How old is this prediction. Time for another walk around the block...
Posted on 03/08/2006 10:48:59 AM PST by Dallas59
Tomorrow's cruise ship will sail through the air, not the water
By Joshua Tompkins
John MacNeill LIFTOFF! On a pressurized plane, windows like these would explode outward . The Aeroscraft does not fly high enough to need pressurization.
This is not a Blimp. It's a sort of flying Queen Mary 2 that could change the way you think about air travel. It's the Aeroscraft, and when it's completed, it will ferry pampered passengers across continents and oceans as they stroll leisurely about the one-acre cabin or relax in their well-appointed staterooms.
Unlike its dirigible ancestors, the Aeroscraft is not lighter than air. Its 14 million cubic feet of helium hoist only two thirds of the craft's weight. The rigid and surprisingly aerodynamic body—driven by huge rearward propellers—generates enough additional lift to keep the behemoth and its 400-ton payload aloft while cruising. During takeoff and landing, six turbofan jet engines push the ship up or ease its descent.
This two-football-fields-long concept airship is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak, whose privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, is in the early stages of developing a prototype and expects to have one completed by 2010. Pasternak says several cruise ship companies have expressed interest in the project, and for good reason: The craft would have a range of several thousand miles and, with an estimated top speed of 174 mph, could traverse the continental U.S. in about 18 hours. During the flight, passengers would peer at national landmarks just 8,000 feet below or, if they weren't captivated by the view, the cavernous interior would easily accommodate such amenities as luxury staterooms, restaurants, even a casino.
To minimize noise, the aft-mounted propellers will be electric, powered by a renewable source such as hydrogen fuel cells. A sophisticated buoyancy-management system will serve the same purpose as trim on an airplane, allowing for precise adjustments in flight dynamics to compensate for outside conditions and passenger movement. The automated system will draw outside air into compartments throughout the ship and compress it to manage onboard weight.
The company envisions a cargo-carrying version that could deliver a store's worth of merchandise from a centralized distribution center straight to a Wal-Mart parking lot or, because the helium-filled craft will float, a year's worth of supplies to an offshore oil rig. "You can land on the snow, you can land on the water," Pasternak says. "It's a new vision of what can be done in the air."
Aeroscraft Purpose: Long-range travel for passengers who are more concerned with the journey than the destination Dimensions (feet): 165 h x 244 w x 647 l Max Speed: 174 mph Range: 6,000 miles Capacity: 250 passengers
New Orleans could use a couple of these........
AirBus announces plans to build a bigger better one, cheaper
Uh huh. I'm still waiting for my anti-grav belt and flying car.
That plane must be the flagship for Michael Moore Airlines.
Why is flying over the ocean at 8,000 feet more exciting than at 36,000 feet? Now, at 8 feet, its a different story.
Can't operate above severe weather, too slow to fly around it.
Bad Idea.
8 feet at mach 3 even more exciting?
"MobyAir", so I assume the flagship is the "Herman Melville"
"Uh huh. I'm still waiting for my anti-grav belt and flying car."
HERE HERE!
and head to toe FULL medical diagnostic beds,
and wearable computing devices that don't limit or cost an arm /leg,
and terraforming,
and molecular deposition manufacturing, and and and
guess we just gotta be patient.
Top sends
First thunderstorm and everyone aboard is toast. Get airsick in an airplane? Wait until you get a ride on this baby! Will be like riding a nasty animal for 18 hours.
Like long trips? Crews that flew Navy blimps out of New Jersey in the 1950s always had to pack a bag in case they couldn't get back because of weather or wind speed. Their next stop after New Jersey was the Canary Islands, and if that didn't work, Africa!
Like inexperienced crews? There are no experienced dirigable pilots left (blimps are different). Your "captain" may have 300 hours flying time, if you're lucky.
Always wanted to be a test pilot? No problemo! EVERYONE aboard these death ships will be part of the test crew.
I can't wait to see one of these things fly...
"I can't wait to see one of these things fly..."
It does seem as if such a huge and relatively slow aircraft would need a tremendous "margin of error" in the event of wind shear or other heavy turbulence, but they're not pressurized, so they're going to be flying at relatively low altitude. Which makes for quite an inticing (and easy) target for all those terminally-aggrieved groups to shoot down, too.
I don't fly well--the idea of being in a big metal tube hurtling through the air at several hundred miles per hour five or six miles up in the sky does not appeal to me. My first (and last) flight some years ago was plagued by storms that made the plane lurch and bounce and the cabin lights flicker. Even this might not have been so bad had the stewardess, while telling us to put something or other in the upright position, not suddenly burst into tears and run away. This sort of thing makes one nervous, especially on a first flight.
When we were taking off or coming in for a landing, and I could see the ground just below us, I could think, "Okay, okay, now, if something went wrong, I could probably just jump and maybe land in that bush and . . . " The advantage of MobyAir is that you could spend the entire trip like that, looking for nice, soft places to land in case you had to jump out--and only 8000 feet to fall!
Yep, sign me up!
First google "battle blimp" then " pasternak walrus pentagon"
Win or lose by Pasternak, we will see these in use by civilian companies eventually, CRAF companies are going to need some...too much defense money on the line to believe otherwise.
How about tethering them a few hundred feet above the ground with some kind of ski lift -like way to get up or down... you could have a hotel in the sky ...
Aeroscraft is to be filled with Helium.
Compare and contrast. Pay particular attention to the chemical reactivity of each of those two elements.
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