[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) - Blimp drones for air f...
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Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) - Blimp drones for air freight
Hi, we're Ben and Joe from Buoyant (https://www.buoyant.aero/). We
build small unmanned cargo airships and use them to move air
freight at half the cost per mile of a small plane. An airship (or
blimp) is an aircraft that gets most of its lift from a lifting gas
like helium. It's the most efficient way to fly, which means it's
cheaper than any other aircraft for many missions. We're starting
by building an aircraft for middle-mile air freight in remote and
rural areas--warehouse-to-warehouse or post office to post office.
This is a $6B market in the US alone, and freight volumes are only
increasing. By building autonomous blimps, we can lower shipping
costs, increase quality and speed of service, and cut out millions
of tons of CO2 emissions. So far, we've built and flown four
airships. The latest is 20 feet long and can fly up to 35 miles per
hour. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEYOfVcwRhk.
We're starting in areas where freight is already moved on small
planes and helicopters. In these remote areas, availability of
goods is lower, shipping takes longer, and it's more expensive. For
example, food in rural parts of Alaska is twice as expensive as in
Anchorage. Small air freight is particularly expensive because of
the cost of fuel, maintenance, pilots, and airport infrastructure.
To make major cost reductions we need a new type of aircraft. Ben
is a mechanical engineer from Alaska and grew up in the outdoors,
so is familiar with the challenges of remote supply operations. He
has built aircraft tracking technology for the DoD, flat panel
phased array antennas, GPS data loggers for motorsports, and helped
start a company that made shirts with upside down pockets. I'm an
aerospace engineer who's built and flown spacecraft at two internet
satellite startups, spending a lot of time on complicated flying
machines. We met at MIT and have been friends for almost a decade
since. We spent years building satellites and antennas to provide
internet connectivity to rural areas, and while doing so learned
about the transportation challenges in remote places. Many drone
delivery projects have focused on delivering small packages in
suburbs, and are too short range or low payload to serve rural
areas. We realized small airships were a technical approach that
could work to move cargo in these areas, and decided to tackle the
challenge. An airship is the most efficient way to fly because it
gets most of its lift from buoyancy, rather than spending energy on
rotor lift or aerodynamic lift over a wing. This lets us fly
further and carry more payload than other small aircraft. Other
attempts at unmanned cargo aircraft have used quadcopters or quad-
plane hybrid drones. These are useful for some missions but lack
the flight efficiency to carry large payloads long distances.
Airships have other benefits too: they are safer and quieter than
quadcopters or multirotor-plane hybrids. If the motors fail, an
airship floats to the ground, while a quadcopter comes crashing
down. And it's an easy way to build an aircraft that can takeoff
and land vertically, like a helicopter. Our airship is a fabric
envelope filled with helium, with an attached payload bay, motors,
and power system. It gets 2/3 of its lift from buoyancy, and the
rest from aerodynamic lift. This combination is called a hybrid
airship, and allows us to drop off a payload without needing to
take on ballast. The aircraft flies autonomously and can take off
and land in inclement weather, using centimeter accuracy GPS for
approaches. The full scale version will load 650 lbs of cargo at
one end, fly to the destination while we pilot it remotely, deposit
the cargo, and return. Our first operational vehicle will be
battery electric, with a range of 200-300 miles and a cruise speed
of 60 mph. Future vehicles will have hydrogen powertrains for
longer-range missions. We started off with a last-mile delivery
concept ("Amazon box to the house"). But in conversations with
logistics providers, we found a recurring problem transporting
300-600 lb shipments between warehouses or between airports. Using
drones to deliver to houses is operationally complex, and the path
to doing so at scale is still murky. But with a 650 lb payload, our
drone can fit neatly into existing supply chains in the middle
mile. This makes our operations much simpler and should allow us to
get to market relatively quickly with a few aircraft on a few
routes. We've closed $5M in LOIs, including one from a large
regional air carrier in Alaska, and have two pilot programs
planned. We loved reading the thread a couple weeks ago about
hydrogen vs. helium for blimps, and are excited to see what people
think about our airships! Where do you see the biggest use case for
vehicles like ours? Let us know any other thoughts or ideas, and
we'll be active in the comments today.
