New Twitter Account

I have created a twitter account, you can fallow it here:
https://twitter.com/AirshipGuy

Is the End of The Airlines Dawning?

A moment of irony happened to me the other day, I have been a little out of the loop on Aviation news as of late so it was odd when out of nowhere I had a thought that said something along the lines of "General Aviation is going to be the wave of the future, the Airlines are living in the past."

It's something I have thought about before, but this thought inspired me to look at AV Web again, which I haven't checked in a few months, and ironically enough on the front page there was a story about how Airbus is patenting a new seat design that will allow for more seats on an airliner at the expense of passenger comfort.

The article states: "Recognizing that modern airline passengers will endure almost any indignity in return for cheap fares, the design calls for seats that look like old-style, wide bicycle saddles mounted on a thick, horizontal bar."

Yes that's right, if the TSA groping wasn't enough to make you stop flying airliners forever, now you get to have the pleasure of sitting on an uncomfortable seat just so the plane can pack in more people into an increasingly more unpleasant environment.

I honestly think this will push it too far for a lot of people and if Airbus starts implementing these seats they will find out that most people will be unwilling to suffer yet another indignity just for a cheaper ticket.

The reality has become that Airlines are now the least pleasant, most uncomfortable, most degrading method of travel, with the only advantage over their competition being speed on delivery. All the glamor of flying on the airliners is gone, and I think people are starting to gauge whether or not it's really worth the time gain to travel by air.

Realistically though, people don't want to lose the speed advantages of flying which opens the door for new opportunities and new markets, in fact there have already been inroads made in this sector.

Cirrus came out with it's idea of Flying 2.0 where passengers would book flights on small GA (General Aviation) aircraft instead of big passenger jets. NASA also came out with its idea for a Small Aircraft Transportation System back in the 80s which bore fruit in the 2011 Green Flight Challenge producing small electric aircraft that got 400 passenger miles to the gallon.

Engineers have made big improvements in the safety of GA aircraft with the introduction of glass cockpits, GPS systems and ballistic parachutes, this makes GA flying arguably as safe, if not safer, then Commercial Aviation.

There are also big improvements in diesel aviation with companies producing new lightweight engines with nearly twice the fuel efficiency of non-diesel airplanes.

Also there have been more and more flying car designs coming out in recent history, and other personal flying vehicles like the E-volo that are just on the tip of mass production.

Evolutionary ideas like the Synergy Aircraft show that small airplanes will very shortly be vastly less expensive to fly, costing the same as it costs to operate a car in the future.This not only means far cheaper fares but less pollution as well.

Designs like the Icon A5 are able to achieve what the FAA refers to as "Stall Resistances" a milestone for General Aviation and aircraft safety.

The list goes on and on of innovation and new ideas coming to the GA field. Not least of them, ideas like the Solarship that's also a hybrid airship. Overall it seems like the pace of innovation in GA is far surpassing Commercial Aviation.

With all these new designs and ideas going into GA, and with airliners stuck in thinking about how they can sacrifice personal comfort for their bottom line, it seems clear that a paradigm shift is on the horizon.

Airliners may become too bulky and too expensive to operate over the lightweight sleek designs in General Aviation's future.

I'm not suggesting that airlines will not evolve as well in the future, in fact, it seems like we are just on the cusp of building the worlds first real space plane, which if adapted to commercial aviation could mean airplane trips from New York to Sydney in less then 3 hours. Nevermind it can also go to space.

However, what I see in the future is a world filled with all sorts of different flying machines, kinda like looking at all the different types of bacteria a Petri dish. And just like bacteria they will all be competing with each other to be the best at their respective niches.

Helicopters and airliners will need to evolve just as fast to keep pace or they will simply become obsolete.

As such, when we look at the state of airline travel today, it could be we are really seeing the end of an era. They may well become an old fashion way to travel, and all the hardships we are putting up with today will be seen as the last dying breaths of the airliners as the globule leader in air travel.

Maybe those visionaries that saw the future where everyone had a flying car are not too far off from reality, with the variation of ideas and flying machines that are coming to the future, it would seem a new future is dawning on General Aviation, as the sun is setting on the airliners. 

A Very Well Researched Article on HAV

I've noticed a lot of articles with bad reporting on what is going on in the airship world. Props to the telegraph and Nail Tweedie for getting all their facts correct in this well written article.

