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Comment by Sanzig | Hacker News Reader

Are there any regulatory concerns with using hydrogen as the lifting gas, and if so, how do you plan to address them? A few years ago I was involved with an R&D contract bid looking at unmanned airships for communication, and one of the takeaways we found was that hydrogen is actually prohibited as a lifting gas here in Canada [1]. Presumably, the regulations were written before remotely operated or autonomous airships were envisioned, but even so we opted to baseline helium to avoid the risk of a waiver being denied. I assume other countries have similar airworthiness rules.

[1] https://tc.canada.ca/en/corporate-services/acts-regulations/...

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Actually, it was exactly the same in France where we operate. It is written that H2 is forbidden but we asked the civil aviation authority and they told us that we just need to ask for the autorization to use this gas when we organize our flight approval. We asked the same question to the EU aviation authority and they told us that were not seeing any problem with using H2 as a lifting gas because of the great record of the Gordon Bennett Cup: https://balloonfiesta.com/Gordon-Bennett-2023. Which had no incident in many years.

The FAA's 1995 Airship Design Criteria report says: "The lifting gas must be non-flammable."

Page 44: https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/aircraft/air_cert/de...

I'm not sure but I think that this applies to manned airships.

You may want to be sure about the regulatory environment you're selling into.

Exactly you are right, for now we are selling in Europe and the regulatory requirements are good.

You might consider whether there was perhaps an underlying issue behind the regulations and the logic around that issue could apply regardless of manmade border lines.

It was the hazard posed to the people piloting the craft.

Thank you for strengthening my point.

We must be talking past each other because the craft under discussion is unmanned - how does a hazard to a crew that does not exist strengthen your point?

If it's a hazard to a crew, it could also be a hazard to electronics that pilot the craft. If the craft comes down as a result, that could be bad news for any forests, buildings, people, etc. nearby on the ground.

Glad to help!

There is a _significant_ difference in the damage done in a manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft. To even imply that the same laws would apply is absurd.

Of course there's a difference, but if the incident causes a fire that then spreads, that is very bad in either case. It's more likely the law exists from the fire concern than out of concern for the pilots, and the law is just waiting for an update to catch up with a world that has more drones.

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