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Nice first vid, AeroMechanical.

It doesn't help that this guy sounds like he's trying to sell a dial-a-mattress.

Agreed though, nice first post.

All wonderful to try and work out a method of quiet, fossil fuel-less, but my thoughts are that there'll be serious energy conservation issues at play here. I would suggest that this will turn out to be something that never sees the light of day, not so much through lack of investment (although, man, would you invest millions based on this website?

It would seem no-one else really believes in it either as the only partner they've got listed on their is another one of Hunt's own companies.

All well and good to be making giant airships, but it'll come to naught.

motors driven by stored compressed air, compress air? confused.

mmmmm.... I dunno....
but I'd like to glide one in to a landing!

>> ^CaptainPlanet:
motors driven by stored compressed air, compress air? confused.


Yeah, so was I, certainly doesn't seem like that'd work, surely it'd use more compressed air to run the compressors to compress the new air? Either that or you have a compressor that runs at over 100% efficiency.

there are many issues i have with this.

1) delta-wing aircraft are almost useless for passenger air travel. they're far more efficient for flying, but you can't put people anywhere but the center, since anyone over a wing would end up sideways whenever the plane banked. also, this would fly in a mild version of the parabolic flight pattern used by the vomit comet which, i believe, is rightly so called.

2) i'd imagine these craft would be kinda useless for freight, mainly because of how much helium one would need, though i could easily be wrong on that one.

3) it's probably slow. especially the first ascent to altitude. and landing it must be a lot of fun.

that's just the first couple of things i could think of. to be fair, i have no training in aviation or aerodynamics past high school physics, which was a while ago.

that all having been said, i love seeing new innovation in engineering. anyone interested in aviation should watch this TED talk by Burt Rutan on how the US govt has allowed innovation in aviation to stagnate

It's just an airship and glider. The only 'innovation' I see is adding a great amount of parasitic drag to the glider portion of the flight to run compressed air turbines. Overall it would require 'recharging' compressed air while landing. I can't imagine that it would be fun going any distance in this craft either as it looks to have very slow speeds. A glider that can go hundreds of miles sounds good, but would require hours in a descending glide.

Helium may be a problem.. demand currently outstrips supply, so prices are rising substantially. Also, helium is a byproduct of petroleum production... thus it does have some reliance of fossil fuels.

Still quite an interesting design. I wonder if a practical design can be implemented for commercial travel. If for only shorter range hops.

Who the crap downvoted my comment above? I don't mind having things downvoted, but on what grounds was that done? Gee, suggesting that using compressed air to drive compressors to compress more air seeming to be a ridiculous method deserves a downvote?

Um, ok...

Thanks @the first post comments. I thought it was interesting.

It does seem like a pretty spacy, impractical idea, but it is an interesting concept. I think the bit about the compressed air used to power air compressors is sort of a silly concept as well, but I believe that's why it has a limited range. If they worked with 100% efficiency it might be able to stay aloft indefinitely, but all of the thermodynamicists would be right out of a job if that happened.

*wings

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