Author : joefigura
Score : 160 points
Date : 2021-08-23 16:40 UTC (6 hours ago)
| Mizza wrote:
| Nifty! Simple, exciting and aesthetically pleasing idea. I've
| known people from Alaska who have to get their supplies flown in,
| so it's cool you're covering that use case from the start -
| although apparently that whole service economy is really driven
| by the smuggling of alcohol, as many towns there are "dry". You
| may be stepping on some toes if you muscle into this territory.
|
| How does piloting work? Is the goal to make these things
| completely autonomous, or will there be a remote pilot at all
| times?
|
| What's the business model? Can I buy one of your blimps, or are
| you going to become FedEx of the low skies?
| Benclaman wrote:
| The goal is to make them completely autonomous, though a pilot
| observer will likely be required for the near future.
|
| Business model is something we're still figuring out. We have
| interest on both sides, but at first we'll definitely be
| operating themselves as the 'FedEx of the low skies.' Once the
| airship is certified (1-3 years after we build it), we can sell
| them.
| fernly wrote:
| On-board pilot/observer? Or remote, like a military drone
| operator?
|
| If you build the infrastructure for the latter, one operator
| could likely manage multiple craft.
|
| That said, what does either type of pilot do, if the vehicle
| misbehaves? What's the abort protocol, esp. over populated
| areas? Given a 600-lb payload, self-destruct is not an
| appealing way to exit.
| bbojan wrote:
| Since you're already planning on using hydrogen fuel cells for
| propulsion, does it play well with using hydrogen as the lift
| gas, too? Since the airship is unmanned, this seems like a good
| synergy.
| john_yaya wrote:
| Someone else mentioned the prevalence of vandalism against
| trains crossing the country, and that all too many trains
| arrive at their destination with bullet holes. A hydrogen-
| filled blimp would be a tempting target for people so inclined.
| Jabbles wrote:
| I don't understand how this could lift 650lb:
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20ft+*+3ft+*+3ft+*+2+*...
|
| = 28 lbs (13 kg)
| joefigura wrote:
| You're right, 650 lbs is the full scale version. The current
| prototype carries 0-10 lbs, depending on battery load. Edited
| the post to make that a bit clearer.
| elamje wrote:
| Very cool concept.
|
| I'm sure your guys have done a ton of prior art, but I want to
| encourage you to make sure Amazon hasn't patented this in any
| capacity yet.
|
| A close friend that worked at Prime Air shared how years ago
| their division had a full time legal staff dedicated to patenting
| all engineers ideas. He had gotten several patents even being
| entry level FWIW. They had several concepts very similar to this
| and it wouldn't surprise me if they were able to get that IP
| locked down. Like I said, I expect you all have checked and
| rechecked but thought it's worth mentioning.
| diskzero wrote:
| I was once told by a VC to never do a patent search as the
| money spent on the search and analysis would be better spent on
| developing the idea. Bad advice?
| sentrysapper wrote:
| I'm sure patent trolls would agree with that advice.
| smt88 wrote:
| All advice from VCs tends to be bad, but legal advice from
| VCs should be dismissed outright.
|
| The search is very cheap and easy, and then you can decide if
| the risk is worth it.
| jnwatson wrote:
| It doesn't take much money to search. It does, however,
| expose you to treble damages due to "willful infringement".
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Everytime I hear about companies patenting everything, it
| really bothers me.
|
| I wish we would tie patent fees to the assets of a company, or
| person. Basically the wealthy boys would pay much more for a
| patent, and low income individuals woukd pay less, or nothing.
|
| So a big company might think twice about an exponential
| government fee when they are on their 100 patent.
| bserge wrote:
| If you can make them stealthier, accept crypto and/or cash and
| not ask a lot of questions, I believe you can double that market
| figure.
| hirundo wrote:
| It sounds like an outstanding search and rescue platform, in calm
| conditions.
| Benclaman wrote:
| A fleet for autonomous search and rescue would be awesome.
| [deleted]
| ogsalmanxx wrote:
| As long as this is better for the environment I'm all for it.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| Don't take this the wrong way but...
|
| I think its hard to avoid the elephant in the room that blimp
| cargo has been a dream ever since the invention of the blimp, and
| if we put your technology claims to one side (because they are
| more an assistant, not an enabler) I'm not too sure what makes
| you any different ?
|
| Look at what is perhaps your most recent competitor ... Flying
| Whales.
|
| Going since 2012, burning through cash like there's no tomorrow
| ($30m Quebec, EUR225m France etc. etc.) , and so far maybe
| promising some sort of prototype by 2024 (already slipped from
| 2021).
