Forgotten Hope

     We live in a digital world. It is not digitized fully, yet it is developing itself. Recent loud news about the green planet, recycling, and special fuel brings more chaos and financial disorders rather than hope. Old doesn’t mean bad. What if we tell you that there is a key to this achievement, that is hiding in the past. It is like gambling, you used to play dice, and now you can play online poker games. Same with this problem. We would like to share our thoughts about airships.

Airship Today

    Our aviation, what we see and know today is basically working because of several occasions that happened after World War II. The main reason for that is that the main manufacturers already could build more aircraft of different types and modifications. They did not need a product that would bring less profit, besides aviation back then was not as fast as today. But we will return to speed soon. 

     Several companies in the world still use airships to promote their logo or for marketing. Airships today aren’t the same as they used to be half a century ago or even more. Everybody remembers the Hindenburg disaster, which destroyed the airship in less than 5 minutes. But today with modern technologies there can be safer inert gasses. That makes airships today safer than even aircraft. Besides, according to recent technologies, it is even easier to load and unload such airships, and they can lift way more than they used to. 

Size Matters

      Airships are usually big. Especially those that are used not only as a marketing logo. So aircraft also can be large. Some have four engines, Mriya An-225 has six, but most common aircraft have two engines. 

      Aircraft require a special field, aerodrome to be correct. There should be all necessary infrastructure in order to provide the right service to each type of aircraft. They mostly can’t take off from surface terrain, of course, the manufacturers provide that option but it mostly will be working once. Though Some manufacturers like Antonov or Lockheed Martin that create heavy cargo aircraft do have such an option as the old versions of such aircraft are used in Africa. And there are lots of videos where they are taking off from the surface terrain rather than the runway. 

      Airships also need infrastructure but mostly for their service. They don’t need a special runway or taxiways for take-off or landing. Moreover, they can land anywhere where it is possible and deliver goods. Amazing option and they don’t need that much fuel as they can be different. 

    Hybrid Airship

     Hovercraft is a part boat, part airplane, and part helicopter. It is an amphibious vehicle that travels on a cushion of air created by a downward blast. Hovercraft used air to balance their weight. that allows them to operate efficiently. It can operate on any type of terrain, whether it will be land, water, or ice.  You can check more details about such an amazing airship on Lockheed Martin’s main website. 

     Hybrid airships make it possible to affordably deliver heavy cargo and personnel to remote locations around the world. Burning less than one-tenth the fuel of a helicopter per ton, the Hybrid airship will redefine sustainability for the future. 

 Loss in Speed

    All types of airships are slow. Even today using different technologies won’t make them faster, even closer to the aircraft speed. In our opinion that is the only problem that affects their production. Usually, our main logistics is divided into five types: road, railway, sea, air, and pipeline. The slowest among all in the sea but they can deliver way more than any other type and they can deliver goods from continent to continent. It is also one of the cheapest. After that, railway logistics. It also delivers a huge amount of cargo but it lacks the railways and specific infrastructure. Moreover, different countries have different sizes of railways. That also can bring more costs. Road logistics is pretty simple. It can bring all the goods from door to door. And the most expensive is aviation logistics. It delivers fewer goods and requires lots of expensive infrastructure but it can deliver goods from one continent to another in less than 15 hours. It makes some sense. 

    So which place would our airship be taken in all these logistics chains? The airship can take more than trucks but less than a railway, it can be cheap as a railway and doesn’t require special infrastructure. Moreover, it doesn’t provide CO2 emissions so the green policy will be happy till someone needs a better car to buy. The answer is simple: until the major transnational companies won’t get interested it will be used only locally. 

    Wish you the blue sky and the best of luck! 

Johnny McKinsey
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