Dirigi-do or Dirigi-don't?

[Agschmid]

What You Didn't Know About Dirigibles

Say the words "blimp," "dirigible" or "zeppelin" to most folk and they get an instant image of either the Hindenburg or Jimmy Page. While Germany's famously combustible blimp is the enduring picture in most peoples' minds, The Atlantic recently scoured a host of photography archives to compile some stunning shots. A mere excerpt of these visuals will teach you at least one or two things you didn't know about blimps. For instance:

There were nose-based blimp-to-building docking solutions. Here's a shot of British politicians, sometime in the 1920s, boarding a flight out of Cardington, England. I always thought blimps docked only via the undercarriage, which proves I am dirignorant.

More could go wrong with early blimps than mere explosions. This photo from 1926 shows a 700-foot Navy dirigible, upended and sent completely vertical by turbulence. The crew of 25 reportedly sustained no serious injuries, but I guarantee you at least three of the 25 pee'd their pants.

More at the link.

[raccoon]

1. Oh, I thought you were talking about a Didgeridoo.

[charlie and algernon]

4. Lol, I thought so too!

[Taverner]

2. The airline industry could save a bit of money using these

Not for ALL air travel, but for connecting sea level cities to mountain cities (Denver, La Paz, Zurich)

IN fact, it would be a great way for United to shuttle passengers to its hub

It would probably take the same amount of time

[LongTomH]

3. You're confusing 'blimps' (non-rigid airships) with dirigibles (airships with a rigid frame)

Here's a cross-section of a blimp:



A few companies in the US now operate blimps as camera platforms and/or for advertising purposes.

A dirigible, or zeppelin, is basically a huge, rigid airframe filled mostly with lighter-than-air gas balloonets., like this one:



People have predicted that dirigibles were going to make a comeback for decades. They haven't, and the reasons should be obvious:

First, the airframes were huge assemblies that were very labor and capital intensive to build. The only airlines flying dirigibles were subsidized heavily by their host companies. They were sort of the Concorde of the 1930s.

Second, they were pretty much at the mercy of the weather. The US Navy's Shenandoah broke up in a storm over Ohio in 1925.

Third, and this is probably the clincher: Helium gas is expensive. It's not a renewable resource. The world's supply comes from natural gas wells in the southwestern United States. Even today's blimps have a capacity ranging from 50,000 cubic feet at the lowest end to about a quarter of a million cubic feet. The latest cost for helium I was able to find is about $20.00 for 9 cubic feet. You can do the math yourself.