this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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162
The world's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 51 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Twelve electric motors powered by diesel generators and batteries enable vertical take-off and landing. They can propel the Pathfinder 1 at up to 65 knots (75 mph), although its initial flights will be at much lower speeds.

Who the hell wants a 2-day ride to London?

Archer apparently got the math on that right too, in 2010. New York to London is about 3500 miles, which would take about 47 hours at the top speed of 75 mph.

I can't believe they actually got enough money to build this thing. It's like a vaporware project that somehow made it.

The market for this must be literally dozens of people.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Honestly? I would love to take a 2-day trip to London on an airship. That sounds like a great adventure. You're not on a ship, so you don't get seasick, and you're not on a plane, so there's plenty of room to move around.

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FYI you can get motion sick in aerial vehicles, including blimps.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have a few flight hours at the controls of a Cessna-152 (never did took it all the way to an Amateur Pilot License because it's a pretty expensive hobby, at least in Europe) and still remember just how bad the first few flights were until I got used to it: in a small plane you feel every little shitty-shit updraft/downdraft/windshear caused by the most stupid of things (say, the wind hitting the boundary of a forest or the asphalt of a car park heated by the sun more than the surrounding area).

Lets just say I was green in more ways than one in those first couple of flights.

It didn't help that the arfield where I did my training was near enough a major international airport and we weren't allowed to go above 3000 feet unless quite far way from the airfield, because of the Terminal Approach Ways for landings and takeoffs in that airport.

Granted, the bigger the aircraft the less the "up and down and wiggle it all around" feeling of flying is, but it's still quite surprising just how bad the damn thing is on a perfectly normal day if you're only 1 km or less from the ground.

[–] Hank@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you take a look at the cabin? Seems in line with something like a private jet.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

That's Pathfinder 1. Pathfinder 3 is supposed to be much bigger. And the Hindenburg had cabins for sleeping, so there's no reason these couldn't be equipped with that sort of space.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, if they actually manage to run a passenger line for a little while I'll try to go for a ride on it - you know, just to see it before they go bankrupt.

But that's the thing, it's only attractive as an "adventure" or publicity stunt (I can see a short-lived market for "influencers"), kind of like taking passenger rail in the US - it's fun to ride the train when you can afford multiple days of travel time. The difference is, freight rail is practical, useful and economically viable and pays the maintenance cost of the rail lines. This gasbag won't ever be useful in that sense, and it won't ever have value as a regular commuter vehicle.

The only practical use I can see for this is if you need to stay in the air over a particular area for an extended time - maybe an observation platform? but you could just put cameras on a smaller, cheaper balloon...

None of the proposed use cases make sense.

Another important niche could be responding to natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes.

This is a farcical pipe dream. How would it respond? It can't carry enough weight to be useful, and a helicopter would be faster and more flexible for delivering medical personnel or extracting victims. If there's one thing you want in emergency response, it's speed. And you certainly wouldn't take this thing anywhere near a recently erupted volcano or a hurricane because the air currents would be crazy hazardous for a lighter-than-air vehicle.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You could make all those arguments about cruise ships, yet they still exist. At least this will be more environmentally friendly

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yes, and I could see some equivalent to a cruise line possibly, but that's really it... there's no practical use for this, only tourist stuff.

Also cruise ships are like floating hotels with hundreds of rooms, with giant shopping malls and resorts attached. You don't get any of that on an airship because there isn't enough space or carrying capacity.

[–] IamtheMorgz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cruise ships are more about the amenities on board. Not sure how many amenities you could get on an airship because of the weight. So it would be a two days boring as hell trip and most people aren't going to give up the vacay time to sit around and do nothing.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right, so we need holodecks! Someone convince Bezos or Musk that they are feasible "in five years," or "next year."

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I mean... if you have some idea for creating the kind of matter/energy conversion technology needed for a holodeck you'd probably end up richer than both of them combined.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

i bet they would milk the available space for every inch like they do on planes lol

[–] erwan@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They won't if they want to keep any benefit compared to airplanes

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

what are the benefits?

