The Rise of the Modern Airships

In this video we look at 5 new Airships. They are Pathfinder1, LCA 60T, Zepplin NT, Airlander 10 and H2 Clipper.
There are many new technologies at the disposal of airships today, that make them a viable venture.

[@NickCombs]

Can't wait to start seeing these instead of container ships and semi trucks. Thanks for the summary.

[@ElectricAviation]

Enjoy!

[@joetaylor486]

These absolutely will happen. Also, they will probably need to use hydrogen for floatation in order to have any real future.

[@jtjames79]

Physics and modern materials are just lining up way too well. And I think you're right about hydrogen, though I am still holding out for heated helium. Perovskite thin-film solar cells can double as your envelope that you need anyway. Like Elon says "the best part is no part". Batteries are more than good enough already to go overnight and then some, and only getting more efficient. Same thing for electric motors to run the things. Might even be able to remove most if not all up electric motors by using atmospheric ion thrust. A business case might be made for orbital transmitted energy directly to airships. The future seems bright for airships. I can see them being more efficient than trucks and trains, but probably not boats. But good enough to get expedited shipping rates between boats and jets. That would be a game-changer for people like us here in Hawaii.

[@ElectricAviation]

True. Hydrogen is the key.

[@izzyplusplusplus1004]

​@@jtjames79For island use, fair weather is almost required, but the land anywhere aspect is super appealing.

[@jtjames79]

@@izzyplusplusplus1004 The leeward side is almost always fair weather.

[@nathanryweck3137]

Hydrogen is much cheaper and much lighter so I agree and it should be safe with modern materials

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Love your videos - keep up the great work :)

[@ElectricAviation]

Thank you! Will do!

[@IAmTheAce5]

I’ll reserve hope for when hangar,docking, maintenance and training facilities are established

[@ElectricAviation]

Step by Step.

[@malachiteofmethuselah9713]

That is a chicken and egg attitude. Noone changes the world by wating for someone else.

[@IAmTheAce5]

@@malachiteofmethuselah9713 that’s like supposing we can have all the cars we have without roads, or ships without docks and harbors, or airplanes without runways. It’s easy to draw up a wondrous airship design- it’s harder, and not as glamorous, to draw up and lay down the facilities needed to make such a vessel usable for its role(s).

[@genxlife]

I'm currently working on a webcomic series where an airship is used as the first stage to launch a craft into space.

[@ElectricAviation]

Would love to see it.

[@mrstevecox7]

An airship which uses solar energy in flight to generate Hydrogen from atmospheric water vapour for lift and nighttime fuel would be a possibility

[@701983]

Theoretically, yes. But in real life? At least not in foreseeable future (several decades). At best as a small scale experimental platform, similar to the "Energy Observer".

[@badguy1481]

Great Job! Very informative! Looking forward to more editions.

[@prakadox]

Thanks for the video! It's nice to have content related to airships. They're especially good for places like India where conventional infrastructure is not as well developed.

[@ElectricAviation]

I would suggest you to watch Drifting Dragons on Netflix. Gave me real inspiration

[@I-0-0-I]

Another well researched video! Thanks!

[@ElectricAviation]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@technopasha]

Great job! Do more videos about blimps!

[@ElectricAviation]

Thank you! Will try

[@silasmoser301]

Thank you! Always cool to see new airship content.

[@ElectricAviation]

Our pleasure!

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

If we built an airship 3.16x longer than the Hindenburg, that is transparent and concentrates solar energy on a spot on the ground (e.g. with lightweight fresnel lenses), we could collect 100,000kW of solar power (~1000W/m² is the average we get from the sun). You could power a large container ship with that, if we assume the overall process is ~50% efficient. It just heats the ship's boiler like in a solar thermal powerplant or maybe we could use fancy thermophotovoltaic panels (around 42% efficient with 2400°C emitter, which you can easily get with concentrated solar). This concentrator airship would be tied to the container ship with a power cable and follows it around with electric propulsion. gg ez

[@karlsmith1831]

We need to look at materials that can support a vessel under a vacuum, something like one of the graphene aerogels might be worth looking into.

[@antdavisonNZ]

read Los Alamos National Laboratory's work described in US patent 11027816

[@rjung_ch]

Thanks! 👍💪✌

[@ElectricAviation]

You are welcome

[@dansorkin6985]

Nicely done video look at some modern airship projects. It should be noted that only the Zeppelin NT is currently flying. Goodyear has replaced its blimps with three Zeppelin NTs. However, I think Zeppelin has shelved the larger NT-14 project. I haven't heard anything new about it in years. Also, I don't think the smaller NT model is still in production. If anyone knows differently I'd be interested.

[@ElectricAviation]

Thanks for the info!

[@dancahill8555]

Storms wrecked some famous ones. Since most are not going to be qualitatively faster, they will need continuous sattelite weather feeds.

