Low earth orbit is becoming increasingly crowded with satellite traffic and, as Gravity showed us, increasingly treacherous. So rather than try to squeeze yet another spacecraft into the mix, a French consortium has begun development on a super-high altitude, autonomous dirigible that will skim along the edge of the stratosphere.
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This ain’t no blimp. The first new dirigible in nearly a half century to bear the the iconic Goodyear logo is actually a rigid airship—a safer, more efficient, far less explodey form of air travel than conventional blimps.
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The HAV304 took the crown of “world’s longest aircraft” with its inaugural flight today. The gargantuan spans a football field and towers just over two stories in height, owing its construction to pure metal. It sacrifices little in being the world’s longest, as it still reaches 100 mph, which is triple that of the dwarfish Goodyear blimp. Further, it can stay airborne for just over three weeks (and hypothetically, if it could maintain its maximum speed for all that time, it would travel over 50,000 miles.)
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Smithsonian’s Around the Mall blog recently dug up an awesome FAO Schwarz catalog from 1911, found over at the Internet Archive. It’s filled with some pretty fantastic toys, including airship-themed board games, Kodak cameras, and carriages led by sheep. But these gifts didn’t come cheap.
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All Over Albany recently posted this futuristic illustration of Troy, New York, drawn in 1916. The image shows Troy in the year 2016: the streets lined with streamlined buses and trolleys, the sky filled with giant airships, and a rather phallic-looking building towering over downtown.
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Gotta feel bad for this guy: a Pennsylvania man who’d hit some very hard times wanted to end it all in a fiery blaze after watching a TV show about the Hindenburg crash. He’s still alive, but the explosion he set off leveled his house.
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It’s been nearly a century since airships floated by the Empire State Building. But now that the aluminum airship of the future
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The US Army’s not-so-secret Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) spy blimp is better at staying hidden than we thought… if unintentionally. Although it was due to fly the friendly skies of Lakehurst, New Jersey in mid-June, Northrop Grumman’s usually unmanned surveillance was only just caught floating over the Jersey Shore as part of a maiden flight on August 8th. The conspicuous, delayed test run proved that the LEMV could take off, steer and land smoothly, and started a series of exercises that should culminate in combat trials over Afghanistan at the start of 2013. Northrop’s KC Brown Jr. tells Wired that there’s a possible (if purely coincidental) consolation for missing another deadline — the airship could be used in a pinch for carrying as much as seven tons of supplies without getting into harm’s way, albeit at a fairly glacial 30MPH. The successful first flight won’t be much consolation to Mav6, whose Blue Devil 2 was scuttled at the last minute after technical issues; it’s nonetheless a relief for US troops, who may get weeks at a time of constant intelligence on enemy movements. Catch a short snippet of the early LEMV journey after the break.
Filed under: Robots, Transportation
US Army’s LEMV spy blimp spotted hovering over New Jersey, may take up cargo duties (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Aug 2012 06:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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