Cargo Airships: International Competition

Abstract

The advance of transportation technology depends on science and economics. During the 1930s, airships and airplanes competed head-to-head for the Atlantic passenger market. When World War 2 broke out, everything changed. Over the next five years, the combined combatants built over half of a million military airplanes. By the end of the war, four-engine, high-altitude bombers and jet engines were developed. Further investment in airplane technology was stimulated by the Cold War. All this public investment was adapted to civilian passenger jet airplanes. By 1980, dedicated jet airplanes were in use as cargo carriers. Despite the growth of the cargojet market over the past three decades, rising fuel costs and environmental concerns are changing the economics of airships and airplanes again. Investment in large cargo airships is returning. Much of the technology developed for fixed-wing aircraft can be applied to cargo airships. New materials, better engines, control systems and engineering eliminate the need for large ground crews and improve airship reliability and safety. However, two fundamental design issues have yet to be resolved: structural integrity and buoyancy control. A worldwide competition is underway on three continents to develop the dominant design for a cargo airship. This paper examines the alternative design approaches and presents the status of the international competition.

Conceptual design and analysis of hybrid airships with renewable energy

“…For an aircraft, it must be the platform area of the wing. For airships, it is Vol 2 / 3 where Vol is the volume of the airship envelope holding the lifting gas.…”

“…With long endurance and heavy load as ever, HAs can accomplish better dirigibility, 1 ground-handling and flexible altitude adjustment. 2,3 Currently, there are two representative applications: high-altitude platforms and cargo transport for HAs present in some specific industry-leading companies and literature.

Figure 1.Combination of the lift of the HA.

…”

“…And the improving envelope fiber materials with less weight and higher structural strength made some cargo HA projects a semi-rigid form, such as Aerocat R40 by Aero Vehicles Inc. and Airship do Brasil. 2 A portion of non-rigid configuration supporters, such as Lockheed Martin, thought that the non-rigid and multi-lobed shape are feasible after Aerocraft Program, and the air cushion landing system (ACLS) should also be considered to adapt to different landing conditions 14 as with P-791. It should be noted that different structure forms are acceptable to HA designers for specified applications.…”

“…Skycat maximum altitude is 3 km with 44 m/s maximum velocity, while SkyHook JHL-40 is 36 m/s. 11 Other than conventional airships, cargo HAs have more flexible methods than ballonets adjusting the altitude, such as the gas cells to control buoyancy 2 and vector thrust 13 which is mainly used for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL).…”

Hybrid Buoyant Aircraft: Future STOL Aircraft for Interconnectivity of the Malaysian Islands

“…In the case of conventional aircraft, half of the fuel is used to keep it aloft, whereas the use of aerostatic lift in hybrid buoyant aircraft has the potential to reduce the amount of fuel required to keep the aircraft aloft (Prentice & Knotts, 2014). Hybrid buoyant aircraft combine the aerodynamic (similar to conventional aircraft) and aerostatic lift (similar to airships) and are considered the ''best of the both worlds'' by Zhang, Han, and Song (2009).…”