|
| What _really_ makes you so different from prior dreamers and in
| particular your present competitors ?
| Benclaman wrote:
| We're not planning to build something that's 600 feet long and
| costs hundreds of millions, we're building something that's 60
| feet long and costs hundreds of thousands. Unmanned blimps of
| this size don't require the same amount of capital, so we can
| fly faster and get to market faster.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| But do you escape the regulatory requirements and the
| practical constraints ?
| joefigura wrote:
| We'll spend a lot of time on certification. We need two
| things: a type-certification of the aircraft, and operator
| certifications for the organizations flying them. Both
| require a lot of flight hours, which will be our main
| development activity. There's no escaping aircraft
| regulation, but we have a clear path
|
| Hopefully we've responded to practical constraints in other
| answers, but if not let me know questions.
| dmix wrote:
| I don't understand why it took so long for them to build a
| prototype? 12 years?
| lyime wrote:
| Basically why now?
| Benclaman wrote:
| The economics on small airships only work if they're
| unmanned, and now is pretty much the best time ever to
| develop unmanned aircraft.
| quadcore wrote:
| Entirely fair question I think. I'd add that execution can
| easily be the difference. Notably french startups generally
| have poor execution. For example, the entrepreneur in France
| generally has to get loan on his own person, indebting himself,
| "to be sure he believes in his own idea".
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > indebting himself, "to be sure he believes in his own
| idea".
|
| Putting the French specific comment to one side because I
| don't have sufficient knowledge to comment, what I would say
| is that having "skin in the game" is no bad thing (it focuses
| your mind, and demonstrates your commitment to others).
|
| That's one of the problems with the US funding scene.
|
| On one side its great because people will throw obscene
| amounts of money at you if your marketing pitch sells well
| enough.
|
| One the other hand, it does lead to the situation where your
| commitment to the business only goes so far because you've
| basically always got someone else picking up the tab.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| On average it has worked spectacularly well though.
|
| Most founders aren't taking a risk (they tend to come from
| wealthy families) they are executing a vision.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| How frequently does this happen in reality? The reality is:
| startups are risky. Forcing the entrepreneur to take a
| bigger chunk of that risk than necessary leads to less
| innovation, playing it safe, and kills many businesses
| before they've left the ground. Would Airbnb exist? Would
| Coinbase exist? Would uber exist? Maybe, but probably not,
| because the founders here weren't rich enough to absorb the
| costs given the odds.
|
| In theory, having that much skin in the game sounds like a
| pro with small cons. The reality is that is kills
| innovation, leaves the few brave enough who fail indebted
| and hampered for years, and makes the successful a fraction
| of the scale (and disproportionately founded by those
| already rich).
| GDC7 wrote:
| Companies providing those services would exist anyways.
|
| The profile of the person founding them would be
| different. You'd have istrionic risk takers, borderline
| gamblers carrying the company for the first say 5 years,
| then they'd be bought out and a more stable person would
| be brought in.
|
| The VC model enables the economy at large to artificially
| skip the first step. It's artificial because Silicon
| Valley companies which basically start from zero and
| arrive in the S&P500 in 20 years or less, they have very
| low turnover in managment and executives.
|
| It's like a Vietcong learning how to fly an F-35.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I'm not french but spent a fair amount of time in the EU tech
| ecosystem and I think that "Notably french startups generally
| have poor execution." is a super general statement that isn't
| fair to apply. I mean Bernard Arnault, one of the wealthiest
| people in the world, built LVMH and the government has been
| working hard via the la french tech initiative and Station F
| to make the startup ecosystem much more friendly.
| EmilyHATFIELD wrote:
| I think you're thinking about Xavier Niel, which created
| Free, Station F and 42
| avernon wrote:
| Did you choose batteries for the first version to simplify the
| power train? Also, why use hydrogen instead of a cheaper, buoyant
| neutral fuel like propane? If you are worried about the carbon,
| you can always buy direct air capture credits.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| That's very cool!
|
| How does it handle weather? You mention it can take off and land
| in inclement weather, but how does it compare with existing
| competitors? Intuitively (as someone with zero knowledge or
| experience in any of this), it seems like planes and helicopters
| could handle higher winds than a blimp - is that the case?
