Airlander 10 "breaks in two"

[Magog]

This is being reported by the BBC. Was moored and only one minor injury thankfully. From the photo it looks pretty bad, this project seems to have had a run of bad luck. Hopefully not the end of the road for them, but you have to wonder.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-he...

[anonymous-user]

Pretty much 100 years ago most people realised airships were pretty flawed devices and it looks like that hasn't changed!

[MitchT]

This project is becoming a bit of a let down.

[cerbfan]

I imagine the owners are feeling deflated.

[Tango13]

I saw it flying about yesterday afternoon near Shuttleworth, it seemed to be trimmed a bit 'nose down'

[tonyvid]

From the BBC story it seems to have broken free from the mooring and auto-deflated. That will be a heck of a job to move like that. I wonder why it broke free as it's been pretty flat calm the last few days...

[Ayahuasca]

Meh, a bicycle pump will fix that.

[anonymous-user]

Silly question, does it have any kind of backbone structure? Is it just a case of pumping it back up again, or is something actually broken inside??

[Willhire89]

Airlander - you've let yourself down and the whole future of this project down

[ShampooEfficient]

These puns have gone down like a lead balloon...

[300bhp/ton]

Tango13 said:

I saw it flying about yesterday afternoon near Shuttleworth, it seemed to be trimmed a bit 'nose down'

I saw it too. About 4:20-4:25. Flying low just heading into Cardington as the sun was setting.

[AER]

a few tens, or perhaps hundreds, of thousand pounds worth of He disappeared into the universe!

[Eric Mc]

That's it I think.

Structural problems were always the weak link in airship design.

[rog007]

I’ve done most things in life you’d call adventurous, but never been up in a hot air balloon...I rest my case.

[Mr MXT]

Max_Torque said:

Silly question, does it have any kind of backbone structure? Is it just a case of pumping it back up again, or is something actually broken inside??

No backbone, the rigidity comes from the internal pressure.

[TheRainMaker]

From reading the linked article, it sounds like someone pressed some sort of panic button to stop the thing flying away on it’s own, so I guess they can can refill it and fix any bent bits (must have known to be a problem as the system was it place).

I guess next steps would be, add more bits of string to keep the thing on the ground

Edited by TheRainMaker on Sunday 19th November 10:05

[Yipper]

Can't believe they're wasting money and time on that thing.

[V41LEY]

Ayahuasca said:

This photo surely puts the nail in the coffin balloon for this project. I'll take my chances on RyanAir !

[hammo19]

I’m struggling to see the relevance of this project in today’s technological climate.

[otherman]

As usual with BBC headlines and inverted commas,

Airlander 'breaks in two'

really means

Airlander doesn't break in two.