World's largest aircraft takes first flight

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/airlander-10-makes-first-test-flight-428599/
"A week and a half after emerging from its hangar, Airlander 10 - the world's biggest aircraft - has made its first short flight since the cancellation three years ago of the US programme it was designed for."





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_HAV_304_Airlander_10

https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/

Gee, just like the Spruce Goose. Monster aircraft built for cancelled government contract.

It'll be used for cargo and heavy lifting, but I don't think its going to work for consumer travel, as its a Terrorist dream come true target.

It'll be used for cargo and heavy lifting, but I don't think its going to work for consumer travel, as its a Terrorist dream come true target.

There's an entire Archer episode on exactly this... I would post a clip but it's not exactly CT appropriate...

Gee, just like the Spruce Goose. Monster aircraft built for cancelled government contract.

Sort of like the Batmobile!  My cadets and I had a long lively discussion tonight going to the meeting about why Stark Industries is a DoD Platinum supplier versus why Wayne Enterprises was a failure... massive armed heli carriers and Iron Man suits on one hand, vs. failed SOCOM truck prototypes that DoD didn't buy and Batman masks with poor QC that shatter on impact.  Pretty funny!

Then we hung a left and started speculating on grading other aerospace and defense companies in fiction: Weland-Yutani gets an "A", Tyrell Corp gets a "D" (products keep going haywire often enough to require a permanent Blade Runner corps, poor corporate security, they pay their chief engineer so badly he lives in a slum, etc.). And so forth!

Sometimes you can use cancelled, failed, and just bad projects as a teachable moment!

V/R
Spam

Did Yoyodyne enter the discussion?

Then we hung a left and started speculating on grading other aerospace and defense companies in fiction: Weland-Yutani gets an "A", Tyrell Corp gets a "D" (products keep going haywire often enough to require a permanent Blade Runner corps, poor corporate security, they pay their chief engineer so badly he lives in a slum, etc.). And so forth!

I'm not sure you can give Weyland-Yutani an "A" after a special order that says "Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded."  And then you have guys like Carter Burke.  No, no, they get a big fat "D." They're like the Siemens of the future.

Consolidated Amalgamated gets a big "F" in my book as a defense and aerospace contractor:  They underbid everybody for the Capricorn-series spacecraft environmental control system, which of course was later found to be incapable of supporting three astronauts from the Earth to Mars and home.  And we see how that worked out.  Not to worry, they secured some nice mining contracts on Io.

Another is Delos Corporation.  Those guys, geez. "F"

InGen?  After that little screw up on Isla Nublar, well. "F"

Shall I continue?

I've heard some excellent things recently about Cyberdyne Systems - some kind of autonomous home assistants.

And I understand Omni Comsumer Products just moved their HQ to Detroit, I expect to see some great things from them soon!

Then we hung a left and started speculating on grading other aerospace and defense companies in fiction: Weland-Yutani gets an "A", Tyrell Corp gets a "D" (products keep going haywire often enough to require a permanent Blade Runner corps, poor corporate security, they pay their chief engineer so badly he lives in a slum, etc.). And so forth!

I'm not sure you can give Weyland-Yutani an "A" after a special order that says "Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded."  And then you have guys like Carter Burke.  No, no, they get a big fat "D." They're like the Siemens of the future.

Consolidated Amalgamated gets a big "F" in my book as a defense and aerospace contractor:  They underbid everybody for the Capricorn-series spacecraft environmental control system, which of course was later found to be incapable of supporting three astronauts from the Earth to Mars and home.  And we see how that worked out.  Not to worry, they secured some nice mining contracts on Io.

Another is Delos Corporation.  Those guys, geez. "F"

InGen?  After that little screw up on Isla Nublar, well. "F"

Shall I continue?

