For once you have tasted flight
you will walk the earth
with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been
and there you will long to return.
-Leonardo da Vinci, first airship designer

Cruising at 125 knots, Spirit Of America was just four-and-a-half days out from her Sunny Vale, California hangar. During that time, the hundred emergency response team personnel onboard, along with consulting world scientists and Bangladeshi advisors had tailored their response to the latest satellite imagery, news reports, and government and NGO updates laser-linked directly to the airship. Though slowed in transit by the draggy envelope of their 900-foot-long craft, they would be landing fully prepared to assist, without the body and brain-muddling fatigue of jet-lag.

Delighted passengers flocking to the first regularly-scheduled airship service since the great zeppelins had regularly crossed the Atlantic in the 20's and 30's were already remarking on eerily silent levitation without the need for seatbelts. As one described it, “It's so relaxing, it's like floating on clouds.”

Even in windy weather, at the lower altitudes airships usually flew, the great buoyant ships simply wafted with the gusts. Arm-in-arm promenades from Pullman-like staterooms to the fully-appointed salon, panoramic observation decks, and dining room left no one eager to return to crammed, germ-ridden airliners - even if they could.

The secret of commercial success lay in the stubby wings or canards affixed to each $250 million “Dynalifter” - the name imparted by 45 year-old inventor Robert Rist, when he first sketched his post-blimp vision on a white board and showed it to his friend Brian Martin. Half blimp, half airplane, this Buck Rogers craft would be three football fields long.

“I call it 'roadless trucking',” Rist told his buddy. “More than a hundred developing countries are crying out for the ability to leapfrog unaffordable roads-and-trucking infrastructure and plug into the low-impact prosperity that can only come from moving people and goods efficiently and directly - without burning fossil fuels - directly to where they need to go.”

Drawing rapidly, Rist had shown how internal stay-bridge construction borrowed from bridge-builders would enable his heavy lifter to carry loads as massively concentrated as turbines, liquefiers and heavy construction equipment without buckling.

Martin, whose mother used to bundle him into the family station wagon to chase the blimps that had made Akron famous, needed no more convincing. Quitting their computer-repair jobs, the two entrepreneurs had raised a shoestring half-million dollars, mostly from friends, and erected an unheated hangar beside a grass airstrip southeast of Akron. There, in the spirit of the Wright Brothers, they had worked through the winter building a practical airship. Made from translucent yacht sails held together with tape and Velcro, the 120 foot-long prototype was flown from a hang-glider seat behind two Rotax engines.

A Founders Group of 47 visionary venture capitalists introduced the Dynalifter's "Roadless Trucking" concept to the world. But after a $4.1 billion order for 650 Dynalifters to serve Africa, the Middle East, and Asia fell through in 2008, it was Rich Valles and a group of California-based investors who stepped forward to return lighter-than-air flight to the world. If they hadn't, a series of unfolding natural disasters striking several remote areas, $300-a-barrel oil prices, and the worldwide grounding of commercial jets during the ongoing Climate Emergency would have sent humanity back to paddling rafts across the ocean - just when we needed clean, efficient air travel most.

Because they needed little or no power to overcome gravity, the new dirigibles were incredibly fuel efficient. Both types of advanced airship - Akron's hybrid-winged versions, and “pure lifters” like Spirit Of America - derived most or all of their lift from helium found primarily in the USA, mixed with hydrogen produced onboard.

If levitating an ocean liner-size craft seemed magical, using hydrogen as both a fuel and lifting gas was sheer genius. Safely enclosed in “ballonet” gas bags made from Spectra - a tear-proof fabric stronger than steel - a fraction of the three-million cubic feet of onboard hydrogen was also used to power the six swiveling electric engines that gave this huge craft helicopter-like agility.

Whether needed for lift or propulsion, the ship's hydrogen was replenished by breaking down small quantities of water ballast, using electricity derived from the acres of solar voltaics painted atop of the hull, as well as utilizing the considerable static electrical charge naturally built up on the skin of the ship in flight. Additionally, a sophisticated buoyancy-management system allowed for precise trim under changing atmospheric pressure, passenger movement, and cargo offloading by automatically compressing onboard helium to manage shifting weights.

