tkdguy Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 Re: Zeppelins It's good for heroes too, especially James Bond types. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Has anyone seen this film? It looks intriguing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted March 11, 2012 Report Share Posted March 11, 2012 Re: Zeppelins An airship... with sails? PDF Document Nice find. I have a sail powered design around somewhere, good to see others think it feasible Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 11, 2012 Report Share Posted March 11, 2012 Re: Zeppelins I never considered it until looking at some illustrations of the Airship Pirates rpg. Even then I thought they were just there for the cool factor until I saw this article. Someone in the Airship Pirates forum posted it there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted March 13, 2012 Report Share Posted March 13, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Sails on airships is a great visual, and a great idea for fantasy, but I'm not sure how it's supposed to work in real life. Sails propel regular ships in directions other than straight downwind because of the resistance of the water against the hull of the ship. Airships have nothing to push against, except the medium that is pushing them. I can't see them getting any movement on any heading more than a few degrees off straight downwind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted March 14, 2012 Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Sails on airships is a great visual' date=' and a great idea for fantasy, but I'm not sure how it's supposed to work in real life. Sails propel regular ships in directions other than straight downwind because of the resistance of the water against the hull of the ship. Airships have nothing to push against, except the medium that is pushing them. I can't see them getting any movement on any heading more than a few degrees off straight downwind.[/quote'] Aerodynamic hull and proper contact surfaces/Airfoils I think are they key to fixing this. The above linked plans include both. Even with fore-n-aft rigged sails tho, I suspect that you still might have issues more than a few points upwind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Some airship links R100 (actually a Vickers rather than a Zeppelin) Buying your own airship forum thread at Brass Goggles; links in OP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Carman Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Interesting idea, sailing airships. I wish I knew enough aerodynamics and the like to tell whether the guy is blowing smoke. Google gets nothing useful on the topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Interesting idea' date=' sailing airships. I wish I knew enough aerodynamics and the like to tell whether the guy is blowing smoke. Google gets nothing useful on the topic.[/quote'] Balloons had sails apparently. History of Aeronautics Popular Science article on Wellner's Sail-Wheel Flying Machine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Re: Zeppelins A way station for airships? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Re: Zeppelins A way station for airships? Such a thing did actually exist, albeit in a slightly less sophisticated form. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-p/ao9-d.htm [ATTACH=CONFIG]42294[/ATTACH] cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Carman Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Balloons had sails apparently. History of Aeronautics Popular Science article on Wellner's Sail-Wheel Flying Machine The idea has never seen much success, as far as I can find out. This guy seems to think he has a better solution in his patent than anything tried before, but as I said I don't know enough about the science to tell if he's just full of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Escafarc Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Escafarc Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Re: Zeppelins MlWxxWFDzHQ&lf=mh_lolz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Since the Hindenburg, at 800 feet long, had the ability to carry 72 passengers and luggage, and 10 tons of mail and cargo, we could probably figure out how many aircraft a similarly sized dedicated "airborn aircraft carrier" could handle. A typical monoplane fighter or dive bomber might weigh about 2 tons when loaded with fuel. Assuming there was to be refueling, and accomodations for the pilots, and possibly even an armament re-load(I guess you could do that if you could winch up the plane to a small hangar space), maybe 4 tons per plane, plus a few tons for a hangar space. So the AAC, Hindenburg-sized, could carry maybe 4 planes. A little underwhelming. To have one with capacity comparable to ocean-going fleet carriers(60-100 planes), you'd need an airship 2000-2500 feet in length. But one scaled up by 50%(to 1200 feet long) could probably carry a dozen fighter-bombers, enough for a small raid or to sink a destroyer-sized ship. A half-dozen such airborne carriers could carry enough planes to sink a capital ship or take out an enemy airfield. I dunno enough about airships to do more than speculate, but maybe if you re-designed the hull shape to be more of a lifting body and had some really powerful engines, you could increase proportional lift capacity and get to a more useful-sized airwing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted March 21, 2012 Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 Re: Zeppelins I think the real potential the USN saw in aircraft-carrying airships in the 1930s were as search / recon platforms. They could travel a lot faster than any ship and, with their aircraft, could scope out huge areas of ocean at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted March 21, 2012 Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 Re: Zeppelins I think the real potential the USN saw in aircraft-carrying airships in the 1930s were as search / recon platforms. They could travel a lot faster than any ship and' date=' with their aircraft, could scope out huge areas of ocean at a time.[/quote'] That tends to make sense. I think, in modern times, given the relative light weight of unmanned drones, you could kit one out with an AWACS-type radar array, a dozen large and small drones, and maybe some air defense AAMs, and use it as a sort of airborne command center in a region. It could sit and loiter a couple hundred miles away, maybe even getting refueled by another airship periodically, while sending out drones to carry out recon and precision strikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 Re: Zeppelins A clip from the 1931 film Dirigible. Not a bad flick, actually. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE1IPPLGAL0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 31, 2012 Report Share Posted March 31, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Zeppelin Museum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted April 2, 2012 Report Share Posted April 2, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Zeppelin Museum "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to tkdguy again." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted April 24, 2012 Report Share Posted April 24, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Akron 1911 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted April 26, 2012 Report Share Posted April 26, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Akron 1911 Another picture of the 1911 Akron, with a life boat attached. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted April 29, 2012 Report Share Posted April 29, 2012 Re: Zeppelins The Imperial Russian Airship, Giant And on that note: Russian Dirigibles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted April 29, 2012 Report Share Posted April 29, 2012 Re: Zeppelins Hindenburg Interior Plans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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