From: GT McCoy <gtmccoy@harborside. com>
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 18:48:52 -0700
Fwd Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2000 11:13:09 -0400
Subject: UpDate: Re: Giant Airships - McCoy


Hello all,

 >Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 18:21:29 -0700
 >From: SMiles Lewis <elfis@austin. rr. com>
 >Subject: Giant Airships
 >To: UFO UpDates <updates@sympatico. ca>

This is relevant -especially for those who think
in the secret aircraft/Black triangle mode.

 >Tho it isn't specificly UFO related...

 >I think you see the relevance.

 >SMiles
 >www. elfis. net

 >From: "Martin Adamson" <martin@srv0. ems. ed. ac. uk>
 >Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 13:38:58 +0000
 >To: forteana@primenet. com
 >Subject: Giant airship could end famine

 >Evening Standard

 >Giant airship could end famine

 >by Richard Allen

 >The prototype for a gigantic airship the length of four Jumbo
 >jets and capable of carrying 880 cars from London to New York in
 >three days is due to be unveiled tomorrow.

Ok, this isn't the first time someone proposed this sort of
thing, even Zepplin themselves have 300 ft. prototype
flying-again.

 >The 100mph craft, SkyCat 1000, designed by British engineers,
 >will use hovercraft technology to enable it to land anywhere,
 >even on water, without the need for a ground crew.

Fine, but how the heck are you goning to control it once it
alights? This is what ground crews do, one of the problems of
lighter than air flight, is the fact that you have all that mass
and no way to control it once the engines are off.

 >In the days of the Graf Zeppelin more than 200 people were
 >needed on the ground to bring it down. Now Aircraft Technologies
 >Group is launching SkyCat's 50ft baby, SkyKitten, at Cardington
 >in Bedfordshire, the home of the ill-fated R101 airship which
 >crashed in France in 1928 with the loss of 40 lives.

The R 101 was a classic case of design by commitee, over budget,
over weight, it could barely get out of its own way, the R-100
could run rings around it, but the British Gov'nt thought the R
-101 was much better. Then, as I recall the R-100 was grounded
because the Gov'nt thought all airships were as bad as the
klunky R- 101. End of Brit Lighter-Than-Air until the 1970's.

 >But the design brains behind ATG, Roger Munk, is keen to point
 >out that hydrogen, the highly flammable gas used in the R101 and
 >the Hindenberg, which crashed in 1937, is a thing of the past.
 >Modern airships use helium, an inert gas that is actually used
 >to put fires out.

Acutually, if the Hindenburg was filled with Aviation Fuel, it
would have leveled Lakehurst N. J. The use of Helium has
drawbacks too, paticularly it requires more volume in the gas
cells, because Helium has more mass than Hydrogen. the cells
have to be at least 10% larger to exract the same perfomance out
of Helium. enlarging the Airframe to accomidate Helium
contributed to the death of the Shenandoah in 1925.

There was a recent book I can't remember the title of, speculated
it was the covering of the Hindenburg that caught on fire due to
static the covering material being of simular composition to ah,
solid rocket fuel.

<snip>

 >Mr Munk said: "SkyCat 1000 is basically a heavy lift platform
 >that can be used for a whole stack of purposes. It is a
 >"The fact it can land on any terrain of water or marsh makes it
 >particularly flexible. In aid situations, with a 1, 000-tonne
 >payload, you could literally stop a famine in one go.

<snip>

Lack of handlers, now no mooring mast, how is this accomplished?
Ballonets, Ballast?somthing has to be done to keep the craft
from flying into space like a child's Balloon. Vectored thrust?
I'd like to know.

 >"It would also make an enormous difference in mounting the
 >expeditionary warfare which is so difficult these days. Some
 >lunatic does something in some far- flung part of the globe and,
 >as was demonstrated in Kosovo, the West cannot get in a
 >sufficiently large ground force quickly enough to stop the
 >threat.

In a large, slow moving, target. Look what happened to the
Messerschimtt "Gigant" gliders that were shot down in droves by
the British defending Malta.