IIRC blimps are hard to work with

[–] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What's the benefit of a cruise ship when planes are so much faster?

Its not always about purely practical concerns

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 11 months ago

The benefit of a cruise ship is that you can fit a massive hotel, shopping mall, resort and maybe even theme park rides on it.

[–] tiredofsametab@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd love to take a slow (presumably more environmentally friendly) flight like that. Limited vacation time is the only issue.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 7 points 1 year ago

I'd love to take a ride on a dirigible.

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The market for this must be literally dozens of people.

Maybe cargo, not people.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Not a chance. If you're paying for air freight it's because you need something delivered now. If you don't need it fast, then train/truck shipping is more cost effective.

While Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in addition to its crew, water ballast and fuel, future humanitarian airships will need much larger capacities.

By comparison, the Airbus A350-900 has a payload capacity of 53 tons, and the newer A350F version can carry 111 tons.

Even if they manage to triple the payload capacity, the A350F can carry 10x the weight.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If they send a bunch of them and they replace container ship traffic, however- how much less pollution is that?

Not saying they don’t face an extremely uphill battle to scale enough for that to make sense (we all know the green angle alone won’t be enough even if it should be…)

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

replace container ship traffic

A single standard twenty-foot cargo container can carry ~20000 lbs (10 tons). This airship can't even match half the capacity of one container. Modern cargo ships carry thousands of those containers, the largest about 24000. You would need to build 40000 airships to get roughly the carrying capacity of one container ship.

This isn't an uphill battle, it's completely infeasible.

[–] PizzasDontWearCapes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

"a bunch"?

Container ships can carry over 200K tons

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 2 points 1 year ago

If they are fully automated and solar powered, might be useful for shipping on the cheap if you have a swarm of it.

[–] buzziebee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How much does it cost to send that freight at that speed though?

As airships get bigger and bigger they'll be able to handle more cargo, and they'll be a nice middle solution that fits between air freight and ships/road freight in both cost and speed.

It's a potential new multiple billion market solution. These people aren't developing the tech for no reason.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 0 points 11 months ago

How much does it cost to send that freight at that speed though?

Air freight is usually for overnight, so it definitely tends to be expensive. I don't see how this is going to be less expensive, with such a limited carrying capacity. Every pound will come at a premium.

As airships get bigger and bigger they'll be able to handle more cargo

OK, to improve the payload of an airplane you can improve the aerodynamics, increase the wingspan, use more powerful engines or lighten the frame/use newer fancy composite materials. The modernized A350F doubled the payload of the previous model.

This airship is a prototype and parts of it are probably overbuilt and could be more efficient. But it also has almost no cabin structure, so to carry more cargo they're going to have to add a fair amount of structure which is going to cut into the added weight capacity. And, the heavier the cargo is the heavier the frame and structure will have to be. To effectively double the payload, they'll have to more than double the size of the gas envelope, which is going to hit a practical limit pretty quickly. They might get to the capacity of 1 TEU (~10 tons) with very efficient design, but it will never match the capacity of even the older A350-900. And the bigger balloon is going to restrict the places this thing can land.

middle solution that fits between air freight and ships/road freight in both cost and speed.

With a top speed of 75 mph, this might match road transit but won't beat it.

It's a potential new multiple billion market solution. These people aren't developing the tech for no reason.

It's a hobby project for one of Google's founders, who has more money than he know what to do with.

[–] Taringano@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Airship can land and take off from virtually any surface that allows that silly baloon to fit. Not just airports or air strips.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 11 months ago

Sure, but so can a helicopter, which can also carry more weight and get there faster.

[–] bratosch@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Upvote cus Archer reference.

[–] mwproductions@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Stupid, naturally safe helium!

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It's even more entertaining: it's airspeed not ground speed, so the trip duration depends on the direction and force of the wind at the heigh it travels in (and that's a lot worse for airships that aircraft because the formar have a much larger area facing the wind than the latter).

So that trip at top speed would likelly be shorter than that on the way to London, but longer than that on the way back (as the predominant winds - except during the El Niño - are from the west).