No argument on ImGen. They suck. How they remain solvent is beyond me, sort of like the revitalized Pan Am, or rumors that Eastern Air Lines is coming back. Or this floating "giant bum" blimp (Washout the ATC controller from Hot Shots: "AH-CHOO!  Now I see a giant pink blimp! Its slowly drifting south! (down his radar screen)).


Well, (tongue in cheek sarcasm here!) Weyland-Yu remains a "buy and hold" on my sheets, regardless of middle level management issues (Burke). W-Y has remained in business and highly profitable over centuries, with a diversified portfolio of aerospace, mining/refining, bio products, terraforming equipment ("we make those too"), etc. Right from Weyland's beginning years, they've been forward looking planners who know how to return a significant profit from the commercial and government products sectors. If you rate W-Y so poorly by Carter Burke (or by other unethical middle level managers from one division - bio weapons - you'd have to give Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, BAE, and every other US/western A&D prime a D or similar as well (why, they all have cozy DoD connections, just as with W-Y getting Colonial Marines to respond to their beck and call). I think Weyland is the best fictional model there is of an actual Aerospace and Defense contractor - see this years USAF Long Range Strike Bomber contract, where Richard Lombardi the Deputy Undersec for Acquisition was relieved for not disclosing all the stock he owned in the winning Northrop, or convicted felon Darleen A. Druyun and all her McDonnell and Boeing scandals (google THAT, cadets!).



Then there are Con-Am divisions, and Con-Am divisions... the one that runs mines on moons in the outer system (the Io mine, of course, where Sean Connery was a US Marshal) appeared very successful and profitable, regardless that one mine administrator was running a bit crooked. I haven't seen their balance sheet, but... probably a C there at most, I would agree.



Stark Industries - rate it an A - strong buy. Good engineering, good benefits, good work/life ratio.

Incom Corporation - an A - strong buy, if the First Order doesn't blow up their supplier base planet by planet.

Yoyodnye - an A!  Good catch. ST writers even wrote them in as Star Fleet suppliers, so you can tell Yoyodyne has longevity and recognized innovation. You don't see Wayne Enterprises as even a third tier subcontractor at Utopia Planitia shipyards decades later... I remember people wearing those red and gold Buckaroo Banzai Institute headbands at the CAP National Conference in Atlanta in 85 or 86, when the Atlanta Fantasy Fair con (I was on staff that year) was that same weekend down the street. Good times. Not my planet monkeyboy...


Wayne Enterprises - F. Might as well put Frank Lorenzo in charge, the way Bruce Wayne runs it!

Tyrell Corp - D. High failure/haywire rates for their replicants, poor industrial security, poor employee pay/benefits leading to failures.

Seinar Fleet Systems - a D at most, due only to strong customer base (how you can go bankrupt with the Republic as a customer is beyond me). Yet they kept manufacturing starships and aircraft with obvious single point failure vulnerabilities (dive a ship into the ridiculously exposed and unarmored bridge, and there's no aux control and no AGCAS to keep your star destroyer from cratering into the death star, which you also built with the SAME DESIGN DEFECT THREE TIMES).  Plus... failure to observe OSHA health and safety standards, in that none of their aircraft/spacecraft have hand rails to keep people from falling/being thrown off their improbably narrow and high catwalks. Bad design, bad management... fall of your customer Empire!


Soooo.... AE thread mandatory content:  how exactly did this group get continued funding to keep building and fly this giant white floating elephant? That would make a GREAT cadet aerospace current event presentation, if it went beyond the surface level topic of ooohs and aaaaah pictures and stats.


V/R
Spam

Edit/add:

I want to find out whoever the HVAC subcontractor is who has been making oversized air conditioning ducting for aerospace and defense for centuries, and rate them F.  From the USS Seaview to the NCC-1701 Enterprise, to Weyland Yutani's ships, why do we keep buying the air ducts so dang large that the bad guys and aliens keep using them to infiltrate and kill people?!?

BAD ENGINEERING!


