Lake County Bigfooot Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 According to William he will only fly in 15 mph winds or less, which will mostly be at night when winds calm, not during changing weather. SWWASP knows his stuff, perhaps there are better windows to fly these terrains, that is what William contends, if strong winds aloft are present, is not that information available and flight plans can be adjusted?
Yuchi1 Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 ^^^ I would imagine trying to fly that thing in high wind would be akin to diapering a wildcat inside a phonebooth.
Drew Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 A. the dual envelope style will make the air ship MORE unstable. At least a single balloon would give you a pendulum effect, where the payload would be slung below the balloon and the wind would cause a pivot around the single envelope. With dual envelopes, you will have one balloon blowing up, another blowing down, you will get all twisted around and it is not feasible. Dual envelopes would be far less stable than single envelope. It is not like a catamaran on the water. There is no liquid or solid holding up the separated envelopes and keeping them from getting all messed up. B. Barnes has said there is one camera on the blimp. This tells me he will have a camera for shooting at wildlife, but what about piloting the blimp? He would need a second or more camera for the purpose of piloting it.
SWWASAS Posted March 10, 2015 BFF Patron Posted March 10, 2015 (edited) A 15 MPH wind over a ridge line can create a lot of turbulence and down drafts on the downwind side. In those conditions in my airplane the turbulence is moderate and that can put you in nearly a 1000 ft/min descent depending on how steep the ridge is. That means to stay at their desired altitude above the ground, the airship needs to have the power to climb at 1000 ft/min in those conditions. Proponents of the project should not get me wrong. I do wish them luck and perhaps the attention will get the scientific community interested. What concerns me is since it is primarily an aviation project, I have not seen any evidence on the web site that they have anyone with any aviation experience on their team. If they did, they would know all of the stuff I have brought up and be working around it. Mountain flying is a special skill that is taught at only a few places. Normal Midwest pilots have no idea about flying in the mountains unless they have done a lot of reading. It is not normally part of pilot training curriculum. Drew is right about the stability of a dual bag. Also the dual bag has more form drag because of increased frontal area. The picture shows a large horizontal stabilizer that also has drag. I think the intent of the design was go get some lift from its form like a lifting body would. The problem with a design that generates aerodynamic lift is that to create lift you also create drag and that requires more power to overcome that drag. In a way a lifting body shape negates some of the benefit of an airship to begin with if you are designing to loiter. They probably picked the shape in response to other programs of modern airships that have gone to that shape. But in doing that they probably forget that those dual bag lifting body shapes are designed to travel, not loiter in one place. In calm or light winds, or no forward speed, the lifting body shape does nothing for you. You have to be moving through the air at a significant cruise speed to derive any benefit from the lifting body shape. The Falcon mission is to loiter. I just have the hunch, I could be wrong, that someone has seen those dual bag lifting body shapes someplace and thought it was the modern and cool way to design an airship, so that is what they went with. I do not dismiss the possibilities. I have actually looked into doing a much more modest project using those blimps that are used to advertise car dealerships. They are available in quite large sizes that could lift reasonably light camera gear. If anyone in SW WA might be interested let me know. Edited March 10, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT
Lake County Bigfooot Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 (edited) Hmmm, not being any kind of aviation buff I have little argument for your design concerns, but why would that design be prevalent in these types of crafts if it is so unstable, as you guys surmise? It was not simply the Falcon Projects idea, this design concept has been around since 2008 and proposed for a variety of applications involving payloads of varying sorts, would not the weight be centered in craft and somewhat lower than the hulls or pontoons, whatever you call them. Would not that form a sort of lower center of gravity and allow a degree of stability, besides it looks cool, just kidding... Edited March 10, 2015 by Lake County Bigfooot
Guest Divergent1 Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 I say nothing ventured , nothing gained. If the weather co-operates maybe you'll get something, it's worth a try. The worst thing that can happen is that it will crash.
Guest Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 “Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.†― James Baldwin Yeah, Like the hundreds of years and thousands of Alchemists! Proved they were right after all - eh?
