Double-Hybrid Airship

So I've been thinking about airships lately. If you've read my previous post about (actually) building flying cities, you'll know that this isn't a new idea.

I think I first thought about building a hybrid airship about six or seven years ago. It was a passing fancy: develop a set of plans or kit for building a small personal dirigible. And that's about as far as it got. Dirigible means steerable. Like a Zeppelin- which also has a rigid frame.

Airships are the quintessential romantic conveyance. They show up in alternate history, steam punk, technopunk (okay, Nebuchadnezzar was a "hovercraft"- same idea). Mummy movies. Final Fantasy games. Oh, and the Teddy Ruxpin cartoons back in the '80s. Great epicadventure, unbearable singing. And, of course, Up.

So I'm definitely not the only one who has picked up on this theme. And yet, there are no airships anymore. Sure, the DoD is fielding some radar platforms. There's the Goodyear Blimp. And don't forget hot air ballooning. That's pretty close to the spirit in question.

I was talking with a friend a couple weeks ago. I think our conversation started with a mention of Balloon Boy, and whether it was plausible to actually build such a craft. I started to think about it. The things we talked about were more to do with the spirit of the idea. I started to think about it in practical terms.

The question, as it turns out, isn't how big you build an airship, but how small. Small is cheap. Cheap is attainable. It's easy to imagine a multi-million dollar project that would be guaranteed to fly by virtue of its volume of helium. It's not so easy to imagine getting off the ground on several hundred thousand.

The airship you see in these pictures is actually more of a lifting body aircraft than it is a hybrid airship. It gets less than half of its lift from helium. To achieve the shape, it is built like a omni-directional suspension bridge. There's a open-topped box at its center that is comprised of four tent poles. These are held apart by a pair of horizontal girders that run from nose to tail. They're built like a construction crane (only much lighter).

To the left and right there are several more girders that define the lateral dimensions. Attached to these is a kind of vertical stabilizer that is in place to prevent the air moving over the lifting body from sliding sideways. Hence they are called slip limiters.

The whole aircraft weighs a little less than 16,000 lbs of dead weight. It is a little over 100' long and 80' wide- not counting the roll-control wings. The internal volume of its lifting gas is about 120,000 cubic feet. The cabin is around 1000 square feet of usable space. It uses a single diesel and a set of super capacitors to power all four ducted fans. The capacitors would power the burst of thrust needed to get airborne. After that, aerodynamic lift would take over. Ducted fans are actually more efficient a low speed- less than 100mph. This airship would max out at about 50mph.

Parts of the lower surface would consist of transparent Tefzel, allowing passengers to look straight down, through a Tefzel window- and transparent helium- at the ground below. And the ground would never be very far away. The cabin would be unpressurized. It would solar heated (like a greenhouse) and actively cooled using air conditioners. Parts of the airship's top surface would be covered with lightweight, thin-film photovoltaics. It's conceivable that the aircraft could cruise on solar power alone- albeit at minimal speed. Because of its low speed and enormous area, it might actually be able to achieve meaningful lift from thermal activity. A soaring airship. In such a mode, the ducted fans would be used for extremely tight maneuvering, not for forward thrust.

The amount of usable cabin space would be on par with that of a 50' sailing yacht. It would be capable of landing and taking off from water. Because it would be heavier than air, it would need to be anchored, but not hangered when not in flight.

It would take off at about 20mph.

The airship could be flown using aerodynamic controls. Yaw would be managed with the twin rudders attached to the aft ends of the slip limiters. Angle of attack would be managed with the substantial elevator at the aft end of the main body. Roll would be managed via the side wings.

The internal gas volume would be separated into a number of chambers by a super thin layer of Mylar. Once airborne, the craft would be able to maintain flight even if all of its lifting gas were lost (assuming that the wing surface is mostly intact.)

Here's my Facebook page on the subject. Same thing, presented differently.