[@maickelvieira1014]

thx for the cover on the upcoming tech

[@ElectricAviation]

No problem!

[@MULHATTON1851]

Airships are the Wave of the Future and always have been. The Graf Zeppelin was the most successful airship of all and it would have been a great privelage to be a passenger. I prefer Lenticular Airships and would like to start my own Aerospace Airship Company. There is a superior method of propulsion that should be used instead of propellers that will revolutionize the Airship industry like it should have been long ago. There are airship companies that make airships shaped like the Starship Enterprise D from Star Trek Next Generation, and other interesting models.

[@dekutree64]

Solar would have great synergy with an aluminum frame airship, since you could use the framework as conductors rather than needing a bunch of dead weight copper wire to reach the farthest panels.

[@chat-1978]

Veritasium made a video recently and raised an issue for cargo that currently there is no solution. Weird that this was not raised

[@Jjames763]

That’s because the various solutions to that problem (buoyancy compensation) are often different for each individual airship project.

[@jamesdeath3477]

I thought finding enough helium was supposed to be a problem with these.

[@ElectricAviation]

Helium is a by product of natural gas extraction.

[@jamesdeath3477]

@@ElectricAviation It's a non renewable resource and they're worried that there isn't enough of it for scientific use, never mind filling huge gasbags with it.

[@malachiteofmethuselah9713]

Look around. The hydrogen economy is coming, followed promptly by a ramp-up of nuclear, which is a source of helium.

[@nathanryweck3137]

They will use hydrogen to be viable. It is much cheaper and much lighter.

[@malachiteofmethuselah9713]

@@nathanryweck3137 Military grade lift for pennies on the dollar!

[@eottoe2001]

TY.

[@cacogenicist]

The new voices are really _as_ good as you could realistically hope for. Doing Rick is a lot harder than, say, Bugs Bunny.

[@jlmwatchman]

Future AirShips need a common use other than the rare transport abilities. A need that replaces an everyday need, such as trucking. A blimp sized AirShip, steel framed, could pick up 8 normal sized containers from the container ship. Every modest sized light composite steel framed AirShip replacing 8 single container trucks. The AirShip could deliver the containers to a warehouse in less time, because it replaced 8 trucks and flies over rush hour traffic.

[@onetruekeeper]

A plasma generator could fill up the gas containers on the airships as often as needed to provide lift and it is also lighter than hydrogen gas and less danger of explosion.

[@ericwilson5203]

Great video! Yeah, seems like the only path forward is hydrogen. Helium is expensive and scarce and non replaceable

[@kentw.england2305]

No one talks about the weather, which will doom these airships.

[@ElectricAviation]

They will be operational during summers both in northern and southern hemisphere. They will not entirely replace the existing infrastructure. They will be there to support it. For example, peak travel season also occurs in summer.

[@Jjames763]

Quite the contrary-it’s not that “no one talks about the weather,” in fact, you’ll find that invariably, comments like this are absolutely lousy whenever the topic of airships comes up. What _actually_ never gets talked about is the fact that the U.S. Navy figured out how to operate airships successfully in storms and blizzard conditions over fifty years ago.

[@Bak2Basics]

if you look at Skyfreighter Canada, the leading forward nose and control, is heavy duty broad based Kevlar carbon fiber. designed to withstand 150mph

[@Guitar6ty]

They need to be built as a delta wing design which would be stronger and more aerodynamic. The delta wing could also be covered with printed solar panels.

[@TheSkypetube]

Imagine skipping traffic on a blimp

[@harpercmp]

I wonder if it is possible to create a zeppelin/airship filled with gas ions in a vessel that were repelled by a centrally located electrode thus creating a artificial gas pressure that exceeds the limits of the ideal gas law in regards to density and displacement. I am not knowledgeable enough to know if it would work though.

[@stanmitchell3375]

They need to stay out of storms

[@peterboy209]

Wing Hybrid Airships ?

[@voiceoffarooq6810]

Love the content. However, what would be the advantage of using airships over sea based transportation? In hilly areas it may make sense but it doesn't make any sense to me on the open seas.

[@CaemmYsWoed]

I guess only speed. Faster than ships, cheaper than planes. Not a huge niche, but may work.

[@Rhen5656]

you can transport large amounts of cargo (albeit less than a freight ship) faster to almost any point on land, which could be especially helpful to remote places where rail and road infrastructure isn't well established. If you're going from a port to another port the only real advantage is that you can still go over land and potentially skip canals (which as of late have been getting traffic jammed in panama canal). Other than that their only advantage over ships would be speed.

[@ElectricAviation]

Its faster than ships but with a fraction of payload capacity.

