In the latest NDAA, both congresses agreed in their bills to "[direct] U.S. Transportation Command and the Air Force Mobility Command
to monitor progress in this area and report to the congressional defense
committees no later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act on
the status of developments in the commercial sector regarding hybrid
airships that could be used to provide the capability identified by
General Fraser, and to what extent the DOD could benefit from them."
Nobody is denying that the Aeroscraft was a success, and nobody in congress is willing to make a fuse about a technology that clearly represents the future of green aviation, This is good because it shows that any political pressure to stop airship developments, if there ever was any, has all but dried up.
No, now the only problem is that congress is in debt up to their eyeballs. The underlying cause being that the country has been robbed by offshore mega banks. Too bad we didn't spend any of that 26 Trillion the Fed gave to bailout the criminal banking mafia on airships, or jobs, or infrastructure, because now it looks like all congress can do is say, airships are a good idea, but we don't have any money to invest in the effort.
Hopefully the commercial sector will pick up where congress has left off, as congress is basically criminally negligent these days. It's almost surprising they even got this much right.
So we will see if there will be any money going to building airships for cargo transport. Fingers crossed.
Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/7/prweb10948326.htm
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Airship Update! (playlist)
I made a playlist of airship related videos on YouTube, I figure it's something nice to play when I walk away from my computer.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
3rd Cargo Airships for Northern Operations Workshop kicks off
So the 3ed Annual workshop for Cargo Airships kicks off tomorrow, and it looks like there might be some revaluations about Lockheed's Sky Tug. Last year not much happened other then the usual suspects came together and all agreed airships was a good idea. Lets hope this year with Aeros having completed it's prototype, and Lockheed still working on their own design that we will get some good news out of the workshop this year.
Hers is a link to their website:
http://event.arc.nasa.gov/airships/2013Workshop
Oh where has my Sky Tug gone?
I had thought of starting my own website, but I realized I don't really wanna deal with the hassle unless I got something that's good to put up. Trying to find a place to host my files I realized today I can upload them to Mega, the new encrypted FTP server from Kim Dot Com and share the files from there.
So here they are, they include Version 0.4 of my Lockheed Martin Sky Tug, the resource files used to build the Sky Tug, and KMRY Monetary (Originally created by Eric McCloud for FSX.) You can download them here:
Edit: I forgot to mention the Sky Tug works with both X-plane Version 9 and 10, KMRY I made for X-plane 10 but it might work in Version 9.
Sky Tug Download.
Sky Tug Resource Files Download.
KMRY Monterey Download.
I have heard that the Sky Tug is sill under construction at Lockheed, maybe we will see it fly by the end of the year?
Edit: The Sky Tug now has it's own website www.skytug.webs.com get the latest version there.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Gage Road chnaged name to Aeros way
There has been some big news in the world of Airships. Aeros has announced it plans to build a fleet of 24 airships in the 66 to 250 ton range, and today they are currently at the Air Cargo Europe Convention looking for customers. Aeros isn't planning to sell their airships yet, as the support networks needed to keep these airships running is somewhat complex. But they will be leasing these 24 airships to clients, with Aeros supplying the crew and maintenance crews needed to keep these boats afloat.
In other news the Monticello City Council has voted to rename Gage Road to Aeros Way, which is a nice symbolic jest. Maybe 20 years from now Aeros Way will be a hot spot for Airship culture and innovation.
It's great to see that the Aeroscraft is really taking off as a future airship platform, they are clearly the best competitor. HAV and Lockheed are lacking behind now and Aeros is probably on a crash course with destiny at this point. HAV might pull itself back together and get back into the race, but I wonder if Lockheed is even building the Sky Tug anymore, at this point? It's hard to say with Lockheed because everything they do is super-secret and they could have unofficially canceled the Hybrid Airship program when they realized they couldn't get any customers and Aeros was far ahead of them, but last news I head was that the Sky Tug is still under construction. So we will see.
I think it would be a mistake for any of these airship companies to pull out of the race at this point, even Lockheed. As the problem with lake of customers has very little to do with the actual market that exists and needs this technology. The lack of customers is because the vast majority of people don't know a lot about airships, and as a result everything they ever heard about airships is usually bad. Hindenburg, Macon, Akron, etc. It's all bad, and most people don't understand the complexities that contributed to why these airships went down.
When I talk to people about airships, very few are aware that most airships don't have VTOL capabilities, and hardly anyone knows about the complex nature of buoyancy management. They've never even heard the term pressure altitude, and they have no idea what types of these issues are solved with the Hybrid Airship design.
So the customer base, most of which exist in the 3ed world, still believe that airships are inherently dangerous, and are less willing to invest because of their belief these new airships will ultimately end in failure. They would rather stick with helicopters or airplanes even though these new airships are arguably more safe. As a result the real market to sell airships to is huge!
Once people realize how much better these new airships are over the airships of yesteryear, they will see the potential and there will be an absolutely gigantic market that will open up. Bigger I believe then the current aviation market, as once people realize these new airships are safer then airplanes people who are afraid to fly will want to fly in airships. Airships will become the new stranded in luxury air travel and they will explode in popularity like someone had just invented the first ever sea going boat.
Companies like HAV, Lockheed, Solarship, and Aeros all stand to benefit from this coming airship revolution and their is more then enough market to be shared between all of them. It's just going to be initially hard to get there, but well worth it. But it's a catch 22, one of these companies needs to prove airships work to build investor confidence in order to get the investor capitol to build the airships. That's really the hardest part and it's why airships haven't gotten off the ground in that past.
Lockheed defiantly has the sex appeal factor when it comes to their Skytug and I believe that would give them an initial boost, but they need to be willing to risk it big and build the thing to prove it works in order to get their market to open it's eyes. That's what Aeros has done and now they are naming a street after them!
So we shall see.
I just wanna add that it's been hard to keep up with airships as there has been so much happening the conspiracy world it's been overwhelming. I mean just check out what's going on in free energy. Not to mention the IRS and the Boston Bombing. It's been really hard to focus on just airships.
In other news the Monticello City Council has voted to rename Gage Road to Aeros Way, which is a nice symbolic jest. Maybe 20 years from now Aeros Way will be a hot spot for Airship culture and innovation.
It's great to see that the Aeroscraft is really taking off as a future airship platform, they are clearly the best competitor. HAV and Lockheed are lacking behind now and Aeros is probably on a crash course with destiny at this point. HAV might pull itself back together and get back into the race, but I wonder if Lockheed is even building the Sky Tug anymore, at this point? It's hard to say with Lockheed because everything they do is super-secret and they could have unofficially canceled the Hybrid Airship program when they realized they couldn't get any customers and Aeros was far ahead of them, but last news I head was that the Sky Tug is still under construction. So we will see.
I think it would be a mistake for any of these airship companies to pull out of the race at this point, even Lockheed. As the problem with lake of customers has very little to do with the actual market that exists and needs this technology. The lack of customers is because the vast majority of people don't know a lot about airships, and as a result everything they ever heard about airships is usually bad. Hindenburg, Macon, Akron, etc. It's all bad, and most people don't understand the complexities that contributed to why these airships went down.
When I talk to people about airships, very few are aware that most airships don't have VTOL capabilities, and hardly anyone knows about the complex nature of buoyancy management. They've never even heard the term pressure altitude, and they have no idea what types of these issues are solved with the Hybrid Airship design.
So the customer base, most of which exist in the 3ed world, still believe that airships are inherently dangerous, and are less willing to invest because of their belief these new airships will ultimately end in failure. They would rather stick with helicopters or airplanes even though these new airships are arguably more safe. As a result the real market to sell airships to is huge!
Once people realize how much better these new airships are over the airships of yesteryear, they will see the potential and there will be an absolutely gigantic market that will open up. Bigger I believe then the current aviation market, as once people realize these new airships are safer then airplanes people who are afraid to fly will want to fly in airships. Airships will become the new stranded in luxury air travel and they will explode in popularity like someone had just invented the first ever sea going boat.
Companies like HAV, Lockheed, Solarship, and Aeros all stand to benefit from this coming airship revolution and their is more then enough market to be shared between all of them. It's just going to be initially hard to get there, but well worth it. But it's a catch 22, one of these companies needs to prove airships work to build investor confidence in order to get the investor capitol to build the airships. That's really the hardest part and it's why airships haven't gotten off the ground in that past.
Lockheed defiantly has the sex appeal factor when it comes to their Skytug and I believe that would give them an initial boost, but they need to be willing to risk it big and build the thing to prove it works in order to get their market to open it's eyes. That's what Aeros has done and now they are naming a street after them!
So we shall see.
I just wanna add that it's been hard to keep up with airships as there has been so much happening the conspiracy world it's been overwhelming. I mean just check out what's going on in free energy. Not to mention the IRS and the Boston Bombing. It's been really hard to focus on just airships.
Friday, May 10, 2013
"Other disposal options for the LEMV also exist" -U.S. army Space and Missile Defense
According to The Montreal Gazette their is still a possibility that LEMV will be sold back to HAV for use in Canada's north as a cargo demonstration platform.
"We can probably carry four or five tons." Hardy Giesler, HAV's business development director, said yesterday in a telephone interview with Gazette.
This is good news, I had assumed that at this point LEMV was probably already deflated and put into storage. But perhaps that's not the case.
Releasing that much helium into the atmosphere is grossly wasteful in my opinion, and to not use LEMV for something else after it has already been constructed just shows that our military no longer has the creative intelligence that it once did. It's like saying back in the stone age "Well we built the worlds first ship, but we don't know what to use it for, so we are just going to take it apart and throw it away."
I mean, I'm sure anyone of my readers could think of a more productive use for LEMV then dismantling and dumping. What happened to the time when the US government was pioneering the concept of an airship-aircraft carrier? No one else could do it, not even the Germans. Yet, we did it, and we didn't care that it was dangerous.
It seems the U.S. Government is in sorry shape these days, it has more or less broken it's contract with the people and no longer stands for the ideals upon which it was founded. In all real measure we are teetering on the brink of collapse. The fact that HAV, the manufacture, had to be the one to point out that they could use LEMV for cargo operations is a testament that our government is no longer thinking long term about anything, it's now starting to just react to it's economic disposition with nee-jerk budget saving measures.
Proof to that, is when FAA cuts hit and flights were delayed for 3 hours, congress passed a bill fully funding the FAA. Of course the problem with that is that they now need to take away more funds from other programs, which in turn means it's only a matter of time before another budget crisis hits, or multiple budget crisis hit at the same time, and congress reacts with the same nee-jerk reaction.
There is only a few places this kinda behavior can take us, all of which are bad. What's most likely to happen here is that we are just simply going to default on our debt, which might cause hyper-inflation and total economic collapse but it might not as well. Barring that, the other most likely possibility I see is that congress is going to keep on funding programs that they consider "necessitates" by cutting all social services, which will lead to an armed revolution by the lower class.
I'm interested to see how this situation turns out for the FAA, which Senator Jey Rockefeller claim's has "no room" for budget cuts. What's going to happen at the end of the year when the FAAs budget concerns pop back up again? For that matter, what is going to become of air traffic control in a future without government? I think what's really going on here is that the middle and upper classes might actually think about revolting if they are forced to deal with any more flight delays at the hands of government, so congress passed a bill funding the FAA to try and keep a revolt by the upper class at bay.
So consider this, dose the FAA really make us safer? What would the world be like without any regulation over human powered flight? Would it really be so much more dangerous? Or is it more dangerous to have blind faith in a dying institution that dose everything in the name of our safety and yet has no future?
I see a world after the government completely collapses where flying becomes the ultimate expression of libertarian adventurism. A world where you no longer need to fallow any government regulation and pay bureaucrats to certify you and your airplane to be able to fly. Instead flying becomes anarchistic and IFR standards are more or less eradicated.
If we lived in that kind of world already, the Aeroscraft wouldn't be sitting in some hanger in southern California waiting for the FAA to say it's ok to fly, and neither would LEMV. Maybe you believe the FAA makes us safer, but how can you be sure that people would not keep the same level of safety if there was no regulations at all? I think a common misconception is that if there was no law to make sure that airplanes are flight worthy, everyone would forgo flight inspections. Similarly some people believe that if it was not a crime to smoke marijuana that everyone would suddenly smoke weed. This logic a been proven to be false, and I think this applies to the FAA as well.
Regardless of what you think, the FAA needs to become more efficient and less restrictive, or in the very near future their wont be an FAA anymore, or a US Government for that matter.
"We can probably carry four or five tons." Hardy Giesler, HAV's business development director, said yesterday in a telephone interview with Gazette.
This is good news, I had assumed that at this point LEMV was probably already deflated and put into storage. But perhaps that's not the case.
Releasing that much helium into the atmosphere is grossly wasteful in my opinion, and to not use LEMV for something else after it has already been constructed just shows that our military no longer has the creative intelligence that it once did. It's like saying back in the stone age "Well we built the worlds first ship, but we don't know what to use it for, so we are just going to take it apart and throw it away."
I mean, I'm sure anyone of my readers could think of a more productive use for LEMV then dismantling and dumping. What happened to the time when the US government was pioneering the concept of an airship-aircraft carrier? No one else could do it, not even the Germans. Yet, we did it, and we didn't care that it was dangerous.
It seems the U.S. Government is in sorry shape these days, it has more or less broken it's contract with the people and no longer stands for the ideals upon which it was founded. In all real measure we are teetering on the brink of collapse. The fact that HAV, the manufacture, had to be the one to point out that they could use LEMV for cargo operations is a testament that our government is no longer thinking long term about anything, it's now starting to just react to it's economic disposition with nee-jerk budget saving measures.
Proof to that, is when FAA cuts hit and flights were delayed for 3 hours, congress passed a bill fully funding the FAA. Of course the problem with that is that they now need to take away more funds from other programs, which in turn means it's only a matter of time before another budget crisis hits, or multiple budget crisis hit at the same time, and congress reacts with the same nee-jerk reaction.
There is only a few places this kinda behavior can take us, all of which are bad. What's most likely to happen here is that we are just simply going to default on our debt, which might cause hyper-inflation and total economic collapse but it might not as well. Barring that, the other most likely possibility I see is that congress is going to keep on funding programs that they consider "necessitates" by cutting all social services, which will lead to an armed revolution by the lower class.
I'm interested to see how this situation turns out for the FAA, which Senator Jey Rockefeller claim's has "no room" for budget cuts. What's going to happen at the end of the year when the FAAs budget concerns pop back up again? For that matter, what is going to become of air traffic control in a future without government? I think what's really going on here is that the middle and upper classes might actually think about revolting if they are forced to deal with any more flight delays at the hands of government, so congress passed a bill funding the FAA to try and keep a revolt by the upper class at bay.
So consider this, dose the FAA really make us safer? What would the world be like without any regulation over human powered flight? Would it really be so much more dangerous? Or is it more dangerous to have blind faith in a dying institution that dose everything in the name of our safety and yet has no future?
I see a world after the government completely collapses where flying becomes the ultimate expression of libertarian adventurism. A world where you no longer need to fallow any government regulation and pay bureaucrats to certify you and your airplane to be able to fly. Instead flying becomes anarchistic and IFR standards are more or less eradicated.
If we lived in that kind of world already, the Aeroscraft wouldn't be sitting in some hanger in southern California waiting for the FAA to say it's ok to fly, and neither would LEMV. Maybe you believe the FAA makes us safer, but how can you be sure that people would not keep the same level of safety if there was no regulations at all? I think a common misconception is that if there was no law to make sure that airplanes are flight worthy, everyone would forgo flight inspections. Similarly some people believe that if it was not a crime to smoke marijuana that everyone would suddenly smoke weed. This logic a been proven to be false, and I think this applies to the FAA as well.
Regardless of what you think, the FAA needs to become more efficient and less restrictive, or in the very near future their wont be an FAA anymore, or a US Government for that matter.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund Looking to Finance Network of Airship Services
This article just makes my head hurt.
Apparently, a sovereign wealth found of the middle eastern type, is looking at starting the first network of airship services aimed at transporting passengers around the UK.
They sound rather ambitious, claiming that they will have their first services ready by the end of the year. With a 100 passenger airship making all day trips between South Wales and London at speeds of 150 Miles per hour.
Yeah, uhm, good luck with that.
Not to sound pessimistic, this idea I admit is a really good one, and the market is most defiantly there. The UK is in dire need of some new type of transportation system, and Airships are perfect for their situation. Yet, I don't see any real possibility of this happening in 9 months. The Airship they are talking about using doesn't even exist yet, which means that no matter how much money you have it is going to take at lest 12 mouths to build this airship, and then their will be all the regulatory issues with certification, and the regulatory roadblocks that will inevitably show up because they are trying to do this in the UK.
It's far more likely that, if they are legitimate, they will be up and running by as early as 2015-2017, rather then by the end of this year.
