Blimp aerial tanker?

[tphuang]

I was talking to a friend today and he was telling me about Lockheed Martin developing an aerial tanker using something like the hindenburg. Any thoughts?

[vincelee]

like in the movie Stealth? I guess that would be fine for a low intensity zone.

[Totoro]

Really? That'd be cool. Finally some recognition for the unique abilities of airships. I'm guessing it'd be one huge mother of a ship, carrying 500-1000 ton payload. Still, how slow can the planes go, to get refueled by an airship? Okay, it'd be low altitude as the airship couldn't go high but still, even in greater air density, the airship would probably have to go 180-200 kmh at least. You can imagine what fuel consumption that'd be for an aircraft with some 100 times greater frontal air resistance than a 747.

[Lavi]

That sounds quite much like a sci-fi movie to me. But there has been quite a lot of (unmaterialaised) projects on cargo carrying aircraft/blimp hybrids, so why not?

This probably would take at least fifteen years to get into series production though, but stranger things have after all come out of military aviation ;)

[MIGleader]

the u.s tried to make blimp aircraft carriers before, but failed. blimps were also uded for pacific recon in ww2. a blim transport will never take off thogyuh.

[walter]

I don"t think they are developing it as an aerial tanker. There is currently much talk about using near space, altitudes between 20 miles and the edge of space, because it has been neglected and there is much potential for airships to perform theater wide recon at these altitudes. They would be much cheaper than satellites, reach higher altitudes than U-2s or other high altitude aircraft and have loiter times of weeks or months. I expect to see such a system in US service within twenty years, if not sooner.

[FriedRiceNSpice]

In the movie Stealth they have like a obrittal sattelite that is used to fuel US fighters.

[Lavi]

Actually the US used two blimps as carriers between the war, USS Akron and USS Macon, they carried Curtiss F9C Sparrohawks. Bothe served well for some time, but later ended their careers in two crashes, after which the USN abandoned the idea.

[Totoro]

As an aerial tanker i don't really see it has much of a future right now. Airhips are just too much of an easy target to be used anywhere near a danger zone. But as strategic transports they seem to create a niche that no other transport mean can compete with. Imagine a craft carrying 500-1000 ton payload anywhere in the world, without refuelling, able to land on unprepared ground, where even rugged airlift transports like hercules couldn't land. All that at some 120-150 km/h, and still far less fuel spent per ton per kilometer than a C5 could deliver. Once again though, usage will probably be only in areas completely uncontested by enemy. Actually i see first usage in commercial, civilian areas, before armies get on the bandwagon. Timeframe for all that? 20 years sounds reasonable.

[MIGleader]

blimps have a tendency toi explode or crash without an enemy nearby, so its a stupid ides. imagine if someof thet fuel ignited...

[Lavi]

Well that the Hindenburg explode back in the 30's is one thing, a lot of ordinary airplanes came down then also. Today aviation security is at a much higher level, and hydrogen would certainly not be used to provide lifting power to a modern blimp. Startegic transport is an interesting topic, here WIG's could also fill quite a role.

[Totoro]

blimps have a tendency toi explode or crash without an enemy nearby, so its a stupid ides. imagine if someof thet fuel ignited...

Not true. When you compare the number of flights done by airships with the number of accidents they had, opposite of same comparison for airplanes, it becomes clear airships are safer than airplanes.

diesel fuel that airships use is really just as safe as jetfuel. Furthermore, because of plenty of space on an airship, that fuel can all put in one space, secured to the point that airplanes which fill out wings and other areas with fuel actually fall slighty behind as far as securing the fuel goes. So it's really really sily thing to say that airships have a tendency to explode.

over 80% of accidents involving airplanes happen during take off and landing, which has to happen at fairly big speeds in order to provide lift. With airship you've done away with all that, you're taking off and landing at virtually zero horizontal speed and at very controllable vertical speed.

Those couple of accidents in 20s and 30s (still making airships safer than airplanes when taken into account the sheer number of flights airships did) were used by the taking-off airplane industry lobby, taking away the market from airships even though they have multiple advantages over airplanes for certain missions. It has to be said that most of those accidents were due to flying airships at bad weather conditions. Today's airships would benefit from the navigation equipment allowing the pilots to know where theyre going even at near zero visibility, as well as thrust vectoring propeller engines, making the airships very maneoverable at low speeds, something that was impossible for old airships which needed large ground crews for taking off landings and very very unmamouverable at low air speeds.

Another thing, hydrogen is not any more dangerous than jetfuel. There have been tests with shooting a hydrogen tank with bullets, to no effect, no explosion. One could actually argue that it's safer than jetfuel as it's so light it always goes up, instead of raining fire engulfed fuel over the aircraft. That's what killed some of those ppl on hindenburg, burning diesel fuel that was stored above the passage cabin. Other deaths were results of people jumping out to the ground. Hydrogen didn't even ignite at most part until the fire was well on it's way, but escaped into the air. If hydrogen ignited at once it'd be one boom, and no one would gotten out alive. But fact is that it took 37 seconds for the airship to burn, which means something started the fire sompleace else, most commonly people blame the diesel tanks and a static electricity discharge, and it is believe that even the outer paint coating helped somewhat to the burn, as it was combustible.

In the end, 35 crew and/or passengers died, out of 97 onboard the ship. One more person, ground crew member, died too.

So, with todays technological advatanges in construction, navigation and propulsion, airships can be perfectly safe when flown as they should be flown. Of course, due to their huge size, they're more susceptable to wind than airplanes and one should be careful utilizing em in very high winds. Also, hydrogen as gas providing lift should seriously be reconsidered, instead of sticking to helium as it provides 9% more lift and is considerably cheaper, which also means it can be simply let out into the air during flight, to compensate for the negative boyouncy created by the usage of fuel. Alternative would be additional weight for condesation machines which would provide for continously increasing water counterweight, as the fuel is used.