Airship's visit recalls Watsonville's blimp port

Carl Bendix wrote:

<quoted text>Well ya know they got to pay the bills too. That gasbag is expensive to operate.

James Anderson Merritt wrote:

These dirigibles (not blimps) are miniature versions of the 1930s era Zeppelins. Larger ones could be built that could hold on the order of 100 passengers each (roughly the capacity of a larger Metro transit bus), as the original Zeppelins did.
As far as these airships never being able to pay for themselves, I did a back-of-the-napkin calculation, based on construction and operation costs for the Hindenburg, adjusted for inflation. My figures show that, at a fare of between $55 and $75, an airship that did one round trip of moderate length (say, SJ to LA) every day could indeed pay for itself and even realize a modest profit. Airship Ventures is using the smaller ship with its lesser capacity to provide an E-ticket, premium experience for deep-pocket passengers, but a larger-scale airship, carrying significantly more passengers per trip, could be a successful form of moderate-distance mass-transportation.
Indeed, a continuously-running convoy of larger airships could carry as many passengers, each paying the same fare, as one of the proposed High Speed Rail trains, at a fraction of the total cost of the train system, and without having to tear up the terrain to lay track and construct terminals.(Airship Ventures has a mobile mooring truck that allows their airships to dock anywhere there is sufficient open space to do so; in some cases, then, there might even be no need for a formal "terminal" at all.) Plus, such a dirigible system could be put into full-service within a handful of years, not the decades that will be required for High Speed Rail.
Personally, for my $55-75, I'd rather fly to LA in an airship than take a train, high-speed or otherwise. Modern dirigibles use helium (instead of the hydrogen that they were forced to use when the US embargoed sales of helium to the Third Reich in the 1930s), so are extremely safe. Why are we getting ready to go into horrendous debt and tear up the scenery with HSR when an alternative that is more sustainable and more fun already exists and can be used right away? It makes no sense to me...

Ollie wrote:

<quoted text>
Wait, are you talking about an airship or a politician?

Carl Bendix wrote:

<quoted text>Lighter-than-air craft are at the mercy of the weather. This makes scheduled service difficult. They are not practical for larger airports due to their slow speed, lack of maneuverability, and their size. Add to this the high cost of insurance for this type of air carrier operations with out a track record to gauge actual liability.

James Anderson Merritt wrote:

Nutcase, I think you missed one of the more important aspects of my point, which was to contrast the potential of airship technology against that of high-speed rail. I happen to like the idea of airships instead of HSR, but if you think that airships aren't practical at all, or will make a small fortune out of a large one, then how much worse (i.e., less practical) will HSR be? In this case, we are talking about the "fortune" of the entire State of California, which will be made much smaller by an even worse plan than using airships for mass transit.
By the way, a lot of what justifies that statement about aviation you quoted comes from government restriction and regulation. If airline companies didn't have to beg government for the privilege of serving particular routes, and if airports weren't owned by and at the mercy of governments, there would be a lot more profit potential in aviation. Dirigibles are fuel-efficient, less damaging to the environment than airplanes of comparable capacity, safer for passengers overall, and potentially a lot more fun for passengers.
Would it have been possible to bring down the twin towers by crashing a dirigible into it? Maybe if we made more use of airships, we could dispense with much of the apparently useless but endlessly frustrating and irritating security at airports, thus inspiring more people to fly. I know that I would rather take a road trip in my car than a 400-600 mile trip by airliner: the zoo scene and oppressive security at airports is THAT objectionable. But I'd love to spend a few comfortable hours in the air to travel the same distance, especially if there were food and entertainment on board, or if I could connect to the internet from a laptop.

Pat Kittle wrote:

<quoted text>
Helium is easy to make if you have a star, which is of course how it got its name, but I digress.
Earth has very little helium, and that is rapidly being squandered on such necessities as party balloons.
So here's my point -- instead of filling a dirigible with any substance, just pump everything out -- a vacuum will lift much more than helium, or even hydrogen, plus it's non-combustible and it's thought to be non-toxic.
Now that I've done the concept, you do the engineering. Start with a carbon nanotube and scale up. Or something. Don't just sit there.
:-)

B Bunner wrote:

I just thought of a problem that the Naval Reserve Blimps had in the bay area. Since they are slow moving they made great targets for the morons with guns that put holes in the air bag,also the gondola underneath. Why they would do such a thing is beyond me. Give a Moron a gun he needs a target to shoot at, just look at the roadside signs in rural areas. Case Closed.

Pat Kittle wrote:

Earth has very little helium, and that is rapidly being squandered on such necessities as party balloons.
So here's my point -- instead of filling a dirigible with any substance, just pump everything out -- a vacuum will lift much more than helium, or even hydrogen, plus it's non-combustible and it's thought to be non-toxic.