Bruce Dickinson hopes to live stream airship flight around the world.

I was just reading this article today and found out that Bruce Dickinson lead singer of Iron Maiden and airship enthusiast has a brilliant idea, he wants to travel around the world on an airship and stream the whole thing live.


I always had a feeling that one of the things that will really make airships have a big impact in popular culture and help advance their return, would be their utility for the music industry and preforming live concerts from suspended stages.


Imagine Iron Maiden playing Flight of Icarus 200 feet above their audience on a suspended stage hanging from a hybrid airship. They could then move around the entire stadium and float above the crowds.

Their performance could start on stage in the normal spot, but then the stage could be lifted into the air and floated around the crowd. When the music gets to the point where he sings "fly like an eagle" the second time, the stage could rise up and fly out of the stadium over all of LA, allowing the entire band to be suspended 2500ft over LA playing one of their hit songs, giving a performance the world has never seen before.


It's really exciting to have someone like Dickinson being involved in the development of these airships, as it gives a really good chance that this will happen sooner rather then later. And when it dose happen, I think Airships will really make a huge return in pop culture as people will really start to realize what these new airships are capable of and it will start to get people thinking about what other things they could use them for that had been imposable before.


Other bands would likely follow suit and all of a sudden the music industry would be buying airships like crazy. Maybe even the "Airship Gig" might become a regular thing for every mainstream artiest out their. I could imagine all kinds of pop-stars preforming over New York and London as well.


I really hope Dickinson dose this in the future, their isn't any band I could think of that would be better then Iron Medan to attempt this stunt first.


Let's hope for the best!

Rise of the Machines: The Super Airship on H2

Air date March 4, 2014:
http://www.history.com/shows/rise-of-the-machines/videos/rise-of-the-machines-super-airship

There are a lot of things I didn't know that are explained in this broadcast. Check it out if you haven't already.

Why Airships could soon be Everywhere

I just ran some tests inside X-plane 10 on the profitability of running a public transit system in my local Bay Area using Hybrid Airships to transport people around. The results are very promising, and show that not only are Hybrid Airships a good idea for areas of the world where no other solution will work, but that Hybrid Airships can very easily compete with our existing transportation system at a profit.

Monterrey Bay Area

The test consisted of a few short stops at local airports in the Monterrey bay area, just south of San Fransisco, before going over the hill to San Jose. In my area, there are a lot of people who live in the Monterrey Bay area, but they work over the hill in San Jose at the high tech jobs of silicon valley.

As a result, the main highway, highway 17, is usually backed up between the hours of 7AM to 8AM and 5PM to 6PM. This is a logistical nightmare that the county has not been able to fix other then by adding more lanes to the highways.

One solution that has been tossed around for years is to fix the railroads going from Santa Cruz to San Jose. But this is another logistical nightmare because the railroad was taken out years ago to make room for more highway.

So with this information in mind I decided to run some feasibility tests to see if a Hybrid Airship would be an ideal solution to solving this problem. As it turns out, this seems to be a very profitable idea.

In total I estimated it would cost $2165.34 to run this trip one way. That includes the diesel fuel, crew costs, and maintenance.  The Airship itself could take up to 274 people and the trip even with stops at every airport along the way, would only take about an hour to complete, which is much faster then taking a car from Monterrey to San Jose, and way faster then taking a bus.

At $40 a ticket from Monterrey to San Jose, and $20 just to go half way, I found that the airship would net $15 million per year, and would still make a profit even if was only 1/4 loaded. If Hybrid Air Vehicles really is able to get their price per airship down to 40 million thanks to the investments by our government, then this venture could pay itself off in 3 to 5 years, and every year after that it would generate 15 million in revenue for investors.

Assuming my calculations are correct, this clearly shows that Hybrid Airships would make a welcome addition to our public transportation system. Sure their would be a mild luxury fee, but I feel that commuters would be willing to pay that fee for the joy of riding in an airship to work everyday, and also for the large reduction in commuting time. Especially if they have a high paying job like those in Silicon Vally generally do.

Places like New York, LA, and other high congested areas would probably benefit from this type of transportation system as well. And if these places started to implament these types of Hybrid Airship "Bus" systems, flying in an airships might become something routine for the average person.

Here is a little Video I made.

Here is the promotion video I made for the Sky Tug I made in X-plane, enjoy: