© 2006 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/retired/buoyancy-bounces-back/
This article is marked as 'retired'. The information here may be out of date, incomplete, and/or incorrect.
“Lighter-than-air” airships were once a promising breed, providing an inexpensive way to move large amounts of people and cargo for long distances. But after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, flight-by-buoyancy was all but abandoned by the aeronautics industry. Hot air balloons and blimps have seen occasional use, but the giant, rigid-airship zeppelins were all dismantled by 1940, and have hardly been seen since.
Now the U.S. Army is taking another look at the technology, with plans to develop a vehicle which harks back to the buoyant days of the zeppelins; however this new design is not intended to be “lighter-than-air,” rather it is a hybrid combining aerodynamics, thrust vectoring and gas buoyancy. Combining these three forces, the Army hopes to develop a cargo vehicle which can haul more than five hundred tons over very long distances, and land almost anywhere. The concept is called the “Walrus.”
Zeppelins were briefly used by the German military during the First World War, primarily for bombing and reconnaissance missions. But their vulnerability to gunfire from the Earth and from other aircraft made them impractical, and they were quickly abandoned as a military vehicle. The rigid airships which followed were used to transport people and cargo, and until the Hindenburg took the entire zeppelin industry down in flames, the reliability and endurance of lighter-than-air vehicles was very promising.
Some new technologies should make this latest foray into buoyant airships a bit more practical for the military. This design will still be vulnerable to gunfire due to its relatively large size and low speed, but its use will be limited to missions where the area in question is already under control, even if only temporarily. The Army envisions a vehicle which can transport an entire Unit of Action— including 1,800 infantry plus armor support— from its operational base in the U.S. to the theater of combat… wherever that may be. This factors into the military’s “10-30-30” objective: deploy to a distant theater in 10 days, defeat an enemy within 30 days, and be ready for an additional fight within another 30 days.
By way of comparison, the military’s current cargo workhorse— the C-130 Hercules— holds about 22 tons the C-5 Galaxy— holds about 150 tons (thanks Avenger). In order to lift the 500-1,000 tons as required in the specifications, it is estimated that the Walrus will be about 1,000 feet long, with a size roughly comparable to an aircraft carrier. Despite its size, it does have one large advantage over cargo planes such as the C-5: the Walrus’ design allows the vessel to land practically anywhere, with no need for a landing strip … or even land, for that matter. The Army’s requirements call for a craft which can land on “unimproved terrain” or on water.
If the design proves viable and cost-effective, the peacetime benefits of this technology are potentially great as well. The Walrus is planned to have a range of 6,000 miles which it can travel within four days, providing an inexpensive means of hauling large amounts of cargo great distances through the air.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded funding to two contractors for the first phase of the Walrus program. If the design phase goes well, phase two should produce a smaller 30-ton-capacity prototype by 2007.
Further reading:
DARPA draft document on the Walrus concept (PDF)
Millenium Airship site (developers of a similar concept)
© 2006 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/retired/buoyancy-bounces-back/
Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://www.damninteresting.com/donate ?
I guess I do not fully understand the usefullness of one of these. If its for a ‘secured-zone’ what the point of transferring a whole freaking unit with this thing if the place is already secure. And for obvious reasons it would seem that you could not really use one of these to transfer a whole unit to a non-secured zone if one IED will take the whole damn thing down….so where does this thing fit in then?
I guess if for transferring a whole unit to the front lines in one giant move, then this would be good. Sounds like a HUGE risk to be moving that much armor and troops if one could be taken down so easily. That is my two cents from ALLLLL my Red Alert experience…….so take it for what its worth.
The only time that the unit would be vulnerable to anything other than missiles and air craft would be during take off and landing. It could travel to and from its destination at a relatively high altitude.
The deployment theory would be to first send an expeditionary force to secure a landing zone then send all of the rest of the troops at once overwhelming the oppositions defences. The landing zone could even be secured only a few hours prior to deployment to minimize the chances that the opposition would have the hardware in place to attempt to damage the unit during landing
I think the idea is to move a small force using conventional methods to secure a landing zone, and then deploy the main force using the walrus. I imagine the cost per tonne would be an order of magnitude cheaper then using standard transport aircraft yet far faster than deploying by sea.
One could imagine this fitted out in the style of a luxury cruise liner, and touring the world from the air. That would be something I could get into debt for.
Actually, the workhorse of the US military is no longer the C-130; C-130’s, while still in use, are finding themselves more and more in specialized roles, such as the Spectre Gunship, which makes its home here at Hurlburt Field as part of the Air Force’s Special Operations Command.
Nowadays Air Mobility Command utilizes the C-17 Globemaster III, with a cargo capacity of about 75 tons, and the C-5 Galaxy, with a cargo capacity of about 150 tons. The C-5 carries almost all of the Army’s equipment these days, even that cool expanding bridge that became a GI Joe toy back in the 80’s.