The few military sucesses of Lighter-Than-Air was the U. S,
Navy's Blimp program, not shutting down until the 1960's. mainly
being an antisubmarine and early warning system.

 >"What troublemakers know is that the West has extremely slow
 >response times. This kind of technology enables you to fly in a
 >balanced force that can stop an outbreak in its tracks. "

As long as some guerrilla isn't tracking you with a Russian . 50,
Ak-47 or a squad of Longbowmen.

 >By the middle of next year ATG expects to have a 269ft, 15-tonne
 >pay-load machine flying, which could be used for taking 100
 >people on low-level sightseeing trips or for carrying a huge TV
 >advertising screen.

Actually one of the best uses for Lighter-Than-Air. Remember the
scene in "Blade Runner"?

 >The year after that will see the production of a 200-tonne
 >payload aircraft, carrying twice the load of a Jumbo jet,
 >and two years after that the SkyCat 1000.

 >The C5, the largest military transport plane currently used by
 >the US military, can carry one tank. The SkyCat 1000 would be
 >able to carry 16.

Yes, but have the problems inherent to Zepplin type transport
craft been overcome:Namely fragility and the inablity to cope
with wind shear.

I would like you to remember these names. Arkon :(1912) -blew
up over New York with all hands. Shenandoah :(1925) Crashed
near Lakehurst, N. J. all officers in the control car (13) killed
in heavy thunderstorm. The second Arkon (1933) Crashed off New
Jeresy shore 73 killed three survived-Thunderstorm. Macon (1935)
crashed off the Monterey CA. coast 2 dead-Thunderstorm. From
1912 to 1935 there were 19 peacetime accidents 350 killed, 17
due to weather.

This is due to the light construction of the Zepplin type
airframe. even with modern materials there appears to be a size
limit.

 >It would be capable of crossing the Atlantic twice without
 >refuelling at a speed four times faster than the world's biggest
 >cruise ship. It is so vast it could not fit into Wembley
 >Stadium. In fact, by volume, it could contain Wembley Stadium.

<snip>

 >Other possible military uses include naval mine sweeping or as
 >an airborne radar platform. SkyCat 1000 is particularly suitable
 >for the latter role as it could remain "on station" for days
 >rather than hours as is the case with aircraft.

Yep, a perfectly good use for a Zepp.

 >Snip<

 >Around 450 passengers could travel in the SkyCat 1000 in comfort
 >or 100 passengers in the kind of spacious elegance offered by an
 >ocean liner. There could be silver- service meals, lounges,
 >possibly a piano bar and state rooms for a comfortable night's
 >sleep.

 >When conditions are right, the captain could descend to 600ft
 >and cut the engines so that travellers could stroll on an outer
 >promenade deck in complete silence.

Oh, never, never, cut the engines, that would be courting
disaster. it's been done, believe me (as I was there once) you'd
be in trouble quicker than you could say "New Carissa"- a local
example of why you never shut your engines down, also you then
have to figure out what part Leonardo DiCaprio will play . I vote
for Jim Carrey as the Captain

Now why the long reply to this letter? well don't get me wrong
as I am a frustrated Zepplin Captian myself. I do think they are
useful. and like Steam Locomotives, we gave up on Rigid
Lighter-than- -Air (LTA from now on), also called Zepplins too
soon. But they have their limitations, heavy weather
particularly wind shear is a big problem, so is dissapation of
static over such a large area.

The use of vectored thrust is one solution, and it's seen on
modern non-rigid (blimps) and the new Zepplin Demonstrator, but
it's still difficult on a large 800-1000ft body to get it to go
where you want it to go quickly. -This is why I have problems
with "Black Triangles" being somthing "ours" or at least built
with "our" technology. They can move fast manever well and are
silent for the most part. Zepplin type LTA's aren't .

Areons are somewhat differnet, half plane half rigid LTA. Has
some advantages but still falls short in storage of stuff, Gas,
and what ever propels it. and it's still
unmaneuverable-realtivley speaking .

Any way, sorry for the long post but I had to explain things -
I hope.

GT McCoy