's airships --- from other hybrids. One can't do better than quote from that segment of his "Airships to the Arctic" Power Point presentation entitled "Combined Lift Air Vehicles (sic) Concepts" . Aside : Like most scientists and engineers educated in Europe, he does very significantly better in English than most Americans would do in the non-English engineering literature. A Danish woman of our acquaintance used to define "illiterate" as someone who could speak or write fluently in only one language.
He explains that --- as we all presumably know --- our normative idea of an airship generates lift through the buoyancy of entrapped lighter-than-air gas (Archimedes Principle). It's the same lifting force experienced by a boat in the water, where it is called a floating force.
Our conventional idea of a hybrid airship adds to that "floating on air" static lift the aerodynamic lift provided by Bernoulli's Principle, which requires air to travel over a curved surface affixed by design onto the airship, either through the shape of the craft (the iconic "Deltoid Pumpkin Seed") OR by an alar --- wing-like --- surface affixed to the airship for that purpose .
Pevzner accurately
distinguishes the design of the Aeros (although he brilliantly dances around
any sort of disclosure of his company's proprietary Intellectual Property
concept) by explaining that the Aeroscraft is a new approach using derivative
airship concepts and a suite of technologies integrated to control lift at all
times, independently of off-board ballast."
This achieves greater utility and fewer operational limitations.
Our technical
people must confess that his explanation leaves them none the wiser as to the
basic principles or techniques utilized by Aeros. As his firm begins to further
delineate these methodologies, we'll be sure to sharpen up our explanations to
our readers.This achieves greater utility and fewer operational limitations.
The advantages that Pevzner points out include elimination of the need to take on ballast during or after off-loading the payload --- always a pain ; eliminating or minimizing infrastructure ; the ability to operate from unimproved landing sites ; and, finally, lift control so fine that the Aeros can essentially perform vertical take-off and hover maneuvers.
All this arises from the application of the Systems Approach (which they refer to as the "Systematic Approach", a very reasonable variant translation of our in-house phrase), and which we uniformly and enthusiastically endorse .
Sounds good ; it is clearly evincing interest by all aspects of commercial and governmental transportation, especially those in hostile environments dominated by severe weather conditions; impossible, impassible, and non-existent roads ; lack of decent rail service ; or the occasional .50 caliber bullet flying by . As they used to say in the old-timey adventure serials on the radio, stay tuned.
We will tread lightly around the geopolitical minefields of who-owns-what in the areas surrounding the North Pole. This is evoking major interest in light of significant discoveries of critical mineral resources and in light of the fabled "The Northwest Passage", a new path between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans which may influence every aspect of international trade. Does the name "Panama Canal" ring a bell ? Maybe Denmark's legitimate claim to Greenland no longer leads to a hand-over-the-mouth suppression of a chuckle in polite company.
"Global Warming" ? Nonsense ... except for the uncomfortable evidence in high-altitude photographs of clearly visible navigable lanes between the melting ice. Even sailboats are making their way through ! Maybe there's more to this Airships [in the] Arctic business than most complacent, geographically illiterate Americans realize.
Maybe those Airships to the Arctic people can be persuaded to move their conference to Florida's comfortable climate, where it will attract (on the order of) ten times as much attendance ---including Internet Pundits and the all-important world press, as well as its usual cold-hardened attendance. As I recall, they used to have on their staff a Professor Richard P. Beilock from the University of Florida . Still, Florida is such a transportation hub that most people attending a conference like that will have an easier time getting there than getting to Manitoba, Canada or Anchorage, Alaska .