When they stopped moving through the air, the slightly heavier-than-air Dynalifters sank gently to the ground. This meant that once landed at very slow speed on short runways, the stubby-winged ships stayed put - a major advantage over old style dirigibles that had to be lassoed by ground handlers and attached to a tall pivoting mast to keep them aligned to the wind.

"You can turn off the master switch, turn the key, walk away," explained Edward Pevzner, business development manager for Worldwide Aeros, after the small blimp-building California company moved into hybrid airships back in 2008. "You come back in the morning and it's still in the same place."

But the ability to hover, combined with not having to burn fuel to maintain lift, also conferred enormous advantages to “pure-lift” freighters like Spirit of America. Able to pluck cargo directly from its point of origin and deliver it to a hilltop on the other side of the planet if needed, Spirit was “good to go” for her Bangladesh mission with a 120,000 cubic-foot payload that included two complete field hospitals, four prefabricated bridges, massive amounts of food and tents, water purification equipment, and more than 100 skilled emergency relief workers, scientists and crew.

“Commercial airplanes are either going to run on cheap liquid hydrocarbon fuels or we're not going to have commercial aviation as we have known it. No other energy source is concentrated enough by weight, affordable enough by volume, and abundant enough in supply to do the necessary work to overcome gravity in a loaded airplane, repeated thousands of times each day by airlines around the world. There may be other ways of moving things above the ground, for instance balloons, blimps, or zeppelin-type airships… ” -James Howard Kunstler, Peak Oil expert, author: The Long Emergency, producer: “The End Of Suburbia”

“I am keenly aware of our obligation to nations such as yours,” Captain Kurk addressed the Bangladeshi scientist. “Rich countries caused much of this crisis. And we Americans will stand by you now.”

Dr. Rahman managed a small smile. “And for my part, captain, I will accept your company's and your country's generosity. And I will not refer to your wonderful flying machine as a blimp!”

By now everyone onboard had been made aware that blimps are balloons subject to the vagaries of the wind. Dirigibles - or “rigid airships” - are powered, controllable, lighter-than-air craft that retain their shape with an internal framework, regardless of the amount of lifting gas onboard.

Hard core “helium heads” had kept the dirigible dream alive ever since a karmically-compromised German zeppelin with a giant swastika emblazoned on its tail abruptly ended commercial airship development when 36 people among 97 onboard - including 13 paying passengers - died
at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937.

“Highly flammable” hydrogen was blamed for the fierce fire that brought down and consumed the huge ship. But the first woman balloonist, Madam Blanchard had already proved that hydrogen was not nearly as dangerous as claimed, when she inadvertently ignited the hydrogen in her balloon during a fireworks display in 1817. Because escaping hydrogen rapidly dissipates, and requires an 18-fold richer air mixture than gasoline fumes to ignite, Blanchard's balloon did not burn. Instead, the venting hydrogen gently deposited her balloon onto a convenient rooftop. According to on-scene reports, “Madam Blanchard died when the wind caught the unburned deflated gas bag and dragged her over the edge.”

Despite the uninformed calumny that still surrounds Hindenburg's demise, the great airship's spectacular orange-red flames were not the characteristic blue of burning hydrogen. Rather it was the skin of the ship newly “doped” with weatherproofing materials chemically akin to the solid propellant later used in the rocket boosters that catastrophically ended its voyage - and commercial airship flight.

In fact, no one onboard was directly killed by burning hydrogen. As one modern blogger comments, all 62 people “who rode the flaming dirigible back to earth as the clear hydrogen flames swirled upward above them, escaped unharmed.” The Berliner Zeitung later reported: "Nazi officials, eager to cover up such an embarrassing lapse, never disclosed the true cause. But they changed the weatherproofing on the Hindenburg's sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin II, which was completed in 1938 and made many successful flights before being scrapped at the outset of World War II.

The unmodified Hindenburg had safely crossed the Atlantic dozens of times to New York and Rio de Janeiro. At a time when America's first commercial airliners were staggering from state to state with frozen, blue-lipped passengers, four giant zeppelins of the Deutsche Luftfahrt airship line carried more than 17,000 passengers over 100,000 miles without incurring a single fatality.