[@Bak2Basics]

World Cargo Alliance is clearly looking at Airships.@@CaemmYsWoed

[@lawrencewilliams2911]

BIG DEAL

[@realvanman1]

I've long had a fascination with airships, and would love to see them make a comeback. But none of these programs should be wasting precious helium. That's what they should ban. The research should be focused on making safe airships using hydrogen lifting gas. Not only does it prevent wasting helium, hydrogen adds around 7% total lift, virtually all of which would be available for added cargo capacity, making for much better airships.

[@henrya3530]

The only way airships will make a reappearance in our skies in significant numbers is if jet engine fixed wing aircraft can no longer be used. This more likely to happen as the result of a natural disaster than for any other reason. Volcanoes in Iceland spewing volcanic dust into the atmosphere in sufficient quantities for a long enough period would render jet engines unusable in the northern hemisphere.

[@Greggspies]

What happens when a hill Billy takes a pot shot, that would be my concern

[@Bak2Basics]

robotic Spiders repair holes rapidly. the airships have many closed "bags" of helium , not just an open "baggie"

[@f.k.b.16]

The Clipper not only looks like the best but it's purpose seems to outweigh all other blimps in usefulness and efficiency... Except??? How does it return with no payload?

[@ElectricAviation]

I was thinking the same thing. May be they will transport it back with helium.

[@701983]

That's a misunderstanding. The Clipper wouldn't transport gaseous hydrogen, but cryo-cooled liquid hydrogen. As cargo and as fuel. And would use gaseous hydrogen as lifting gas.

[@bobnelsonfr]

Size constraints limit an airship to perhaps 250 m, which gives only a few tons of lift... using helium. There's no reason for not using hydrogen for transport, so it's easy to imagine a helium-lift piloted ship accompanied by a flotilla of hydrogen-lift drones.

[@Bak2Basics]

need to do more reasearch. 250 tons is the goal of Skyfreighter Canada. the LMH1 has been proven. hydrogen does not transport well. 30% of frozen hrydrogen is lost in the freezing / thawing process. Helium only needs to be changed out every 3 to 5 years

[@Jjames763]

It seems a sticking point in these comments is the helium vs. hydrogen debate. However, if you put actual numbers to it, you’ll realize that the expense of using helium is more than worth it, and hydrogen is by far the best fuel source, at least when safely ensconced in a flame-retardant helium cell or pressurized tanks. Airships are so efficient that even helium ones still only cost a fraction of the operating cost of a heavy lift helicopter or similarly-sized airplane, and that includes helium costs. Expense isn’t really the issue that has prevented airship adoption, it’s much more mundane than that. They’re slow, and have a largely unearned dangerous reputation due to being such an old technology, which makes people hesitant to invest sufficient seed capital to get the ball rolling. The necessary capital to develop and certify any large new aircraft is quite a lot, despite the fact that individually the airships themselves are relatively cheap. People care less about efficiency, and more about speed and institutional inertia. Additionally, new and much more energy- and cost-efficient technologies for extracting helium are coming online in recent years, such as reverse osmosis membranes and pressure-swing absorbtion. This, in conjunction with vast new helium reserves getting discovered across the world, makes the idea of a forced return to hydrogen as a lift gas (and not a fuel) very implausible to me.

[@Bak2Basics]

NICELY SAID. you have done your homework . you should connect directly with Skyfreighter Canada or Milleniuim Airship

[@cbarnes2160]

They're cool but I don't think they can pan out. Slow means fewer trips per year and trips are how you get revenue. If capital costs can be way lower than airplanes, then the economics could work. But it's usually better (financially if not for the planet) to just pay for fuel and get there fast...

[@llahneb10]

If they fly above the clouds, solar power would be nice and predictable

[@701983]

The more altitude, the less lift per volume, due to lower air density. That's why the airships of the old days mostly cruised in low altitudes.

[@njm3211]

Very skeptical of the viability of cargo carrying or long distance passenger airships. Way too subjected to the vagaries of weather and the need for extensive mooring and hangar infrastructure. At least it keeps some billionaires out of political mischief.

[@Bak2Basics]

stop thinking in terms of the Hindenburg and "sausage tube" designs . Lockheed Martin P-791 Hybrid Air Vehicle kzbin.info/www/bejne/goulmaZjiNepras

[@njm3211]

@@Bak2Basics Looks more promising than most of the designs however this video is 8 years old. Has its development continued I wonder?

[@Bak2Basics]

Look at the time line. Why the sudden abrupt stop in 2016? Because Lockheed Martin skunk works was trying to steal the flight control system called ITAMMS. A patent infringement and breech of contract The Lockheed case,is due to settle by Jan. 2024. Gil Costin developer

[@MichaelMcCausland-pg6qs]

Absolutely and we’re doing it through Agro technology logistics CaSunBuds LLC we to commercialize and standardized the medicinal, agricultural cannabis, industry worth billions allow us to re-organize the organic produce industry, the non-hormonal, non-antibiotic, livestock and poultry industry, and the river transportation system of the San Joaquin Valley

[@mayorb37]

Yes they musst fly

[@duanegrindstaff9635]

Solar-powered airships are the way to go! And H2 has twice the lifting capacity of He, with modern containment systems being enough for safety.

