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Global transport system with airships

02.09.2019

Rising to a height of 10 to 20 kilometers, airships will be able to be transported by the power of the polar jet stream - a narrow and powerful stream that blows steadily in the upper troposphere.

The era of airships ended in 1937, when the passenger Hindenburg caught fire and died during landing. This disaster was not the largest, but it turned out to be the last straw: a dangerous mode of transport was abandoned, despite all its efficiency. Perhaps now is the time to return to zeppelins - already at a new level and with new technologies. It is not for nothing that many companies in the world are already developing their transportation systems using such lighter-than-air vehicles.

Some of the prospects for cargo transportation by airships were appreciated by Julian Hunt and his colleagues. Their concept relies on truly large size machines; the authors write about airships ten times larger than the Hindenburg, which was 245 meters long. In theory, this will increase the carrying capacity by three orders of magnitude, even in comparison with the Hindenburg, which could take on board up to 100 tons of payload.

Rising to a height of 10 to 20 kilometers, such giants can be carried by the power of the polar jet stream - a narrow and powerful stream that blows steadily in the upper troposphere. In the temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, it is directed from west to east and reaches an average speed of 165 km/h. According to the calculations of Hunt and his colleagues, "riding" this stream, huge airships will be able to make a complete trip around the Earth in 16 days, carrying tens of thousands of tons of cargo and practically not consuming energy. A similar route in the Southern Hemisphere will take 14 days.

Thanks to modern materials and technology, huge cargo airships can become much safer than the Hindenburg, whose shell was made from animal intestines - today it can be made from carbon fiber. On the other hand, the "buoyancy" necessary for traveling with the wind can still be provided only by light gas. The only economically available option for it today remains the same hydrogen, the flammability of which was so clearly demonstrated by the Hindenburg. And if an accident does happen, it’s even scary to imagine what the explosion of a thousand-ton zeppelin with a kilometer-long hydrogen cylinder will turn into.

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