Flying at more than 100 mph with salon windows open, close enough to the Atlantic Ocean to see and hear whales spouting, each 3,500 mile flight featured comfortable sleeping accommodations for more than 50 passengers and up to a dozen stewards and crew enjoying during the three-day passage.

"It was luxurious,” one passenger recounted. “There were two decks. You could sit at a table, walk around, look out the large picture windows. There was also a lounge with a baby grand piano, a reading room, an asbestos-lined smoking room, as well as a dining room featuring steamship-style linens, fine crystal and wines. You could stand your pen on end and it wouldn't fall over the whole passage - the ride was that smooth."

Once modern regulators decided to treat the Spirit Of America, and her German, Indian and South African sisters as container ships instead of airplanes, the number of hours well-rested crews were allowed to work had assured trans-oceanic airship flights.

In an airship, one does not fly,
one does not drive.
Instead, one travels in a most beautiful way
that gives meaning to the word journey.
-Hugo Eckener, commercial zeppelin pioneer

“I believe you have experience in lighter-than-air transport in the high Arctic,” Dr. Gregory addressed the captain.

“That's right. After all those melting ice roads interdicted crucial road shipments to far-flung northern communities, airships like this one have been providing crucial transport for passengers and cargo,” Captain Kurk replied. “But I must say I am partial to humanitarian flights that make a real difference, not just in people's everyday lives - but in saving lives.”

“It's amazing that something this big can float through the air like a child's balloon.”

All three men turned to acknowledge the woman joining them. The great-granddaughter of the zeppelin pioneer looked lovely in her tailored flight suit. But Trici Eckener's appraisal of the fast-approaching shore was as no-nonsense as her famous, Nazi-hating namesake.

“Where will you put down?” she asked her captain. “Landing was a problem the great airships never solved. Ground crews had to pull the ship to its mooring in scenes that seemed to be out of films about Egyptian slaves. The Goodyear blimp still requires 17 handlers. The zeppelins of the 20's and '30's employed hundreds."

“We won't,” the American replied. “We don't have to. We're coming in by GPS over the Jamuna. We'll follow this main channel to Dhaka. As you know, the Bangladesh capital was three-quarters underwater after the great cyclone of 2004. It was hit hard again by two massive floods in 2007, which killed 4,500 people and rendered at least two million more homeless. And we know it's mostly flooded now.

“With most of the world's population living on coastal plains, 11 of the world's 15 largest cities situated on coasts and estuaries, and sea levels rapidly rising, it looks like you will be getting many more opportunities to put your airship to good use. Besides flying passengers on commercial runs, I mean,” Gregory hastened to add.

“Still, it seems odd to be returning to blim… I mean dirigibles after all these years,” Dr. Rahman interjected.

The American airship captain laughed. “Well. We've made some progress. When the French began making balloon ascents over Paris In 1783, the first airships were powered by sails and oars! The first person to make an engine-powered balloon flight, Monsieur Henri Giffard, stoked a heavy boiler to fly 17 miles in 1852. More than three decades later, the electric-powered French Army airship, La France piloted by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs flew five miles in 23 minutes. We've just crossed the biggest ocean on the planet in a ship bigger than an ocean liner without burning any hydrocarbon fuel at all.

"But we can hover and winch our cargo modules right into the relief camps without having to put down on limited raised ground. Once the loadmaster and her crew have secured the module, it will serve as an anchor. Our load limits are rated for side-gusts up to 30 mph - comparable to that of a similar capacity crane.”

“And then?” Trici Eckener prompted.

“From Dhaka, government and UN helicopters will distribute our supplies to where they're most urgently needed. We will proceed to lower our other field hospital and water purifier to Char Bangla, one of thousands of islands in the mouth of the Ganges. The bridges we're carrying will be deployed inland to immediately re-open the four most critically flooded roads, allowing transport trucks to bring in relief supplies and conduct evacuations,” Captain Kurk explained.

“My great grandfather would be proud,” Ms. Eckener said. “And impressed that your great American ship has exchanged Count Von Zeppelin's rubber-proofed cotton fabric lined with goldbeater's skins for the weatherproof fabric used in bullet-proof vests and the space shuttle!”

