Wasn't the Hindenburg crash really weird

[Eric Mc]

kik1.6se said:

There is a Cautionary Tales podcast by Tim Harford that references this book. I haven’t read the book, but I enjoyed the way Tim Harford tells the story.

https://timharford.com/2019/11/cautionary-tales-ep...

Thanks for the link. I'll lsten to that as I'm a fan of Tim Harford's programmes on Radio 4.

[Granadier]

kik1.6se said:

Granadier said:

Some years (decades) ago I read Sir Peter Masefield's book 'To Ride The Storm' about the R.101, though it also covers the R.100 and earlier British airships quite a lot. Fascinating stuff. The 1930s luxury airships had an almost Space Age image of modernity and yet actually relied on some pretty primitive technology, such as gasbags made from sewing together millions of cows' stomachs. The book emphasised to me how vulnerable the ships were in bad weather.
I originally got this book from the library. Tried to buy a copy recently but it's only on sale for £150, £180... it was a good book but not that good.

There is a Cautionary Tales podcast by Tim Harford that references this book. I haven’t read the book, but I enjoyed the way Tim Harford tells the story.

https://timharford.com/2019/11/cautionary-tales-ep...

Thanks. Amazingly, he mentions the cows' intestines and then says 'Space Age' in the next sentence, so it looks like my comment was plagiarising his podcast, but I've never heard it before, honest!

[Eric Mc]

That was great - thanks for the link.

I actually have a piece of genuine airship outer fabric. It's from a Royal Navy patrol airship - SS class I think - used in World War 1. It's amazingly fragile.

[Krikkit]

A bit mathematical, but there's an interesting NASA paper calculating if it'd be possible to make a vacuum airship with existing materials - the answer is yes! Quite surprising, but you'd need a thin-shell with lattice support of commercially-available carbon fibre.

In theory, if you could make one with a 100m-diameter balloon (the biggest, maddest size in the paper), it would have a lifting capacity of over 3000 tons.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190001133/do...

[ZedLeg]

Amazing that we've developed an airship design that can have catastrophic failures from a pin prick but without all the dangerous hydrogen

[Simpo Two]

Krikkit said:

A bit mathematical, but there's an interesting NASA paper calculating if it'd be possible to make a vacuum airship with existing materials - the answer is yes! Quite surprising, but you'd need a thin-shell with lattice support of commercially-available carbon fibre.

In theory, if you could make one with a 100m-diameter balloon (the biggest, maddest size in the paper), it would have a lifting capacity of over 3000 tons.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190001133/do...

Some fine English in there: 'Through the use of high performance building block elements, modular, scalable and extensible aircraft
can be rapidly assembled into positive net-buoyancy systems utilizing a vacuum instead of a lifting gas.'

What is the difference between 'positive net-buoyancy ' and 'positive buoyancy'?

I'm trying to decide what's better, that my airship explodes or implodes

Anyway, it has a better chance of working than Sophie Blanchard's whose display used a hydrogen balloon with fireworks on it...

[Eric Mc]

Proposal for a vacuum airship - 18th Century

[Krikkit]

ZedLeg said:

Amazing that we've developed an airship design that can have catastrophic failures from a pin prick but without all the dangerous hydrogen

Good point, but you could wrap it all in a titanium skin if you like, keeps it neat.

[Flying Phil]

Re the R100 and R101, the author Nevil Shute (Norway) was involved in the design of R100 and wrote quite a bit (80 pages!) about both of them in his autobiography "Slide Rule". He had a fascinating life and wrote many good books.

Edited by Flying Phil on Monday 20th March 19:47

[hidetheelephants]

Tango13 said:

The Hypno-Toad said:

Tango13 said:

If you can find a copy of James Gilberts book 'The World's Worst Aircraft' he talks about the failing of the R100 & R101

I have that book and the section on the R100/R101 is an amazing story.

"I am the Minister of Aviation and I say the R101 is ready to fly to India,"
"Well, we're the people who have built it and we say it isn't safe to fly it round the block,"
"You don't understand. I am the Minister of Aviation but I would really like my next job to be the Governor Of India, so I say that it is,"
"I really wouldn't"
"Pah!"

"Where are we?"
"France"
"What's that burning smell? And why's that field coming up so fast?"

Been a while since I last read it but iirc when the R101 design team needed some gas valves they designed their own at great expense, the valves leaking contributed to the subsequent crash.

The R100 team bought theirs from the Zeppelin company.

Might have R101/R100 arse about face but you get the gist.

R100 seems to have worked reasonably well, by incendiary dirigible standards at any rate. R101 is the one which attempted to mate with a french hillside.