| Benclaman wrote:
| It depends. For example, small planes need runways to take off
| and land, and if the crosswinds are over 15 kts they aren't
| able to operate. In this same situation, our airships would be
| able to take off and land because they have VTOL capability
| like a helicopter and can point in any direction. Helicopter
| can take off and land in really high winds, up to 40 kts, but
| they are 4-8x more expensive to operate than planes, and have
| limited range.
|
| Our test site is by a wind farm so we have a lot of experience
| with flying blimps in wind, and we expect our max takeoff
| windspeed for the full size airship to be 25-30 kts.
| 7952 wrote:
| How does it cope with turbulence and wind sheer compared to
| an aeroplane?
| deepnotderp wrote:
| Isn't the von Karman efficiency of small airships very low? I
| struggle to see how you can claim " An airship is the most
| efficient way to fly because it gets most of its lift from
| buoyancy".
|
| Either way, seems like a cool project- I wish you luck!
| joefigura wrote:
| Good question! Airships do get more efficient as they get
| larger (more volume to surface area). But at the 650 lb payload
| size our vehicles fly more efficiency than a comparably-sized
| plane - small planes are also aerodynamically inefficient!
|
| Our goal isn't to maximize efficiency, but rather to build
| something that fits a market need and that we can deploy
| quickly. We actually think that the quest to build huge,
| efficient airships has lead past airship projects astray. There
| are several projects that have struggled to build 10 ton or 50
| ton vehicles, but no past attempts to build something in this
| size class.
| gene-h wrote:
| Define what you mean by fly more efficiently. I'd like to see
| some numbers on efficiency.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| EMM_386 wrote:
| > and can take off and land in inclement weather
|
| What kind of inclement weather are we talking about?
|
| Aircraft have to deal with some _really_ inclement weather.
| METARs like 12026G41. You mention you are testing in Alaska,
| which is infamous for this.
|
| How much of a problem will this be?
| Benclaman wrote:
| The inclement weather where our airships have the biggest
| advantage is in fog or limited visibility due to autonomy
| hardware/software in geographies with traditionally VFR
| approaches. Based on our experiences flying our current
| prototype, the full size airship should be able to take-off and
| land in wind speeds of 25-30 kts.
| blantonl wrote:
| This is a neat concept - especially considering they are
| autonomous. However, I wonder about these risk scenarios:
|
| 1) Weather. Moving at 35 mph it seems that a lot of long term
| planning is in order for something that could be severely
| impacted by weather. This sounds like a logistical nightmare
| during a week of active weather across the country.
|
| 2) Helium availability - there have been reports that the costs
| of helium have gone up considerably since there are only a very
| few producers of the gas and this seems like it would be a huge
| consumer of such gas.
|
| 3) Vandalism. Never underestimate the power of stupid people.
| It's well known in the railroad industry that trains and their
| cargo often take bullets from traveling cross country. In fact,
| the 737 fuselages that travel across country on trains for Boeing
| often have bullet holes in them that must be repaired. Add in a
| huge cargo blimp that is unmanned and the urge for vandalism will
| be significant for some nefarious actors.
| Benclaman wrote:
| These are awesome questions! Here's a couple answers:
|
| 1) We're building our full size airship to fly at 60 mph, which
| increases the usability in inclement weather.
|
| 2) Joe answered this in another comment, but our airships use
| pretty small quantities of helium compared to the bigger ones,
| so it's not a major operational cost.
|
| 3) For sure this is an issue, but the bigger the blimp is, the
| more bullet holes you'd have to fill it with to prevent it from
| reaching its final destination. The german zeppelins of world
| war I were really hard to shoot down. See 5:47 of the below
| video.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlQgprSGpNI
| ManBlanket wrote:
| I just attended a 7 year old girl's birthday party who was
| gifted a bb gun by her domestic-swilling uncle. We confirmed
| the temptation to shoot balloons is real. That said it seems
| like the other points you mentioned are working in your
| favor. The chances of hitting a small moving aircraft at a
| relatively high altitude is much lower than a 747 loaded onto
| a passing train. Plus I would like to imagine the temptation
| to shoot at something would diminish significantly as our
| hill billy wouldn't necessarily know it is unmanned. Not to
| mention anyone who has listened to a firearm safety talk is
| well-versed in how gravity affects projectiles. I wouldn't
| anticipate this being a significant problem, but it was a fun
| thought to entertain nonetheless.
