Can anyone tell me any design flaws of Zeppelin airships?

Question

My brother and I are attempting to design a very special class of Zeppelin, but I don't want to give away too many details out of fear of someone ripping us off. However, before we can do anything, we need to try to perfect the design of the Zeppelin itself and It's rather difficult to find anything online. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Hello El Matador,

Zeppelins like any other aircraft have to be engineered with quite a lot of things you have to take into consideration. The Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin were designes that evolved over many years. None of the too had any serious design flaws. They used Hydrogen but the Graf Zeppelin flew many years without any accidents.

Main issues are ground handling, handling at low speeds, handling in severe weather.

I would suggest that you connect with the Colorado Airship List http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/airsh... it's an email mailing list with lots of highly experienced engineers on it. Many have worked on the Skyships and the new Zeppelin NT. The Zeppelin NT I see as current state of the art with the best design on the market. It has it's flaws, for example the heavy internal structure but its a great airship.

Also you are welcome to present you designs on the Airshipworld Blog or in our Forum the Blog you find at http://airshipworld.blogspot.com/ and the Forum at http://www.airshipworld.info/forum.html

Regards

Andreas G

Editor of the Airshipworld Blog

Answer 2

Guess you never heard of the Goodyear blimp, which is very successful.  No significant flaws there, otherwise it wouldn't be used.  There have been recent attempts on zepplins for heavy lifing and passenger cruise and exploriation.  None of them have been successful yet.  Also heard of another use to create a stationay wireless cell site in the sky for broadband access.  See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/29...

http://www.dailywireless.org/2004/12/09/...

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship

"The greatest disadvantage of the airship is size, which is essential to increasing performance. As size increases, the problems of ground handling increase geometrically...So long as the power-to-weight ratios of aircraft engines remained low and specific fuel consumption high, the airship had an edge for long range or duration operations. As those figures changed, the balance shifted rapidly in the airplane’s favor.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionar...  for missile defense.

Answer 3

One of the problems was the paint they used, it was highly flammable.

Answer 4

You aren't going to invent any new art, so don't worry about being ripped off. Zeppelins were well designed and built, but the USA would not sell helium to Germany, which was forced to use hydrogen instead for lift.

That led to the destruction of the Hindenburg. Prior to that Zeppelins had made many trips in commercial service to South America.

Your goal of 'perfecting the design' sounds very naive and presumptuous to me, frankly.

Answer 5

they move extremely slowly and are easily burnt. many complain that they weigh to much