Twelve electric motors powered by diesel generators and batteries enable vertical take-off and landing. They can propel the Pathfinder 1 at up to 65 knots (75 mph), although its initial flights will be at much lower speeds.
Archer apparently got the math on that right too, in 2010. New York to London is about 3500 miles, which would take about 47 hours at the top speed of 75 mph.
I can’t believe they actually got enough money to build this thing. It’s like a vaporware project that somehow made it.
The market for this must be literally dozens of people.
It’s even more entertaining: it’s airspeed not ground speed, so the trip duration depends on the direction and force of the wind at the heigh it travels in (and that’s a lot worse for airships that aircraft because the formar have a much larger area facing the wind than the latter).
So that trip at top speed would likelly be shorter than that on the way to London, but longer than that on the way back (as the predominant winds - except during the El Niño - are from the west).
I can see this being used in international shipping if the get the cost down. Why put your product on a big ship when you can use an air ship? Also for landlocked countries.
Not a chance. If you’re paying for air freight it’s because you need something delivered now. If you don’t need it fast, then train/truck shipping is more cost effective.
While Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in addition to its crew, water ballast and fuel, future humanitarian airships will need much larger capacities.
By comparison, the Airbus A350-900 has a payload capacity of 53 tons, and the newer A350F version can carry 111 tons.
Even if they manage to triple the payload capacity, the A350F can carry 10x the weight.
If they send a bunch of them and they replace container ship traffic, however- how much less pollution is that?
Not saying they don’t face an extremely uphill battle to scale enough for that to make sense (we all know the green angle alone won’t be enough even if it should be…)
A single standard twenty-foot cargo container can carry ~20000 lbs (10 tons). This airship can’t even match half the capacity of one container. Modern cargo ships carry thousands of those containers, the largest about 24000. You would need to build 40000 airships to get roughly the carrying capacity of one container ship.
This isn’t an uphill battle, it’s completely infeasible.
Who the hell wants a 2-day ride to London?
Archer apparently got the math on that right too, in 2010. New York to London is about 3500 miles, which would take about 47 hours at the top speed of 75 mph.
I can’t believe they actually got enough money to build this thing. It’s like a vaporware project that somehow made it.
The market for this must be literally dozens of people.
I’d love to take a slow (presumably more environmentally friendly) flight like that. Limited vacation time is the only issue.
It’s even more entertaining: it’s airspeed not ground speed, so the trip duration depends on the direction and force of the wind at the heigh it travels in (and that’s a lot worse for airships that aircraft because the formar have a much larger area facing the wind than the latter).
So that trip at top speed would likelly be shorter than that on the way to London, but longer than that on the way back (as the predominant winds - except during the El Niño - are from the west).
I can see this being used in international shipping if the get the cost down. Why put your product on a big ship when you can use an air ship? Also for landlocked countries.
Maybe cargo, not people.
Not a chance. If you’re paying for air freight it’s because you need something delivered now. If you don’t need it fast, then train/truck shipping is more cost effective.
By comparison, the Airbus A350-900 has a payload capacity of 53 tons, and the newer A350F version can carry 111 tons.
Even if they manage to triple the payload capacity, the A350F can carry 10x the weight.
Airship can land and take off from virtually any surface that allows that silly baloon to fit. Not just airports or air strips.
Sure, but so can a helicopter, which can also carry more weight and get there faster.
If they send a bunch of them and they replace container ship traffic, however- how much less pollution is that?
Not saying they don’t face an extremely uphill battle to scale enough for that to make sense (we all know the green angle alone won’t be enough even if it should be…)
A single standard twenty-foot cargo container can carry ~20000 lbs (10 tons). This airship can’t even match half the capacity of one container. Modern cargo ships carry thousands of those containers, the largest about 24000. You would need to build 40000 airships to get roughly the carrying capacity of one container ship.
This isn’t an uphill battle, it’s completely infeasible.