[–] Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

I can see this being used in international shipping if the get the cost down. Why put your product on a big ship when you can use an air ship? Also for landlocked countries.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not like the world is running out of Helium or anything and maybe it would be better used in scientific and medical applications than a big fuckoff airship.

[–] vanontom@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

This is the future of air travel! An airship revolution! Just need a few million dollars from ~~daddy~~ "investors". Silicon Valley is full of these absurd schemes and games for bored billionaires.

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 1 points 1 year ago

Don't worry, we'll make more helium later when cold fusion finally happen.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For everyone saying it has no market.... some googling finds it is intended for slow cargo delivery to places that have no existing infrastructure. Also this is a prototype, so the bigger ones will have a much larger capacity. They also say it is for disaster relief, similarly to places with no infra, or where that infrastructure has been destroyed like in an earthquake or what not.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

slow cargo delivery to places that have no existing infrastructure.

And how much cargo demand is there in places that have no infrastructure?

Yeah no, there's still no market. Anyplace that has the need for cargo delivery builds the infrastructure.

Also this is a prototype, so the bigger ones will have a much larger capacity.

Accepted, but "much larger" in this context is going to be like 2x, maybe 3x payload. Not 10x.

They also say it is for disaster relief, similarly to places with no infra, or where that infrastructure has been destroyed like in an earthquake or what not.

Ah yes, just what the world has been waiting for... slow disaster relief.

There's no disaster relief role that this could fill that isn't already being done better by helicopters.

Also, the idea of sending a lighter-than-air vehicle anywhere near a hurricane or recently erupted volcano is ludicrous. Earthquake, maybe, but a helicopter would still do supply drops and rescue faster and more flexibly than a ponderous gasbag.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Right now, plenty of places with no infrastructure usually just don't get developed. So this would open the door to some places. And who do you think would want to go to such places. The very rich. So you can charge a whole lot to get them the cargo they want. That is how things with small market can make ridiculous amounts of money.

And disaster relief is for PR. But with all the connections he has, I am sure he will be able to get governments or even private backers to pony up money to send the blimp into a disaster area because it is hugely visisble and makes those people look like they are helping.

[–] Luisp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago

It's made of indestructible materials, not even god can sink it!

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I do believe those are traditionally called airships rather than aircraft or is the renaming of lighter-than-air dirigibles to "aircraft" yet another example of Silicon Valley Marketing spinning yet-another-reinventing-of-the-wheel as innovation.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 11 months ago

Aircraft is a general term for basically anything that flies while being supported by air pressure (wings, jets/rotors, balloons). A rocket would (generally) not be considered an aircraft because the rocket supports its own weight (it doesn't create lift from the atmosphere around it).

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 5 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

As dawn breaks over Silicon Valley, the world is getting its first look at Pathfinder 1, a prototype electric airship that its maker LTA Research hopes will kickstart a new era in climate-friendly air travel, and accelerate the humanitarian work of its funder, Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

The airship — its snow-white steampunk profile visible from the busy 101 highway — has taken drone technology such as fly-by-wire controls, electric motors and lidar sensing, and supersized them to something longer than three Boeing 737s, potentially able to carry tons of cargo over many hundreds of miles.

This morning, the airship floated silently from its WW2-era hangar at NASA’s Moffett Field at walking pace, steered by ropes held by dozens of the company’s engineers, technicians and ground crew.

The first lesson its engineers hope to learn is how Pathfinder 1’s approximately one million cubic feet of helium and weather resistant polymer skin will respond to the warming effect of Californian sunshine.

At the start of September, the FAA issued a special airworthiness certificate for the Pathfinder 1 allowing test flights in and around Moffett Field and the nearby Palo Alto airport, and over the southern part of the San Francisco Bay.

That will involve a long, slow slog to validate the new technologies and to demonstrate, to the FAA and paying customers, that a new generation of super-large airships can match the generally excellent safety and reliability record of today’s commercial jets.

The original article contains 1,145 words, the summary contains 241 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 11 months ago

Straight out of Bloons 😂

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I prefer the PeterBlimp

[–] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Quick! To the HindenPeter!

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did I err in calling it PeterBlimp?

[–] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Yes.