Could this airship be the future of sustainable aviation?

We haven't seen airships in our skies since the days of the Hindenburg disaster - a German airship that caught fire in the skies over New Jersey. But has airship technology matured? Hybrid Air Vehicles, a company based in Bedford, UK, thinks so and its new Airlander zeppelins, which use the inert gas helium, are supposed to make air travel not only far safer but much cleaner too.

New Scientist reporter, Alex Wilkins visited their research and training facility to get hands-on experience in flying an airship. Could this really be the future of sustainable travel?

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[remliqa]

I think a future for these might be for transporting giant wind turbine blade for construction over land. Currently one of the biggest hurdle of land/onshore (off shore isn't much pf a problem due to ship being able to carry them) wind turbine is the roads system isn't equipped (especially around corners) to transport the unceasingly larger turbine blades . Large airship can solve this problem, they may even act as a sky crane for construction of these land/onshore wind turbine .

[wesleysanders]

This is so awesome, I can't wait for the first rides- people will pay for flights purely as a pleasant source of enjoyment even- imagine drifting just above forests and mountains!

[wakeangel]

aren't we running out of helium? How are we going to get enough to fill fleets of airships? Are we going to put a bunch of Uranium in air tight containers or make fusion reactors?

[andyroid]

A few things that weren't touched upon in this video:

- air travel accounts for only 2% of carbon emissions
- helium is a finite resource (more or less - it leeches up slowly from radioactive rocks) and not readily extracted (yet we continue to fill party balloons with the stuff!)
- The quote at 3:18, "if you want to go somewhere fast, then you are not looking at this machine". Are most people prepared to spend an extra week of their holiday time travelling slowly? Doesn't this contradict the subject question, "Could airships be the future of sustainable aviation?". Looks like that's a "No".

I am all for reducing the CO2 output of air travel but could this not be addressed quickly and much more easily by increasing drastically, the proportion of non-fossil hydrocarbons in jet fuel (yes, you would still get the Nox emissions)?

[LORDOFDORKNESS]

Would not shock me in the slightest if Blimps turn out to be the next "flush toilet" where they stagnated for years and years, and some future improvement yet to be invented pushes them to mainstream in the blink of an eye.
Not sure if this is it, but best of luck to the Airlander team.

[ellanv]

Why not use hydrogen instead of the increasingly limited supply of helium?
It was the envelope that caused the fires, not the gas inside, so if the latest
airships have non-flammable envelopes, is it now safe to use hydrogen?

[Skeptical_Numbat]

I'd like to see them carrying huge volumes of water to put out bushfires.

[Steelpeachandtozer]

What does "2% of the global burden" actually mean?

[ccrtv]

✨🌎 A very airworthy conception, especially the Air Cruise Ship application, that sounds like a very fun & sales supported rare environmental application ✅

[philliprobinson]

Hi. I'm sorry to have to say this, but airships have always been a "fine weather only" way to travel. They have a maximum attainable height of about 16, 000 feet, fly a lot slower than the highest windspeeds recorded at that height and lower, and cannot be manhandled out of their vast hangars in anything but perfectly still conditions. A regular timetable would be quite impossible to achieve. Check out the R101 hangar at Cardington for the size, it was once the largest covered area in a single building in the world. Cheers, P.R.

[davidagnew]

2:25 Yes batteries make no sense, but liquid hydrogen fuel cells are ideal for airships. Hydrogen is light and unlike in aeroplanes, the large volume of the tanks is not a problem. They could further burnish their 'green' credentials by putting thin film solar cells on the hull.
3:17 "If you want to go somewhere fast, then you're not looking at this machine". Quite. This answers the question "Could airships be the future of sustainable aviation?". The answer is no. The point of air travel is to get to places quickly. (But it does open up other possibilities),
4:09 Yes. The really big market will be tourism. For example it would be the perfect way to tour Europe. You would fly by night and explore your destination by day.
4:34 Yes, Airlander could go anywhere, but if it went to the North Pole, could it land? In anything other than totally still conditions, it would blow across the surface and be too dangerous to get in and out. Do they have a solution for that?

[julianshepherd]

It's going to terrify the ham shanks

[Greguk]

How many times have I heard that airships are coming back and are the future? Many many times. Sadly these reports never come to anything. They need vast storage areas and vast landing facilities and as the other commenters say they need very expensive Helium

[BooBaddyBig]

Betteridge's law of headlines says no.

[ugritsnmeethum]

How hight of air ship flight ceiling that do not danger to commercial airliner ?

[lineboss]

They will undoubtedly be the future of aviation however the technology needs to be way more advanced than it is now, they are sticking to close to the old paradigms which is why these designs were made obsolete by airplanes.

[thomasciarlariello]

Robert L Morrison's Patented "SEAgel"?

[jonathankey]

“Luxury”
They forgot to mention there’s no running water

[rocketmunkey]

I was interested right up until the point he started talking nonsense about emissions ! about as trustworthy as a used EV salesman.

[AKrn]

There's no such thing as "sustainable aviation", so no.
I remember this question being asked in the 1970s. Why are we still asking?