WI/PC WALRUS Airships used instead of ships to transport containers?

WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
According to the US department of DARPA, a WALRUS High Capacity Long Range airship, if built would have the ability of transporting an entire USMC battalion (12 aircraft), 500 - 1,000 tons 12,000 klms and landing them without the need for an airstrip at any point on the planet at a speed of 92 mph.

What if this design was used to transport shipping containers (1 or 2 TEU) instead of ships?

Would this have the desired efficiency to make this profitable?

Regards filers
 
Short answer: Nope.


Long answer:
Ships are incredibly cheap, and can take massive loads, but are slow. Aircraft are incredibly fast, but have small loads and are expensive.

In between, you have you have semitrailer trucks and airships. And trucks are cheapish, and have LOTS of infrastructure.

So.... The real niche for LTA (or semi-LTA) craft is pretty small - getting loads to places where there's no roads (or poor ones), for instance. The Arctic springs to mind. As does fast response to islands.

The need for a smallish load to be delivered a long distance across an ocean, say, much faster than a ship can travel (but much more expensive), while being not really a whole lot cheaper than a large aircraft, has to be pretty small, and, in fact, no one has yet managed to build a successful business case.

If what you're saying is, 'if the military had actually spent all the money on development, so you had a finished functional product already paid for, could it be used commercially', then I don't know what the answer is.

This hybrid not-quite LTA craft are interesting, and I'd love for someone to get one into service, and see if there IS a market somewhere. But, I'm not going to risk MY money on such a scheme.
 
Start by proving the business model with an airship supplying a mind or oil rig in a remote location (island of mountain valley) that had no roads when they started drilling.

Second problem is finding a securing method to keep the airship parked when wind storms try to rip it from its moorings.

One recent proposal has the airship compressing its lifting gas (storing the gas in high pressure cylinders) making the airship too heavy to take-off before crew are ready.
 
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