AHc: Keep Blimps relevant

See title. Is there any way to prevent the decline of blimp usage in transportation, military, and other aspects? If so, what would a world with more blimp usage look like?
 
Barring ASBs intentionally screwing around with jet engine development, the same thing that happened to the ocean liners will happen to blimps and rigid airships. That's not to say they there aren't be niche roles for airships, but once it becomes possible for HTA aircraft to cross oceans and continents in only a few hours, then airships really have not places as the primary mode of aerial transportation. You can't even argue that airships carry more people, since the Lockheed Constellation carried approximately the same number of passenger as the Hindenburg.
 
Blimps could still be relevant for cargo.
Blimps don't have to provide food, beds or entertainment to cargo.
Blimps can also off-load cargo without a Constellation-sized runway.
 

Driftless

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Or, you work the high-end adventure travel market. i.e. Tour the Serengeti by air at a leisurely pace. Substitute the fjords of Norway or Chile, or the Lake District, etc. The interest would be there, but the cost would be an issue. Who among us wouldn't do a trip like that - IF money were no consideration?

The infrastructure to make that premise work could be substantial - hangers, maintainence in potentially remote areas.
 
I'm given to understand that blimps can operate safely at altitudes that a helicopters cannot.

So for moving cargo to out of the way places, blimps may be cost-effective, maybe even with off-the-shelf technology.

There are places in Nepal, for example, where it's still required that a person lug cargo up mountains, there is nowhere to put a road, and no animals can traverse the same terrain as easily (plenty of rope-bridges). A blimp could make that whole process a lot cheaper and faster.
 
All of the above. It still puzzles me that airships are barely used for anything. They'll never compete with airplanes, that's true, but they're not used even for applications to which they're better suited.
 
Maritime work first of all:
1. Off shore oil platform servicing, can carry more than a helicopter.
2. Fisheries work.
3. Maritime surveillance.
4. ASW work.

AEW work. can put the radar into the blimp envelope itself.

Survey work like after a natural disaster.
 
The USN did have blimps that did AEW. Problem with blimps is ability to death with bad weather, also the low speed means time to arrive on station is much longer. The same problem with ASW, getting to an initial datum fast enough. Also, to have the crew and gear for modern ASW and surveillance (like a P3 for example) would need something much larger than most WWII and later blimps.

For civilian niche uses blimps can be useful, but most military uses except aerostats...not so much so.
 
Getting them a name that sounds less ridiculous would probably help... :p
Problem with blimps is ability to death with bad weather, also the low speed means time to arrive on station is much longer.
Oddly enough, non-rigid airships cope pretty well with bad weather. In bad-weather trials in the 1950s, the USN found they could cope with icing and winds that would defeat heavier-than-air craft of the time.

The killer is the low speed. Really, LTA only works where long endurance and the ability to hover are useful, payloads aren't too large, and speed is unimportant.

To give an idea of what can be done, the Skyship 5000 was designed for the US Navy's Naval Airship Program. It was to be 420 feet long, with a capacity of 2.5 million cubic feet, giving comparable useful load (payload + fuel) to a C-130. The design mission was 3 days at a cruising speed of 45 knots, carrying an AEW suite based on that of the E-2C; a gas turbine could be clutched in to give a sprint speed of 90 knots. The US Navy was interested in up to 75 ships, with a production run of 40 to 50 eventually being contemplated. Civil versions were sketched, but were dependent on the development of the military version.
 
I'm thinking any mountainous region like Kashmir, or vast area like the Canadian North, where supply is reliant on weather and availability of planes. Imagine an airship line running into Kathmandu saving those bigger planes from having to land there, as it is the scariest airport EVER to have to fly into. I can only imagine the shot every pilot has waiting for them when they land.

Construction, the airship itself is a good platform for a mobile crane with less moving parts than a helicopter in the city.

Cruises has been mentioned, imagine touring the Pacific Rim, or the South Pole. These offer a long term cruise opportunity, there is a growing number of retirees that pretty much live on the cruise ships. Floating retirement homes? Ha maybe a bit much.

Offshore anything.

Way out of left field, a World Wide Wifi network, using high altitude drone airships.

Evil Villains are always a good avenue to try when you don't know who to sell to.
 
This has featured recently on BBC news. Building in the R101 hangar.

One use I'd like to see, though unlikely to be financially viable (;)), is for seabird cruises. At present these tend to use small boats, occasionally larger ones or hired ferries. These take a long time to get out to anywhere interesting, and provide ample opportunities for seasickness. An airship could cruise out at 50+ knots rather than about 10, locate the trawlers around which birds congregate relatively easily, fly low and slow to get good views, and if finding something sufficiently interesting, be quick enough (though perhaps not manoevurable enough ;)) to even track an individual bird. Not going to happen, unfortunately, unless HAV could be persuaded to do it as a publicity stunt.
 
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