|
| And hey I'm just spit-balling here but isn't wind a much less
| of an issue at dusk, night, and dawn? Would this not be a
| significant factor in when you would operate? I would imagine
| most people shooting 747s on passing trains aren't getting
| out of bed to do that, after all.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| Not to be confused with the other Buoyant [1], the company behind
| the linkerd service mesh.
|
| Not that I'm really into service meshes, but I happened to be
| doing some reading about the Tokio async runtime for Rust
| yesterday, and a lot of the work on that has been funded by that
| Buoyant, which is why that company was on my mind.
|
| [1]: https://buoyant.io/
| ascales wrote:
| I think the concept is awesome, and I'm excited to see it, but it
| raises so many questions about how this is going to work. First
| question that comes to mind is how are you going to handle
| weather- and not just crazy storms, but heat and pressure too.
| Blimps/semi-rigid airships face a less than ideal operating
| window, and while ballonets and ballast can help manage the
| buoyancy of the ship, inevitably you'll have to vent helium. How
| are you going to approach the infrastructure the drones are going
| to need to stay topped up on helium and ballast, and how are you
| going to approach emergency situations where you end up outside
| of the operating window of the aircraft?
| Benclaman wrote:
| We anticipate these will have operating bases with lifting gas
| storage tanks, hangars, tiedowns, etc. The hybrid design we're
| using doesn't need ballast because the total vehicle mass is
| heavier than air. In emergencies, we would land them in a field
| or on water for recovery when conditions improve, or fly to an
| area with better weather.
| burnished wrote:
| I think this is a really interesting project. When I read about
| the helium vs hydrogen post, same as you, I started scratching
| things out for curiosities sake (I was more curious about how
| high you could reasonably go). Very exciting stuff. I've got a
| bunch of questions, feel free to cherry pick if you decide to
| respond.
|
| How delicate do you suspect this will be? Will a bored or
| malicious person be able to cause harm with a laser, an air rifle
| with pellet or BB, or gun? In the event of a puncture what is the
| failure mode like? Are you worried about birds? Are you concerned
| about banditry? I know the last might sound silly, but you'd only
| really need to go to our grand-parents and great-grand-parents to
| find some train robbers.
|
| I could see Hollywood making use of this for filming in remote
| locations. Or other situations where you need to get something
| heavy and oddly shaped up or over a mountain. Relief work as well
| where the roads aren't operable. Wouldn't surprise me if this had
| applications in agriculture either, if anyone is still using
| planes might be nicer to have an autonomous blimp instead. Maybe
| stuff like introducing fish to alpine lakes, if you've got good
| control of vertical height you could probably design a safe exit
| system.
|
| Most of that is supposing that getting the blimp somewhere to
| then be used is easy. How is transportation of those things when
| not in use?
| Benclaman wrote:
| A bored or malicious person will definitely be able to shoot
| our airships. The nice part about an airship is that if you
| shoot it with a gun, the hole will be small so it will take a
| long time for the gas to leak out. The failure mode is the
| airship will gradually lose lift and have trouble flying,
| probably on the order of hours before it wouldn't have enough
| to fly.
|
| Most of the time we'll be operating over areas without people,
| so if the airships do get shot at, they should be in an area
| where they can safely land and be recovered. The envelope will
| be tough enough to handle birds landing on it.
|
| Regarding banditry, we hope that we are providing enough value
| to these communities that there will be peer pressure to
| prevent it.
|
| It's relatively easy to transport them when not in use, either
| keeping them inflated and flying to the end location, or
| packing them up and assembling/inflating on location.
| burnished wrote:
| Rad! Thanks for the answers and best of luck!
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I have connections at 3M, let me know if you need any fancy
| materials :)
| HALtheWise wrote:
| One obvious tradeoff blimps is lower speeds than what people
| normally expect from "air freight". You mention 60mph in your
| post, which seems comparable to trucks. Are your customers
| primarily interested in air freight for speed, or is it mostly
| avoiding the cost of a driver, or is it something else entirely?
| liketochill wrote:
| Lack of roads
| literallyaduck wrote:
| What about using aerial cranes to build a zip line depot network
| instead. You could then have anchor lines for your blimps.
| b20000 wrote:
| where did you get the money to build all this? if you already
| have this sort of money, what do you need YC for?
| algo_trader wrote:
| this!
|
| Best of luck to them of course.
