Aircruise - a clipper in the clouds | Hacker News Reader

Aircruise - a clipper in the clouds

seymourpowell.com

5 pointsalexk8 comments

The article says it would use Hydrogen. I think that's a non-starter afer the Hindenburg, even if only for PR reasons.

Maybe they can use waste helium produced by the on-board fusion reactor...

Sigh. Indeed. Hydrogen inflated anything is a powerful fear trigger in the ignorant, similar perhaps to Chernobyl and nuclear power opponents. No matter the decades upon decades of progress since the time of the accident.

Of course, these same people have no problem getting on board a flimsy aluminium tube surrounded by a hundred tons of jet fuel, right below which is slung - gasp - an open flame!

I wouldn't say that people have "no problem" with it; plenty of people are terrified of flying. Jet fuel and hydrogen are worlds apart in danger and ease of handling, as jet fuel stays where you put it and will extinguish your cigarette. Finally, a jet engine is hardly an open flame; it's very well-contained for a dozen different reasons, not least to keep its own thrust from blowing the flame out.

I agree with your point about the hydrogen fear trigger, but your strawman caricature of the heavier-than-air aircraft industry weakens your argument.

Well, pure hydrogen will extinguish your cigarette, too ; )

Yeah, I was a bit unfair I guess. Just trying to make a point about people's irrational risk perception - they tend to seize on certain things while ignoring others. I mean christ, the Hindenburg made a big pretty explosion, but there were only 36 fatalities! That's nothing. And yet, 75 years later, oh no can't even think about Hydrogen! It's bullshit.

It's interesting to consider how different the world might be today if the media hadn't caught the Hindenburg disaster in a visual format.

Very pretty but ... propulsion? Control surfaces? Sort of basic requirements, one would think? And with a shape like that I'd love to see it in a storm .. would rather less like to be on board.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of lighter-than-air flight and consider the area to be criminally under-developed. But that thing needs to be rethought with an eye towards practicality.

I agree with the practical aspects - the video shows a couple good opportunities for very spectacular disasters, but there are things that should be built not because they are practical, but because they are beautiful.

there are things that should be built not because they are practical, but because they are beautiful

Oh, I agree. I love innovative and beautiful design as much as anyone, believe me. And yet I am an engineer at heart, and when I see something like this, questions spring to mind, such as "what is making it move" and "how does it control its buoyancy", amongst others.

The greatest triumphs are a meeting of minds between good engineering and beautiful, functional design. This is a lot of the latter and not a lot of the former. Still, I appreciate the story and hope it inspires those capable of the former to think about how it could be made to work.

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