Airships continue as a means of transportation until today .

Try to find a plane to transport something very bulky :rolleyes:; you won't find it. As an example, rockets stages are transported by road/railway if not too big, by barge otherwise.
Er, not all of them. The S-IVB was transported by Super Guppies from California to Florida, while the Soviets used modified M-4 bombers, the VM-T aircraft, to transport rocket components to Baikonur for their Buran program. Super Guppies and other specialized oversized aircraft (e.g., the An-225 (also built for the Buran program), the "Beluga" A-300, or the Dreamlifter) have also been used to transport aircraft components, which are also frequently oversized. There have been proposals for similar or even larger aircraft in more ordinary transport roles, but they generally haven't been very successful.
 
I was thinking about the Falkland bombings. With the airstrip out of service and no way to bring in heavy equipment to repair it, the argentines were toast. With one or more airships to bring in personnel, heavy machinery and materials, they could have restored the airstrip in days at most and, from then on, with everything in place, be able to repair possible further damages in hours.

And then the British jets chase it down with no effort whatsoever, and shoot it down in one shot. It's not as if a blimp can evade radar like a plane can.
 

Vahktang

Donor
One thing to make them popular and current is to get rid of wind.
When you have a 150+ m vehicle it is quite possible for opposite ends having speed differences of many kph due to wind.
A SF story I heard had a fun idea: airships on the moon. Vast caverns were produced, many tens of kilometers long, then given a decent air pressure. Pressure + light gravity gave a place for airships to be economical.
 
Make the oil crisis of the 1970s either longer lasting or more severe. Airships resurge in the early 1980s first for cargo then for passengers. They serve as an intermediate for Caribbean travelers who want a unique experience as they travel to sunny beaches and for polar explorers who have no desire to trek through the ice. Ultimately they become one of the more interesting and safest ways to ascend Mt. Everest following the construction of the HADS (High Altitude Docking System) near the former base camp a few hundred feet below the summit. Sahara 'Air-Treks' also come into vogue as travelers can go from Lisbon to Dubai while looking over vast sand plains.
 
M79 that sounds amazing !You think there are enough people in the site to get the money to do this :p
Be pretty cool if you could float over the Serengeti and watch lions and gazelle engaged in a struggle for survival .Plus all the continents are amazing from the air .Once you get up to two thousand meters even a busy city seems serene and calm .
 
Except that airships have the equally awkward 'landing site' issues, ie, finding somewhere to touch down a 150+m airship safely. Also, wind (especially headwinds) will affect your schedule quite a bit.

And most people underestimate the wind speed at high altitude.
 
Well, yes, the military. Insurgents usually lack those.
Uh, no they don't, 'cause of black market arms dealers. Hells, I suspect some of the weapons used against the Americans in Afghanistan were the very weapons they'd supplied the Taliban to fight the Soviets.

M79 that sounds amazing !You think there are enough people in the site to get the money to do this :p
Be pretty cool if you could float over the Serengeti and watch lions and gazelle engaged in a struggle for survival .Plus all the continents are amazing from the air .Once you get up to two thousand meters even a busy city seems serene and calm .
Helps, but it's not quite a continual run is it?

And most people underestimate the wind speed at high altitude.
Depends what altitude. I don't see airships getting much above 4 km, they could do it, but they'd be rather uneconomic I suspect.
 
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It's not as if a blimp can evade radar like a plane can.



I don't know how accurate Popular Science was/is, but, in articles about US Navy tests around that time, blimps were said to be hard to see on radar and even visually. And blimps used in the Falklands war would use helium so it's not like they'll flame up as they did in ww1. If they were outfitted with standard anti-missile kit they'd have heat diffusing shrouded engines and decoy flares. Hit enough times they can still be shot down, of course, eventually.
 
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