FLYING TURTLES
Address given by Darrell Campbell to Washington CEO meeting, University of Puget Sound, April 1994
What’s wrong with airplanes? Hey! What’s not wrong with them? They cost to much to build, cost to much to fuel, make too much noise, pollute the air, passengers are jammed in like sardines in order to make airplane operations even marginally profitable, the air inside is stale and unhealthy, meals served on board are unpalatable, and the views are severely limited.
Airplanes are dangerous; and especially so when they have to make high speed, one shot or nothing runway approaches for landing, or rely on maximum thrust to takeoff safely.
Airplanes are dependent upon airport runways; and airports require large pieces of land for runways and other ground facilities. This is always extremely costly, and often environmentally unacceptable.
Because of their high operating costs, airplanes can only serve in high density markets; making the skies around airports into air traffic nightmares, and leaving lesser markets without adequate air transport…
It’s a problem…and airships are a perfectly viable solution.
Because they are lifted by lighter-than-air gasses, airships use only fractions of the amount of fuel that airplanes do. Not needing huge amounts of thrust to stay in the air allows airships to use engines that are quieter, les polluting, and far less expensive than airplanes.
Large airships have incredible amounts of room for passenger amenities and comfort. Instead of having a mere few inches more room in first class seating; airships can offer whole staterooms to every passenger, along with dance floors, viewing promenades, libraries, health spas, etc. Because airships typically fly at low altitudes, they offer travelers unparalleled sightseeing. Windows can be opened to let in fresh air, and full sized, on board kitchens and dining salons can offer wonderful relaxing meals.
Because airships can hover and takeoff or land vertically, they do not need to be operated from airports at all. They can just as well be flown directly from an empty field or a water surface, or from atop a large building. This makes their potential environmental impact negligible and makes airships far more convenient and versatile. Airships can totally circumvent crowded airports and the air traffic problems associated with them, making airships that much more safe; and airships can fly silently, slowly, in the densest fog or icing conditions. Airships are exceptionally safer than airplanes.
Because of their large size, airships can lift a heavier load than any airplane, or a bulkier one.
So, why aren’t there more airships? Because there are some problems….
Airships are slow.
Why? Because the only airships extant now are blimps; made with fabric and/or plastic hulls that maintain their familiar cigar-like shape only through their internal pressure; and are thus prevented from going to fast for fear of collapsing the blimp.
In addition, a fabric hull or envelope can only be made so large; without any internal structure, it cannot support its’ own weight, let alone the weight of engines that are powerful enough to reach high speeds.
Airships are to unwieldy and cumbersome. At their slow speeds, airships have no steerage when they make a landing or takeoff, and have to be hauled about manually by large ground crews. This is inconvenient, it is unsafe, and it is costly.
Virtually every airship ever built during the last 100 years has required a special mooring mast to tie up to. It’s ridiculous! To only be able to dock at one unique location, or even a few, out of all the worlds’ surface, is so patently self defeating it’s almost incomprehensible.
Yet over and over again airship designers continue to create airships that cannot be docked in any other manner. The severe limitations placed on airship operations due to this single factor would have been enough to bring about the entire industry’s demise.
Yet there is one other huge problem that makes airships terribly expensive to operate; because of the fragility of an airships’ fabric hull; it must have a means to keep it protected from the weather and damage. So, due to the airships’ size, they require gigantic, very costly hangers at each and every location from which they would be flown.
Think of it! Not only is there the initial cost of the airship itself, and specialized mooring equipment and procedures; there is an even greater outlay of capital for the structures needed to house airships in.
These things have all combined to make airships unreasonably costly; and impossible to justify their extensive use.
It’s a problem. All right then, if airplanes have problems; and airships are the solution; then what is the solution to the problems with airships?
CHANGE THE AIRSHIPS!
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here; just two easy changes make a world of difference; the airships’ shape, and the materials out of which it is constructed.
If we take the typical porpoise or cigar shaped airships; it is about four to five times longer than its’ diameter. This makes it fairly streamlined, but the length makes it less strong. The longer it is, the more it can flex along that length under stress. Therefore, we chop it in two, and lay the two halves alongside each other. Now it is shorter and broader; a much easier vehicle to engineer and an inherently stronger shape. Bridging the gap between the two halves creates even greater volume for lifting gas.
The next step is to eliminate the most awkward feature of present airships; the rounded bottom of the hull. If an airship has a round belly, it cannot be set down on any surface with any stability whatsoever; it cannot be handled on the ground.
This one fact has always been the biggest bugaboo in the history of airships; simply because designers have continued to create airships with shapes as close to a sphere as possible in order to have the greatest amount of volume and minimize the surface area of the hull.