The C-5 is simply amazing; the cargo bay is bigger than the entire Wright brother’s first flight. The full fuel load on that beast weighs as much as the old C-141. The paint alone weighs a thousand pounds, if I remember right.
This idea seems to surface every few years or so, it gets tossed around the magazines and internet, then sinks below the horizon again. I think it’s a great idea to move lots of stuff cheaply, if slowly. And with sufficient air support, say with A-10’s and/or AC-130’s it would be practical in a war zone as well.
Avenger said: “the C-5 Galaxy, with a cargo capacity of about 150 tons. The C-5 carries almost all of the Army’s equipment these days, even that cool expanding bridge that became a GI Joe toy back in the 80’s.”
Thanks man, I fixed the article accordingly. I knew about the C-5, but I was under the mistaken impression that the C-130 was still the Army’s favorite for cargo hauling. After your comment I went and did some research, and found that you’re right.
While I have been out of the service for more than a decade, the C-130 is still the best way to get troops and stuff, outside of choppers anyway, into and out of hot zones. I was in the Air Force when the C-17 debuted, and it is a beautiful plane, but it’s way too big, and it’s turbofans way to happy to suck up any loose crap around for such missions. Yes, for shear hauling capacity the C-5(proof that with large enough wings a building will fly) is unmatched, but let’s give the Herky bird her due please.
Sounds like yazheirx and RandomAction are right about the deployment theory.
Remember: It can land anywhere, so you might just need to grab a valley somewhere for it to touch down. It’s not like an aircraft, where you to sieze a landing strip in order to bring it in.
To heck with the military aspects, I’m with Random Action on outfitting an airship for pleasure cruises. Given that the motors would be eco-friendly, I don’t see any reason that a Graf Zeppelin or Hindenburg clone couldn’t attract a paying ridership. Check out some of the info on Wiki about the heyday of rigid airships. Some of these were outfitted like the freakin’ Titanic, as far as luxury was concerned! (O.K. the Titanic and Hindenburg in the same paragraph is probably not a particularly good selling point). However, with helium readily available, there is no explosive danger as with hydrogen.
This would be great for disaster relief operations, particularly in areas that aren’t near the sea. For hauling cargo in a developing nation, this would be much more efficient than a truck convoy along crummy roads (if there are even roads).
I am a major enthusiast of some under-deployed efficient technologies, and airships are one of them. (The others include stirling engines and wide area municipal pneumatic tube parcel shipment infrastructures.)
For those that wonder why airships are so much more efficient: in a conventional aircraft, energy has to be continuously spent just to stay in the air. A good deal of that energy is spent simply keeping the plane up, but in an air ship that stays afloat by bouyancy, 100% of the energy spent goes into moving the ship forward, though some of it is lost overcoming the increased drag. Airships can remain afloat indefinitely were it not for the physical needs of humans; loss of fuel is not the grave and urgent threat to Airships that it is to airplanes. (Running out of fuel would still be a major problem for any vessel, but it won’t cause an Airship to stall out and fall like a rock with wings.)
In the grand scheme of things, the energy spent overcoming the drag on a streamlined ship like the Hindenburg or a massive transport airship is far less than the energy that would have been spent giving it the necessary air time if the thing had to stay in the air by use of wings. In fact, if the airship is made streamlined enough and given a hard shell, it could hypothetically attain even higher efficiencies. And all that surface area on top could be lined with solar cells to assist in powering the airship’s electrical needs, further enhancing efficiency of operation.
Ive always wanted to see what 20000 imperable zeppelins would look like flying over New York , or any really freaking large city.
Red Alert helped me a little but I want more -__- I hope they interpret something like this in a movie, it would be epic.
During the 1970’s while I was employed as a helicopter structures engineer/mechanic I had the occasion to visit the Lakehurst facility and observed a gigantic rigid airship project with four Sikorsky S58 helicopters mounted on an external framework, with the controls mounted in the left front heli. I believe this was a joint military/commercial venture. Anyone have information on this ?
I just love the pictures of Zepplins attacking London in the first world war those pilots were going at a snail’s pace in a glorified balloon over enemy territory. All I can say is that they had huge balls
The shape and green-color remind me: “Thunderbirds Are Go!”
I want one! Does it come in red?
Over a year and half later and still no airships. Personally I dont think the military wants a target that juicy, but I could be wrong.
I think that is it http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=VbED8TZeOaA&feature=related
Very interesting in that it would help armies and air freighters to haul more tonnage. 6,000 miles at 100 mph is pretty decent, but I wonder how zeppelins compare when it comes to fuel economy? Is it more fuel efficient than the C-5?
That was how I first saw it referenced: for humanitarian missions. You could float a fully staffed and equipped hospital around, say, sub-Saharan Africa, which would most likely be an international effort. Alternately, a large, populous, and developing nation, such as India or China, might want to build such a health-care resource for themselves.
I can see why the military studied (or continues to study) the concept but, at least for now, I agree that the platform is too vulnerable to be used in combat, although again, military hospitals miles from the front would be useful.