Wink, nudge,
Spam

Edit/add:

I want to find out whoever the HVAC subcontractor is who has been making oversized air conditioning ducting for aerospace and defense for centuries, and rate them F.  From the USS Seaview to the NCC-1701 Enterprise, to Weyland Yutani's ships, why do we keep buying the air ducts so dang large that the bad guys and aliens keep using them to infiltrate and kill people?!?

BAD ENGINEERING!


Wink, nudge,
Spam

Because to move X amount of air, you need a duct of Y size. Accounting for turns and such of course.

Edit/add:

I want to find out whoever the HVAC subcontractor is who has been making oversized air conditioning ducting for aerospace and defense for centuries, and rate them F.  From the USS Seaview to the NCC-1701 Enterprise, to Weyland Yutani's ships, why do we keep buying the air ducts so dang large that the bad guys and aliens keep using them to infiltrate and kill people?!?

BAD ENGINEERING!


Wink, nudge,
Spam

Because to move X amount of air, you need a duct of Y size. Accounting for turns and such of course.

Rather, the issues involved are mass air flow, and vibroacoustics of the structures (aside from the security issue). In an aerospace or naval application, the mass of the added ducting could be easily offset by higher velocity fans and baffles.

Everything a teachable moment - imaging making this an Aero Ed class!

Edit/add:

I want to find out whoever the HVAC subcontractor is who has been making oversized air conditioning ducting for aerospace and defense for centuries, and rate them F.  From the USS Seaview to the NCC-1701 Enterprise, to Weyland Yutani's ships, why do we keep buying the air ducts so dang large that the bad guys and aliens keep using them to infiltrate and kill people?!?

BAD ENGINEERING!


Wink, nudge,
Spam

But at least all those independent contractors have work.

You're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia - this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

Edit/add:

I want to find out whoever the HVAC subcontractor is who has been making oversized air conditioning ducting for aerospace and defense for centuries, and rate them F.  From the USS Seaview to the NCC-1701 Enterprise, to Weyland Yutani's ships, why do we keep buying the air ducts so dang large that the bad guys and aliens keep using them to infiltrate and kill people?!?

BAD ENGINEERING!


Wink, nudge,
Spam

But at least all those independent contractors have work.

You're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia - this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

"Augh! Sheila! We only had three payments left on our Incom T-61 Skyhopper"!

"Well, thankfully I still have that government GS-3 secretary job for Palpatine, and we still have the time share on Dantooine"!

LOL

That's a big repeater platform! 

It's not fat, it's fluffy.

Second test flight ends in a crash.

Looks gentle, but the thing does weight 44k lbs, gentle or not.

Gentle my eye, the control cabin was destroyed. The crash is shown on the BBC website.

years ago, we got an impromptu "tour" of the Goodyear blimp as it was co-located with Operation Wolverine's mission base.

The "chief blimp wrangler" noted that its important to remember (and balloon pilots know this too) that you're moving x thousand cubic feet of helium and air.  Even though (in the case of a hot-air balloon) the air is "lighter" than the air outside the envelope, that air you've contained still has mass.

(most "blimps" use balloonets of helium and then air at pressure to control the overall volume of helium for the purposes of balancing lift.  it was incredibly informative as to how the whole thing worked. Not at all what you'd expect.. I think the Airlander thing uses balloonets as well)

So while, yes this thing is "lighter than air", figure that 1.34 million cubic feet of helium still weighs 14,740 pounds (plus the weight of the envelope, control cabin, engines, motors, control surfaces, ballast, etc) . So now you have this huge 15,000+lb "thing" moving around like the Sta-puft Marshmallow Man...    It takes a bit to get 15,000 lbs moving and a bit to get it to stop.

Yup, "slow and steady wins the race" is the operative phrase for blimp operation.

It is the difference between weight and mass: for this aircraft, essentially zero weight (i.e., force down) still has great mass that requires great energy in order to make changes in motion.