Hot Air? No, Helium
FB has long said that living in the Bay Area is like living five minutes in the future. Sometimes it’s also like living fifty years in the past. Take this story on a new company called Airship Ventures that is planning to bring Zeppelin back to San Francisco. Not Page and Plant, alas, but the Hindenberg version, albeit with safer fuel:
At 246 feet in length, the Zeppelin NT will be 50 feet longer than the largest blimp, and will hold up to 12 passengers. Similar airships are already operating safely in Japan and Germany, the company says.
Airship will offer its rides for “flightseeing” tours (yes, that’s what they call them), as well as media and science operations. Apparently, flights will be available for between $250 and $500, around the same price as a ride in a hot balloon.
The startup already has two things essential for success here in Techland: $8 million in venture funding and praise from Esther Dyson. FB can’t wait to climb aboard.
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DiggActually, it was proved with a few pieces of fabric that were in private hands since the accident of the Hindenberg, that the reflective coating that the Germans used to cost the zepplin was powdered aluminum and iron oxide, basically primative rocket fuel, that ignited. Mythbusters are idiots, and they play for the camera, not intelligent people.
those who treat Mythbusters as real science will continue to miss the point of that show entirely…
I like sight seeing from the GROUND…
Andy is quite right. It was not the hydrogen that brought down the Hindenburg but the dope/glue used in the fabric cover.
Andy -
Actually, the skin isn’t entirely to blame. Mythbusters did an entire show about this - I highly recommend it.
Dick– recheck your records. Tests have now proven that the hydrogen used in the Hindenburg was not the cause of the fire. The fire has been proven to be the result of a material applied to the skin of the Hindenberg that ignited via a static electricity discharge. The hydrogen did not cause the fire and did not erupt until after the skin of the great airship was aflame.
Ah, FB, you’re going to get a lot of flak for this. The problem with the Hindenburg wasn’t that the fuel was unsafe. It was the gas that gave the Hindenburg it’s buoyancy that was unsafe. It was flammable. And the conditions that existed when it tried to tether up caused the gas to ignite.
Goes to show that new technology is not the only game in town. Ah…nostalgia!
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"Future Boy" is the nom de plume of Chris Taylor, award-winning journalist and futurist. Currently the West Coast Editor of Fortune Small Business, he previously served as San Francisco bureau chief of Time magazine, where he wrote the magazine's first stories on tech trends such as Google and the iPod. In 2005 he became "Future Editor" of Business 2.0, where he edited the "What's Next" section, and where the Future Boy column and blog were born. Chris was born in Liverpool, England and was educated at Oxford and Columbia Universities.
The Hindenburg caught fire and exploded but most passengers survived. Since hydrogen is lighter than air most of the fire and gas escaped out the top. It drifted down and the people ran out. Compare that to when a jet goes down…