“Considering its distinguished heritage, that's a fine compliment, thank you,” the captain replied. “Of course, our triangular aluminum and carbon fiber framework is also much more lightweight than your great-grandfather's zeppelins, allowing us to carry a much higher payload. But it was your country that brought back the dirigibles, starting with the Zeppelin NT LZ-N07's first flight on September 18, 1997.”

“Why captain, you even remember the date!” Hugo Eckener's great granddaughter exclaimed.

“I was there,” Captain Kurk said. “My father and I were among 30,000 waving spectators as the NT lifted off from the Friedrichshafen airport around 8 in the evening to make its 37-minute maiden voyage. Floating like chimeras over Berlin, Stuttgart and Munich, in their first year of licensed operations, Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei's three little dirigibles carried more than 10,000 passengers. A fourth airship was sold in Japan.”

The captain paused, overtaken by memories.

“Though too young to sip the complimentary Rieslings, I did enjoy eating sandwiches with 23 other passengers on a leisurely hour-long flight around Lake Constance. With the windows open, I could hear conversations and barking dogs below. I was hooked!

Even though this airship is designed and built in the United States, it borrows the NT's weather radar and fly-by-wire system. And our similarly slow-turning, 'vectored thrust' swiveling engine pods also allow this much bigger craft to maneuver in some very tight spots. As you are about to see. Now if you will excuse me, I must make preparations for our arrival.”

“One moment, please, captain.” Jonathan Gregory's hands were slightly raised, as if in supplication. “Two quick matters, if you… “

The captain nodded.

“First. As you know, this vibration-free and steerable platform is ideal for operating scientific instruments. Is our particle detector… “

“It is fully operational and relaying data to Dhaka, Delhi and Woods Hole as we speak,” Captain Kurk answered. “Advance warning of any airborne pollutants released from flooded factories or waste dumps is assured.

“Our cellphone relay center is also in operation, augmenting Jean-Marie Massaud's 'Manned Cloud', which is already on station providing wireless voice and data networking throughout the entire country. You can see her there, about 40 miles off the bow.”

AUTHOR'S NOTES

In this unusually engaging prospectus:

* The climate change and airship science depicted above are factually accurate.
* The rescue scenario is inevitable - if airships are developed in time.
* All characters except Captain “Kurk” and Trici Eckener are factual.
* All facts, dates, histories, airship companies, costs, airship performance figures and other numerical details are factual.

Additional Notes:
The airships described are either under active design or in prototype flight testing. While aerodynamically and commercially viable, none have so far succeeded due to inadequate venture capitol. A half-million dollars is quickly consumed in start-up contingencies. Based on my four year's extensive research, it appears that $200 million allocated to already fully-developed airships will see these technologically reinvigorated craft once again traversing world airways - just as nearly ubiquitous, but atmosphere-destroying jet travel becomes economically and environmentally unviable.

For example:
Worldwide Aeros exists. Ohio Airships exists. The group initially hired Dr. Daniel Raymer, former Director of Advanced Design at Lockheed Martin, and Rockwell's "Engineer of the Year" to examine the feasibility of their Dynalifter dreamship.

Before beginning work, Dr. Raymer warned investors that his findings would be unbiased and potentially unfavorable to the project. His six-month, phase-1 study covered: performance requirements, airframe layout, helium vs. wing lift optimization, engine selection, initial structural recommendations and preliminary cost estimations - and answered the critical "Go/No Go" decision to proceed with the project.

A follow-on six-month study sought to confirm or challenge the previous findings using completely different approaches. Two reputable aerospace contractors were brought onboard to provide greater details on aerodynamic and structural feasibility, as well as a preliminary materials and components lists, a detailed production cost estimation and operational cost estimates. The FAA certification process was also studied, a small manned prototype designed - and the project's "Go/No Go" decision once again reviewed.

When Dr. Raymer's second study concluded that the Dynalifter concept was technically and economically feasible, much of the “heavy lifting” for these hybrid dirigibles had been done.

In Germany, staff engineers Klaus Hagenlocher and Florian Windischbauer had already been asked by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin to study whether airships had the potential to fly again. In 1988, they concluded that dirigibles constructed of lightweight aluminum and carbon fiber composite triangular frames, and covered with weatherproof Tedlar foil and polyester textiles, could offer a safe alternative to earlier zeppelins - and be kept tethered outdoors.

