[lifeisstillgood]

So that's 411k m3 with only half that as gas capacity ! Interesting.

But back-of-the-envelope lighter than air is just hard. It's certainly possible to see this working in niche areas, but boy, it's a tough sell compared to "get a giant Sikorsky"

[masklinn]

> So that's 411k m3 with only half that as gas capacity ! Interesting.

Not sure how you reached 411, 245 x 41 would be 323k for a straight cylinder, which the hindenburg was nowhere near[0]. And the envelope was larger than the useful gas volume owing to the internal scaffolding, and the internal volume being subdivided into 16 cells separated by structural rings[1].

And the 232t useful lift was pure lift, before taking in account the 215t of the airship itself (at basic empty weight). The useful lift (payload) was 40 crew, 50 passengers, their luggage, and 10t cargo.

[0] https://3iz4pu1r2cxqxc3i63gnhpmh-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

[1] https://3iz4pu1r2cxqxc3i63gnhpmh-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

[lifeisstillgood]

Thank you.

I got to 411k by 245x41x41 (figures in GP). Yes that's not a cylinder but I am just doing very rough maths.

I did not think about the useful lift - so while the Hindenburg is a 100 years old, a lift of 232k kg was competing with a empty weight of 215. incredible - and thanks for the links

It still seems back of the envelope that lighter than air lift is just not generally useful

[cycomanic]

It's somewhat interesting that people are saying this is unrealistic because of the possible 250t maximum lift version. And then people bring up helicopters, that just shows how little idea people have about what insane amount 250t is. The strongest helicopter is the Mi-26 with a lifting capacity of 20t (the sikorsky has something like 12t AFAIK) so that's an order of magnitude off. It is safe to say that building a helicopter with that lift is very likly out of our engineering capability.