Transportation future tipping toward airships

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/10/2009 (6157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Second part of a three-part series

Tipping points in transportation are rarer than for most technology because of the scale of investment required and the competition from incumbent alternatives. Since the Industrial Revolution, a new transportation mode has been introduced every 40 to 50 years that pioneered a new niche in freight markets.

Steamships and later steam railways characterized the 19th century. Trucks, airplanes and pipelines dominated most of the 20th century. International containers took off during the final decades and into the beginning of the 21st century. The next great wave of transportation technology that will characterize the next decades belongs to the transport airship.

The answer to why airships make sense now lies in why they did not make sense earlier. The technological challenges of airships are deceptively complicated. An airship has to be lighter than air (LTA) and strong enough to carry enormous loads and stresses. As buoyancy vehicles, transport airships are immense. The rule of thumb is that a cubic metre of helium must be contained for every kilogram of lift. Despite its enormous profile to the wind and elements, an airship must be able to land with precision and safely discharge and load cargo or ballast.

As if the technological barrier were not enough, airships also have to meet strict safety standards that have not even been codified by the air regulators and add considerably to development costs. Even run-of-the-mill cargo airplanes could cost $1 billion to develop.

Clearly, no large aerospace manufacturer is going to gamble the company on a leap of faith. If the development of modern transport airships were easy, they would be flying today. The proof of concept was amply demonstrated by the giant Zeppelins of the interwar period in the 1930s.

Changes in technology and demand are aligning to change the constraints of the past. The key material developments are composite fabrics and carbon-fibre construction. The envelopes of the giant Zeppelins lasted only four years when exposed to ultraviolet radiation and offered no structural support. Modern airships are using composite envelopes that provide all the structural strength and can resist the sun radiation for more than 15 years.

Carbon-fibre materials make the construction of gondolas and control surfaces lighter, stronger and larger than before.

Perhaps the most important development is vectored thrust and computerized control systems that make it possible for modern airships to land and take off without any ground-crew assistance. Finally, modern weather forecasting has removed the danger of surprise thunderstorms and provided the ability to navigate the path of least wind resistance.

No technical barriers remain to the development of large airships. The problem, fundamentally, is a lack of business confidence.

The military is superb at identifying its requirements in the face of chronic losses of troops and tactical defeats. Frequently, this means finding the “higher-ground” advantage over the enemy. In the case of Afghanistan, the exigency of fighting insurgents’ tactics of improvised explosive devices is leading literally to the demand for a higher-ground solution.

Which is why it was announced in Washington on Sept. 2 at the National Defence Industries Association meeting that a consortium is being formed with the purpose of building an airship — Long Endurance Multifaceted Vehicle — to provide continuous surveillance of the insurgent activities in Afghanistan. The hybrid airship, as big as a football field and capable of lifting 15 tons, is to be operational within 18 months.

Once the military has demonstrated the efficacy of airships, it is expected that a long-anticipated explosion in their use will occur, which would mean a sea change in the economics of northern Canada, a region now burdened by excessive transportation costs and inadequate transportation links.

The next article in this series discusses how a new generation of transport airships could create a sea change in the economics of Northern Canada. The question is, do we have the political will and leadership to seize this opportunity.

Barry Prentice is a professor of supply-chain management at the University of Manitoba.

TOMORROW: Think Big