A decade later, a team of 150 aeronautical and structural engineers began working in secret on the Hindenburg II project. According to Berliner Zeitung, the new ship would use a combination of helium and hydrogen in 17 separate gas cells to give it enough lifting capacity to accommodate hundreds of passengers, or up to 75 tons of cargo.

Researched and written by William Thomas. I can be reached through project coordinator Rich Valles.

WILLIAM THOMAS CV

RELATED PROPOSALS

SOURCES:
Popular Mechanics Oct/06
dynalifter.com
National Geographic News Jan 31/06
New York Times Feb 20/06
Orion Jan-Feb/07
21stcenturyairships.com
Flugmaschine 1810
Seattle Post-Intelligencer May 17/02
mikewhybark.com
maximonline.com
cee.nps.navy.mil
Taipei Times June 1/04
myairship.com
flug-revue.rotor.com
Science Sept 2/01
wissenschaftwissen.de
Flug Revue Dec/02
AP Aug 17/01
BBC
bluenotebooks.com
oft.osd.mil
Washington Times Mar 4/04
spiegel.de
aerosml.com
ecogeek.org
Natural Capitalism

“It looks like a huge white whale,” remarked Dr. Rhaman, pointing to the French designer's 210 meter-long, 20-room sightseeing hotel as improbably suspended in the sky as a distant mirage. Moving slowly ahead to keep lift flowing across its aerodynamic shape, the graceful 210 meter-long, 20-room luxury hotel provided a superb aerial command-and-coordination post, as well as a refugee evacuation center.

“And the Maldives? Are they going under, too? Did the British scientific team get out?” Gregory anxiously asked.

“Now less than three feet above the new sea level, that archipelago's 1,200 coral atolls are even more vulnerable than Bangladesh,” the captain replied. “I am sure you are aware that during the December 2004 tsunami, 13 of those islands were completely evacuated and their inhabitants relocated. Today, the big dangers in both countries - besides the epidemics which our medical supplies are intended to prevent - are storm surges flooding across low lying land.”

Seeing Gregory frown, Captain Kurk continued: “The good news is the long range forecasts are holding. But let us give credit where it is due. After the Iraq war's escalating expenses caused the Pentagon to suspend its Walrus hybrid airlift program in 2006, it is only because a group of California-based investors stepped forward with the courage and foresight to jumpstart this new aviation industry that millions of people can still reach distant destinations by air. Thanks to them, and those who recognized the opportunity they made possible, we have a dozen of the world's biggest Dynalifters and Aerostats already enroute from Fulton Field in Akron, the Carpenter, Mines, Santa Ana, Moffet and Sunny Vale dromes in California - and a repentent coal-burning China."

“Aerostats, captain? Do you mean the new lifting bodies?” Trici Eckener picked up.

“Precisely,” Captain Kurk confirmed. “From the Greek, 'aer' and 'statos' meaning 'standing' or 'staying' in the air. Globally patriotic investors also backed the world's leading lighter-than-air, FAA-certified airship manufacturing company, Worldwide Aeros, whose 20 years of operations and advanced research in lighter-than-air technologies have given them a presence across three continents, and affiliates in eight European and Asian countries. Using the shape of their vehicles as a lifting body, their Aeroscraft derive 30% of their lift from forward flight. Like the winged Dynalifters, Aeroscrafts also need short runways to land.

“Army engineers have already constructed a prefabricated landing strip on high ground in the Maldives. Once they deliver their emergency equipment and supplies to Bangladesh, those 10 U.S. airships will rendezvous with us to begin full-scale evacuation at there. Joined by Celestial Kingdom and Beijing, each combined airlift will take off more than 3,000 people, including children and infants, and fly them to the Seychelles, where they will be embarked on ships unable to safely navigate the Maldives' newly submerged and as yet uncharted reefs.”

Turning to Jonathan Gregory, the captain addressed him directly. “As for your question, a British Navy airship has already rescued all UK citizens, scientists and their dependents.”

“Thank you captain. My daughter was on that team.