I have a lot of questions, not lest of which is who is this middle eastern sovereign wealth fund and how much money are they going to invest? The way they are talking this must be one of those billionaire oil sheiks looking to create his own airship empire. Which makes sense as even if everything goes belly up with this UK transportation deal, they can just re-purpose their airships for oil work on their oil fields.
Usually I'm not a huge fan of what the super rich wast their money on, but in this case, I'm obviously biased. If they are investing more then a billion dollars then I do believe they will be successful with at lest launching their service. But if they are planing to build an airship empire, they would really need to be investing about 30 billion to get a small fleet of passenger airships.
The return on investment will be at lest 10 years down the road on a project like this, so whoever is doing this, they must be doing it because they really love Airships, to be willing to spend so much to get so little in return. In 40 years the return on investment will be rather high, but most investors are not willing to wait around that long. So someone is looking to put a lot of their life into this, and whoever they are they are gonna need a lot of money to do it, and they just might have that money, but we don't know.
My other big question is weather or not these will be hybrid airships from HAV. It's logical to assume that they will be hybrid airships as that makes the most logical sense, but with big money, it's never safe to assume anything. They could be considering using regular LTAs which would mean a lot less cargo and a lot more trouble on the ground. Hybrids just make sense for transportation of cargo and people from point to point trips, LTAs are better for surveillance and staying still for a long time.
Whatever the case is, I sure hope this doesn't turn out to be some type of inverter scam as that's the last thing the Airship business needs right now. But, if this is the real deal, then it looks like the middle east will be the first to capitalize on revolution in airships. This will probably lead to an entire new industries developing as airlines will dump their routs of 500 miles or less in favor of airships that will be much more economical for short trips with frequent stops.
I feel like this is a good thing.
Apparently, a sovereign wealth found of the middle eastern type, is looking at starting the first network of airship services aimed at transporting passengers around the UK.
They sound rather ambitious, claiming that they will have their first services ready by the end of the year. With a 100 passenger airship making all day trips between South Wales and London at speeds of 150 Miles per hour.
Yeah, uhm, good luck with that.
Not to sound pessimistic, this idea I admit is a really good one, and the market is most defiantly there. The UK is in dire need of some new type of transportation system, and Airships are perfect for their situation. Yet, I don't see any real possibility of this happening in 9 months. The Airship they are talking about using doesn't even exist yet, which means that no matter how much money you have it is going to take at lest 12 mouths to build this airship, and then their will be all the regulatory issues with certification, and the regulatory roadblocks that will inevitably show up because they are trying to do this in the UK.
It's far more likely that, if they are legitimate, they will be up and running by as early as 2015-2017, rather then by the end of this year.
I have a lot of questions, not lest of which is who is this middle eastern sovereign wealth fund and how much money are they going to invest? The way they are talking this must be one of those billionaire oil sheiks looking to create his own airship empire. Which makes sense as even if everything goes belly up with this UK transportation deal, they can just re-purpose their airships for oil work on their oil fields.
Usually I'm not a huge fan of what the super rich wast their money on, but in this case, I'm obviously biased. If they are investing more then a billion dollars then I do believe they will be successful with at lest launching their service. But if they are planing to build an airship empire, they would really need to be investing about 30 billion to get a small fleet of passenger airships.
The return on investment will be at lest 10 years down the road on a project like this, so whoever is doing this, they must be doing it because they really love Airships, to be willing to spend so much to get so little in return. In 40 years the return on investment will be rather high, but most investors are not willing to wait around that long. So someone is looking to put a lot of their life into this, and whoever they are they are gonna need a lot of money to do it, and they just might have that money, but we don't know.
My other big question is weather or not these will be hybrid airships from HAV. It's logical to assume that they will be hybrid airships as that makes the most logical sense, but with big money, it's never safe to assume anything. They could be considering using regular LTAs which would mean a lot less cargo and a lot more trouble on the ground. Hybrids just make sense for transportation of cargo and people from point to point trips, LTAs are better for surveillance and staying still for a long time.
Whatever the case is, I sure hope this doesn't turn out to be some type of inverter scam as that's the last thing the Airship business needs right now. But, if this is the real deal, then it looks like the middle east will be the first to capitalize on revolution in airships. This will probably lead to an entire new industries developing as airlines will dump their routs of 500 miles or less in favor of airships that will be much more economical for short trips with frequent stops.
I feel like this is a good thing.
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