|
| But they already built a couple of models before YC. It makes
| financial sense to dilute by 7% and use the name recognition to
| drive a much higher valuation.
|
| But this does squeeze out the true pre-seed teams.
| agumonkey wrote:
| If long term safety is favorable, I'd to see more of theses.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| You mention the full scale version will take 650lbs - are there
| plans to increase that in the future? I'm thinking about the
| transport of commodities from inland hubs in Africa/MENA (e.g.
| copper in Zambia, coffee in West Africa) that is a pain to get to
| ports now. How does it perform in heavy rains? What sort of
| infrastructure investment is needed to set up facilities to
| receive the airship on either side?
| peregrine wrote:
| This is really cool and this is the kind of startup I'd be
| applying to in a heartbeat! Very excited to see this happening,
| great work! I feel like there is vastly more potential for LTA
| flight that isn't being re-explored with autonomous drones and
| solar being viable now.
|
| What altitudes do you intend on operating in the "v1"?
| notahacker wrote:
| > I feel there is vastly more potential for LTA flight that
| isn't being re-explored with autonomous drones and solar being
| viable now
|
| Interesting to see it go the other way too. Hybrid Air Vehicles
| near me is the remnants of a cancelled US military autonomous
| blimp project, now aspiring to use the large helium blimps
| originally powered by diesel engines to pilot 100 civilians
| passengers as an alternative to turboprops (i.e. use the bits
| of the tech and the business model that's been around in some
| form since before Hindenberg)
|
| I do think freight with electric propulsion (over distances
| battery-powered heavier than air aircraft can't compete even if
| they're also autonomous) is an easier environmentally friendly
| sell.
| dchristian wrote:
| How far along are you on getting FAA approval for beyond visual
| line of sight operation? Or will there be a pilot on the full
| scale version?
| Benclaman wrote:
| We haven't filed for a BVLOS waiver yet, that's something we're
| planning to do in the next couple months. Full scale version
| will be unmanned.
| 6510 wrote:
| > We loved reading the thread a couple weeks ago about hydrogen
| vs. helium for blimps
|
| Say it takes 1000 m3 hydrogen to lift 1 m3 concrete. Image a
| pyramid shaped cone 4000 meter long with a bottom 4 m3. Now
| imagine a balloon with a diameter of 8000 meters.
|
| Clearly much to big to build [for now]. We pump the hydrogen out
| of it. How much extra lift does that generate before the balloon
| implodes? What other materials can we use? Would it be possible
| to make it smaller than a km?
| sbr464 wrote:
| Had any interesting run-ins with lightning?
| legohead wrote:
| Cool project, I like the idea. How loud is this thing, as
| compared to a drone?
| lexicality wrote:
| What's your plan for dealing with the fact that Helium is a non-
| renewable resource that we are rapidly running out of?
|
| Have you done experiments into hydrogen safety?
| joefigura wrote:
| Good questions. Helium is non-renewable, but there is still
| plenty in the ground. It's a byproduct of natural gas
| extraction, and as long as there's more gas in the ground there
| will be helium available. We do think that declining natural
| gas production as the world decarbonizes is a long term risk.
|
| The helium market's been pretty volatile since the U.S.
| government finished selling off the national helium reserve in
| 2019. But we think that's mostly due to short-term market
| dynamics because helium's a hard commodity to produce and there
| are only a few producers. There are lots of stories about
| helium running out, but we've dug in and haven't found much
| evidence that supply is actually drying up
|
| We think we can build a hydrogen blimp safely. It's not on our
| tech roadmap currently, but in any case the best way to build a
| hydrogen blimp is to get lots of flight hours on a helium
| version first.
| lexicality wrote:
| > we've dug in and haven't found much evidence that supply is
| actually drying up
|
| Interesting. Is this a case of people over-hyping the problem
| or just that prices are going to rise to a point that people
| will stop wasting it?
|
| > the best way to build a hydrogen blimp is to get lots of
| flight hours on a helium version first
|
| Can you just put hydrogen into an existing helium blimp or
| would you need to design a new one based on flight data?
|
| I was under the impression they required radically different
| gasbag designs due to the explosion hazards (not to mention
| the increased lift)
| ansible wrote:
| > _Can you just put hydrogen into an existing helium blimp
| or would you need to design a new one based on flight
| data?_
|
| The issue is more about the permeability of hydrogen gas.
| It can seep through all kinds of materials, including
| metals, and then embrittle them.