[@Rhen5656]

hydrogen has around 13% more lifting capacity relative to hydrogen, but still that is quite substantial.

[@701983]

@@Rhen5656 Actually, it's 8%: Cold dense air at sea level is around 1.3 kg/m³. Hydrogen at the same pressure and temperature is 0.09 kg/m³, helium is 0.18 kg/m³. So you get up to 1.21 kg/m³ of lift with hydrogen, 1.12 kg/m³ with helium. 1.21 is 108% of 1.12.

[@701983]

@@Rhen5656 And of course less lift in higher altitudes (lower pressure) and higher temperatures. But the relative difference of lift is the same.

[@cch201992]

Man I've been saying this why are we so afraid of hydrogen? We know how to do it safer know we need to bring these back with hydrogen as the lifting gas

[@ElectricAviation]

They ban on Hydrogen was put in the 1930s. We now have sensors that can detect leakage. Plus we have non flammable materials that we can use

[@cch201992]

@@ElectricAviation I want a blimp that runs on solar that is used to make hydrogen gas to be stored for fuel and to replenish lifting gas that will eventually leak or be dumped for Decent. Doing this would allow for a floating house essentially but I'd do it more like a expedition yacht where it has a crane for dropping vehicles to explore areas would be pretty well self sufficient like a yacht. but I'm not rich and have no rich friends who would fund the project so it will probably never happen but I'm extremely confident it could work amazingly.

[@Savan_Triveda]

Thats great. Anyway humanity has to slow down. The concept of time = money is wrong. I don't know many things that are wronger then this. Time is time, money is money. All this concepts and aphorism that haunts the mind of people are concepts of evil. From religion to economy are penetrated by evil axioms.

[@Chris.Davies]

If you want to lose 100% of your investment: go with an airship startup.

[@701983]

The Hyperloop of the air! 🙂

[@bernieharperyt]

Helium airships are pointless. The gas is rare,, cannot be manufactured, ever more expensive and prone to excessive leakage. Hydrogen gas is currently a dirty greenhouse gas that is essential for fertilizer manufacture. When green hydrogen becomes available and the agriculture market is well served, hydrogen airships will become inevitable. I have waited a lifetime to see super airships fly again. But I suspect I may not live long enough to see them return to where they belong.

[@ElectricAviation]

You can get a flight on them in Germany. They run during the summer time

[@701983]

@@ElectricAviation I wouldn't call the Zeppelin NT a "super airship". It has 4% of the volume of LZ 129 Hindenburg, it is stumpy compared to its ancestors and it's just a semi-rigid airship, which gets its shape from gas pressure. And it can carry just a dozen of sightseers on seats. Better than nothing, but rather an "airboat" than an airship. Or even a "super airship".

[@Bak2Basics]

The helium is ONLY changed out every 3-5 years !! the U.S. is the largest producer of Helium.( 98% pure) Quatar has yet to develop their helium wells. Millenium Airships, has a contract guarantee for 15 years. Hydrogen needs to be cooled to MINUS 420F. This limits hyrogen . A 30% volatile loss in simply rewarming hydrogen to ambient air temp. Horrible storage logistics, massive heavy equipment in order to have Hydrogen tanks on board...m Helium and solar electric. Lockheed Martin LMH 1 Lockheed Martin P-791 Hybrid Air Vehicle kzbin.info/www/bejne/goulmaZjiNepras This airship has: * Taxied, * Turned 360 * Took off * Flew above the Skunk works in Lancaster * Landed and taxied back.

[@bogus_not_me]

It's about time flight with cargo capability including passengers is on the board. Conventional flight using fossil fuels must be abolished to save the planet and cut transport costs so we will see decreased prices on many products and goods as well as travel.

[@701983]

Will they fly? No. Most of them not.

[@bilelsk9000]

It will not work .. time has past

[@Bak2Basics]

......dont rain on my parade.... do your homework plz.

[@bilelsk9000]

@@Bak2Basics point me to some links if you have some

[@Bak2Basics]

Lockheed Martin P-791 Hybrid Air Vehicle kzbin.info/www/bejne/goulmaZjiNepras (following the above , You Tube Transcript) “ although it looks like a typical airship 0:30 the level of Technology in P 791 and 0:33 hybrid aircraft quite sophisticated for 0:36 example we use vector thrust much like 0:39 the (f-35) our thrust vectoring system ** ( The Thrust Vectoring System is a US and International Patent owned by; Gil Costin.) 0:42