Hydrogen Airships are the Future of AviationThere are two reasons for this essay. The first reason is to argue why we should bring back hydrogen airships. The second reason is I need more practice at essay writing for my English exam. Hydrogen airships were first developed at a time when nothing was known of aerodynamics and materials used in aircraft consisted of fabric and wood. We have developed the whole field of aerodynamics and even heavier than air flight in the time airships have existed. Hydrogen airships can now be made safe and able to do everything aeroplanes can't.
How can airships be useful in today's world?The main advantages that come from using an airship instead of an aeroplane come from the fact that an airship can fly without moving or at least very slowly. While aircraft like a helicopter can do this too, A helicopter can not do this without using up fuel. An airship on the other hand could remain airborne without using any fuel at all for years, theoretically. So airships could easily be used in situations where large ships are used today. There are even a few advantages, an oil Airship would be unlikely to hit a reef while airborne and a logging airship could load over a forest in the middle of a continent and offload logs into a paper mill in the middle of another. With an airship you can take the most direct route. There are even uses that haven't been discovered yet like being able to construct sections of skyscrapers on the ground and then lift the section already built to the construction site. Now for the big one, for a while I've only talked about uses for airships in general but what about Hydrogen airships. Well hydrogen is the least dense of any element so if you use it in an airship you get more lift, you can either carry heavier objects or have more room with the same amount of lift. It's just an advantage plain and simple.
How can we prevent another Hindenberg?In 1937 at Lakehurst, New Jersey the Zeppelin Hindenburg started burning and crashed killing thirty-five of the ninety-seven passengers. Unfortunately the Hindenburg used hydrogen which was quickly blamed for the fire. This caused the end of the airship era as the use of hydrogen was phased out. Airships today only use helium and only do two very limited, jobs cover sports events and advertising. If we weren't afraid of another Hindenburg we could use airships a lot more. There are three theories as to why the Hindenburg crashed. The most popular one is that there'd been a lightening storm that night and a hydrogen leak and a spark ignited the hydrogen and caused an explosion. The second theory is that it was the covering that caught fire and the final theory is that the crash was the result of poor workmanship. If you can solve all these problems then we won't have another Hindenberg disaster ever. So if the bag that held the hydrogen had several fireproof chambers in it then at least most of the hydrogen would be protected from an explosion, the skin could be made of a non-flammable and electrically conductive material removing the risk of it burning or causing a spark. Finally two more things that would help reduce the chance of the hydrogen burning if the two air bags were split into two and then seperarate them by placing the gondala in between the two. this would mean any explosion would only ever have half of the hydrogen to burn. If the gondala was also designed to provide aerodynamic lift then even less Hydrogen would be needed (less hydrogen to explode too).
ConclusionHydrogen Airships are a technology that is superior to what we currently use but that we gave up because it wasn't safe enough at the time. We now have the technology to make it safe to use so what's stopping us. if you're still not convinced consider this. How many thousands of people who have died in aeroplane crashes, yet we still fly aircraft. Airships use tons less fuel as aeroplanes as they don't need it to stay airborne and even if they are never again used with passengers why don't we use them for cargo transport???Useful Airship LinksEddie World 2k |