Guest lightheart Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 (edited) I would like to see this project succeed. IMHO the fieldwork component alone will be valuable for collecting information about diet, social structures, language etc. The association with the university and the eventual turning over of the project to them some years down the road will allow for education of the general public and dissemination of further information from a respected institution. This would be the perfect way to allow them to be "discovered". I don't think it is possible to keep their existence under wraps for much longer given today's technology. Add to this some possible tidbits from Dr. Sykes' new book to dangle the possibility that there "may" really be something out there....grin...and you have the makings of a "soft" announcement just like a new restaurant or new retail store has a soft opening. Edited March 11, 2015 by lightheart
SWWASAS Posted March 11, 2015 BFF Patron Posted March 11, 2015 (edited) Hmmm, not being any kind of aviation buff I have little argument for your design concerns, but why would that design be prevalent in these types of crafts if it is so unstable, as you guys surmise? It was not simply the Falcon Projects idea, this design concept has been around since 2008 and proposed for a variety of applications involving payloads of varying sorts, would not the weight be centered in craft and somewhat lower than the hulls or pontoons, whatever you call them. Would not that form a sort of lower center of gravity and allow a degree of stability, besides it looks cool, just kidding... You design to meet mission objectives. Those dual bag designs have a lifting body shape to provide lift and thereby increase useful load. The design is to carry cargo, takeoff at point A and cruise to point B. I have no idea what their design objectives were, perhaps they needed that shape to carry more camera gear for the amount of cubic feet of helium. They are not necessarily unstable, but the frontal area would make them more susceptible to turbulence effects. Hopefully they will get something useable. They just need to develop the flight experience to successfully fly their missions. Edited March 11, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT
1980squatch Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 Would you consider this craft's design to fall into the experimental category? I cannot find anything like it in a current production role...
SWWASAS Posted March 11, 2015 BFF Patron Posted March 11, 2015 It will be experimental. The FAA already has procedures for remotely piloted vehicles. And like I have said, because of its size, they will probably be around to watch early flights. Part of the recently released commercial drone stuff is that they want RPV pilots to have pilots licenses or refresher training of FAA regulations. The first commercial drone license issued they had 26 pages of restrictions and conditions including requiring that the drone pilot be a licensed pilot. The reason they want RPV pilots to have licenses, is that it is makes it easier to take enforcement action. Mess up with them watching, and they violate you, and you have to fight to avoid license suspension or revocation.
Drew Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 I believe the dual envelope design is experimental. That being said, there are many many patents and studies for dual envelope designs. It seems that the benefits of the dual envelope are not enough to outweigh the problems, because I know of zero applications where a dual envelope airship is actual use. The closest I have found are multiple smaller envelopes encased in a large encompassing single envelope. The beautiful thing about experiments on airships, is that all the calculations can be done before a ship is actually built. You can tell how well or poorly the bouyancy would play out before you ever have to build a ship.
WSA Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 I've been pretty much dumbfounded by the apparent grandiosity of this initiative, but what do I know? I do know there are a few here who do have that knowledge, and they seem as pessimistic about it as I am. Still, if it is only money getting wasted, who cares? It might just turn up something useful and boldness can attract results. It is hard to see how the credibility of those advancing this field can be compromised even more, so I'm discounting that as a down-side too. What is worrisome is the possibility of those involved getting physically harmed, but they are adults and are free to take whatever risks they think they should. Nightmare scenario is some innocent third party is harmed by this thing going all Hindenburg at Lakehurst on them...absent the flaming hydrogen of course. Man, I could conjure up some bad outcomes here, and I hope there is some serious lookout for those. I agree though with the opinions doubting that. I'm not seeing strong evidence of that so far. 1
Guest Divergent1 Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 (edited) It could be struck by lightening, shot down by an unsuspecting hunter or hiker, or it could possibly be reported as a UFO. There are lots of things that could happen Edited March 11, 2015 by Divergent1
bipedalist Posted March 12, 2015 BFF Patron Posted March 12, 2015 Hell sell advertising space, "Eat at Joes". Two birds with one stone. Let's light this candle! 1
Recommended Posts