| joefigura wrote:
| > Is this a case of people over-hyping the problem...
|
| As best I can tell, this is the case. The price of helium
| has gone up quite a bit, but non of the commentary links
| that to the actual production volumes of helium or size of
| remaining reserves.
|
| > Can you just put hydrogen into an existing helium blimp
|
| We'd need to modify the envelope design, but the rest of
| the design wouldn't need to be modified (aerodynamics,
| controls, propulsion, etc.)
| fernly wrote:
| Video would be much more impressive if it showed loading the
| cargo package -- can it pick up autonomously or does it need to
| be loaded by a ground crew? -- and also dropping it off within a
| designated space marked by cones.
|
| Will the full-size model be able to lift a standard 40-foot
| shipping container? That would be very cool indeed, to have the
| blimp pick up from a truck or from a container ship.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It seems like Alaska is quite prone to inclement weather, not
| just clouds but ice, including SLD icing.
|
| How's a blimp handle icing conditions? (I'm imagining "poorly",
| but I don't have a real idea and suspect you've got more info on
| it.)
| Benclaman wrote:
| We have a pretty cool plan for managing icing that I can't talk
| about here because of IP disclosure. In general we don't think
| icing will be an unsolvable problem.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Makes me think 'barge vs. wagon'.
| quadcore wrote:
| Wooah the video is so hacker-cool. I would add a little mention
| on your videos to tell it's not CGI ( _real life /world footage_
| or something), it might add to the impact and make it tiktok
| ready. Speaking of tiktok, might be an interesting platform for
| your videos.
| toss1 wrote:
| Wow, nice work! It looks quite controllable and maneuverable in
| what appear to be decent winds. Interesting using dual cylinders
| - what do you find works best about that design vs others you
| considered? Does this provide any redundancy (as in could you fly
| if one deflated)? What scale of thrust and elec power do you use
| (if you don't mind my asking)? Are you considering a range of
| sizes or just the "mid mile" 650Lb capacity version?
| malwrar wrote:
| This is a project I've had in the back of my mind for awhile!
| Cool to see you guys on the front page, if you start hiring I'll
| definitely be reaching out. Curious about the following:
|
| 1.) What does the regulatory landscape look like for this kind of
| work? Was there significant prep, or did you guys find it easy to
| get moving right away? I'm curious specifically about any
| obstacles both with flying your airships and the remote piloting.
|
| 2.) How much of the airship is manufactured in-house? Are you
| building the whole airship from scratch? Designing the fabric
| envelope material too?
|
| 3.) You mention the airships land in inclement weather, how
| inclement might that be? Any cool test videos you could share? :P
| aurizon wrote:
| Can ammonia gas be used? NH3 is non flammable, is far
| cheaper(with less list as well) leaks a lot less, but does have
| low temperature condensation issues = warmer flight times only.
| In addition, the wind speed in Alaska is often above 60 MPH
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| This is really cool, also surprisingly agile! Are the gas bags at
| earth pressure?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Makes a lot of sense. Save energy, travel further and carry more.
| Unfortunate that I won't have a blimp arriving at my doorstep
| though (yet!) :P
|
| Good luck!
| ansible wrote:
| I've thought the hybrid airship approach has a lot of benefits,
| and fewer drawbacks than conventional airships.
|
| What's the full-scale design going to look like? Will you
| continue to use the standard blimp shaped envelope? Or will you
| transition to a fat flying wing type design?
| joefigura wrote:
| Agreed, nice to meet someone else who knows what a hybrid
| airship is! it solves a lot of challenges around ground
| handling and cargo loading/unloading.
|
| The full scale design is a fatter shape that approximates a
| flying wing. That's why the aircraft in the demo video is two
| lobes - the final version will have an aerodynamic cover
| between the lobes.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Do you see opportunities in a "missing middle", where maybe a
| direct airship route may be more efficient than criss-crossing a
| rail cargo network? I've been interested in this space for a long
| time!
| dmix wrote:
| This seems much safer than most autonomous drones I've seen (or
| planes/helicopters). I hope this works out.
|
| Having a bunch of them in the air in a constant cycle synced with
| the warehouse could compensate for the lost speed and could
| result in more distributed last mile centers. So package delivery
| is closer to ordering time, rather than sitting in queued
| bunches.
| Benclaman wrote:
| This is exactly where we think the big market opportunity is!
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