Why? To retain as much lift as possible. That’s where every previous type of airship fails the common sense test.
Maximizing payload capacity at the expense of being able to readily handle loading due to ground handling difficulties is the narrowest of tunnel vision. What good is an airship that can carry any load, if you cannot load it? It is preposterous! It will be an inevitable business failure because of it. Leave it! Sacrifice a little lifting capacity to gain ground control!
This is the answer; flatten the bottom of the airship.
Having a flattened bottom hull permits the airship to sit down solidly on the surface; and the lower silhouette reduces the ability of winds to flow under the hull and lift the airship when it is moored.
To fully insure that the airship remains stable on the surface it is necessary to weight it down or tie it down; and the simplest way to weight it down is to take on ballast. All past airships have used things such as sandbags attached to their hulls to do this; a labor intensive and slow process. The simplest thing is to take on water for ballast just as marine vessels do; it is easily pumped into the airship or dumped when not needed, and easily moved from one spot to another to balance the center of gravity.
` Therefore, make the airships’ bottom hull strong enough to permit them to operate amphibiously; to land or takeoff from any suitable sized body of water.
Landing on water eliminates any need for a ground crew or special mooring mast. Since the airship can now land directly onto the water facing in any direction, there is no need to have a large number of persons manually haul it into the wind for takeoff or docking.
Taking on water ballast; the airship rides on the surface and ties up at a pier just as a boat does. Instead of being limited to operating from a single spot, the airship can now land on seven tenths of the Earths’ surface! A flat bottom hull creates a large “footprint” for multiple landing gear also, making our new airship shape overwhelmingly advantageous.
Ah! But this brings us to another dilemma; for virtually every past airship has placed passenger cabins and engines below the center of lift; right at the center bottom of the hull.
The next change then, is to put all, accommodations for crew and passengers somewhere else. This ends up being inside the hull, towards the front and sides in order to give passengers access to windows for sightseeing.
The engines also move into the hull to achieve maximum aerodynamic streamlining and for noise suppression.
Placing these weights towards each end of the airship means that some sort of structure or internal frame has to be built that can support the new loads. This necessitates the second major change in the airship design; changing the materials out of which it is built.
While the great Zeppelins of the past used a framework of rings and girders of aluminum to maintain the airships’ shape and to carry their great weight; modern materials and construction methods can create airship hulls that can bear even greater loads; with much less extensive framing. Instead of the usual cage-like construction, an internal structure now of trusses and cables act like a suspension bridge to bear loads; coupled with a rigid shell hull.
By using carbon composite materials, the airships can be designed to be many times stronger than past aluminum framing allowed, while saving considerable weight at the same time; giving them the ability to carry larger payloads or more persons than ever before.
To make the bottom of the hull strong enough for water landings and withstand wave action; it must be made of a rigid and lightweight material. A honeycomb sandwich of carbon composites is ideal for this purpose. The curved surface of the hull lends itself to application of the strongest and lightest construction method yet devised; rigid panels laid up in a geodetic pattern of equilateral triangles.
Extending this to the entire body of the airship results in an aircraft that is strong enough to be left out in any weather, and thus eliminates any dependence upon large hangers for protection. The new design saves untold amounts of money by being so independent of this historic problem.
Additionally, the geodesic construction also saves time and money in that each panel is engineered exactly the same; the same size, shape, and having the same strengths. This allows for mass production of airships.
The solid lightweight rigid shell also permits the airship to travel at exceptional speeds without fear of collapsing the hull.
What kind of speeds? A typical fabric blimp can only travel up to about 75mph.
The new airship can fly using Solar Power. By covering the top rigid hull panels of the hull with Thin Film Solar Cells; the airship can easily generate enough power to fly at lower speeds using nothing but sunlight for propulsion. This can give the airship unlimited range. As a back-up, bio-diesel engines run generators to supply batteries with stored electricity for night or flying in darkened poor weather.
These same bio-diesel engines can be used as primary propulsion to move the airship to even greater speeds; or, the airships can finally use jet engines that have been modified to burn biofuels; and, reach speeds comparable to some airplanes. This makes the new airship type competitive with much of the worlds' aviation industry.
Change the shape; change the materials.
These simple changes, along with some other minor refinements such as use of bow planes, ducted interior thrust, and a trimaran hull to lessen surface water tension, form the basis for singularly capable aircraft. Airships that can move fast; need no hangers, mooring masts or ground crews; that can be built large enough to carry huge loads and hundreds of passengers.
With its’ multifaceted rigid shell; the low rounded silhouette; and amphibious operations; the new airship design brings nothing so much to mind as a gigantic flying turtle;
and who could ignore, or ever forget, a flying turtle?
A Turtle Airship!
How does the Turtle Airship work?