TITLE:
Cargo Airships: International Competition
AUTHORS:
Barry E. Prentice, Robert Knotts
KEYWORDS:
Cargo Airships, Dominant Design, World Developments
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.4 No.3,
July
24,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The advance of transportation technology depends on science and
economics. During the 1930s, airships and airplanes competed head-to-head for
the Atlantic passenger market. When World War 2 broke out, everything changed.
Over the next five years, the combined combatants built over half of a million
military airplanes. By the end of the war, four-engine, high-altitude bombers
and jet engines were developed. Further investment in airplane technology was
stimulated by the Cold War. All this public investment was adapted to civilian
passenger jet airplanes. By 1980, dedicated jet airplanes were in use as cargo
carriers. Despite the growth of the cargojet market over the past three
decades, rising fuel costs and environmental concerns are changing the
economics of airships and airplanes again. Investment in large cargo airships
is returning. Much of
the technology developed for fixed-wing aircraft can be applied to cargo
airships. New materials, better engines, control systems and engineering
eliminate the need for large ground crews and improve airship reliability and
safety. However, two fundamental design issues have yet to be resolved:
structural integrity and buoyancy control. A worldwide competition is underway
on three continents to develop the dominant design for a cargo airship. This
paper examines the alternative design approaches and presents the status of the
international competition.