Green eco friendly Airships



	Latest News
	Airships - the future of green air travel?

Airships - the future of eco friendly air travel?

Airships have one major advantage over conventional passenger airliners and that is that the environmental cost could be reduced almost to zero.
Even when burning fossil fuels, the total climate-changing impact of an airship, according to researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is 80% to 90% smaller than that of ordinary aircraft. The airship is also the only form of transport that can easily store hydrogen fuel, the most likely replacement for fossil fuels.
Most new airship designs make use of aerodynamic lift as well as buoyancy and they are shaped like planes complete with small wings or tails, albeit less aerodynamic. They are heavier and more stable than the old airships and can land without help on the ground. They can land on and take off from almost any flat surface, including water.
Airships have some considerable disadvantages or challenges which innovation in the technology must overcome:
• The maximum speed of an airship is roughly 150kph. At an average speed of 130kph, the journey from London to New York would take 43 hours. A large commercial airliner cruises at about 900 kilometres per hour completing the journey in around 8 hours.
• Airships are more sensitive to wind than aeroplanes, which means that flights are more likely to be delayed.
• Safety. The history of airships is littered with high profile and fatal disasters.
• Airships become lighter, and therefore harder to control, as fuel is consumed. One potential solution is to inflate a hydrogen bladder inside the helium balloon. In this case the craft would become heavier as the journey progressed . Thus by burning both gaseous and liquid hydrogen the weight of the craft could be kept constant.

> RETURN TO HOMEPAGE <

Airships - the future of green air travel?