Comments on HTC's "You" Ad Campaign

You may have seen these ads. They're filmed from the perspective of a person's phone. The last thing you see at night. The first thing you see in the morning. And everywhere in between. Every part of your life.

HTC was a nameless brand a year ago when I bought my G1 "Google" phone running Android. I'd never heard of them before. That only bothered me a little.

It took a while to really get an idea of what this phone could do. Things really opened up when I got a bluetooth for it. Here are some examples of what my phone allows me to do.

Cutting a text message to use it as the subject line of an email. Leaving gmail to open the camera, take several pictures, return to gmail- my unfinished draft still waiting for me- and attach the pictures. Take or make a call before or after hitting send- confident that the email will get through.

Searching and reading email while on the phone. Writing an email.

Sending and receiving text messages while on the phone.

Playing a strategy game while on a call.

Comcast goes down while I'm in the middle of a chat. Switch to my phone and not miss any of the conversation.

Start an email on my phone, save as a draft, and finish on my laptop. Or visa versa.

I have an app that automatically searches craigslist. I got my whitewater kayak, paddle, wetsuit, sprayskirt, and lifevest from five different sources and ended up spending less than $200 total. It took over a month though.

Someone sends me a text message with the time and place of a business appointment. Cut and paste it into my google calendar in a couple seconds.

The internet, of course. But not while talking on the phone. Moving between different browser windows without having to start over.

Instant, and I mean *even before it shows up on my laptop* email notifications.

The fact that my phone has a keyboard on it, which I type on fast enough to hold my own in chat, or write multi-page missives, is essential. I'd never settle for less.

Virtual observatory software using the phone's electronic levels, compass, and GPS. All I have to do is point the phone at some area of the sky- day or night, indoor or out- and it shows me what's there.

Being able to check the weather instantly. Traffic too- using free apps. I have three pages of desktop (with a quick search bar) and six pages of random things I've downloaded. About a hundred programs, only three of which I've paid for. Because the rest were free.

I had a complaint about how gmail worked, and they fixed it in the next update.

I bought an extra battery for it (for $5 straight from HK), which is ready for emergency use.

One thing I don't use it for is navigation. I have a dedicated GPS in my car.

And no Youtube either. Mobile resolution is unusable. Youtube is bad enough without having its quality reduced further.

Rumored eReader from Apple

First, best glance at my previous post.

For more than a year Apple has been expected to enter the eReader market. And yet... they haven't. Why would this be? Most likely it's because it wasn't Steve's own idea to do so. But I'm sure he's changed his mind about that by now. And here's how that would happen.

1. eReaders, as they are now, are just too limited. They're good for reading books, and blogs, and any written content that isn't particularly graphical in nature. Meanwhile, Apple has a vested interest in all the products on iTunes. Therefore, Apple will never produce a straight eReader. It'll have to be an iPod. It'll have to support video. And it'll be bigger than a Nano so it'll have to have many gigs of HD space. Anything else would be impossible. Only problem is that running video is incompatible with the kind of screen an eReader needs. But if Apple is licensing Pixel Qi's screen technology, we can expect to see an Apple Tablet-sized iPod eReader during Macworld in early Februaray (9-13) of 2010.

Major question is whether it'll be more oversized iPod touch, or more netbook / Macbook Air with a keyboard. Since design paths appeal to different segments of the market, the likelihood is that Apple will produce both. One may actually be a new version of the Macbook Air, and one very likely will be labeled with the moniker "Touch." Mac will launch both at the same time. And no other products using Pixel Qi technology will hit the market until after Macworld, a privilege that Steve Jobs will have been willing to pay tens of millions of dollars for.

Why won't it be announced before Christmas? Simple. Because so many existing products will be made obsolete by Pixel Qi's technology. All Netbook makers will actually make more money by selling off existing stock at going prices than they would if they tried to compete for future share with limited supply. And supply will be extremely limited in December. Prototype-limited.

Will Apple be the one and only company to have Pixel Qi's technology? Definitely not.