>>1177189Because static lift via gas fucking sucks.
The Hindenburg - class airships - largest functional Zepps ever built - had a "useful" lift of 76 metric tons. the max takeoff weight was somewhere in the region of 130 met. tons.
The A380 has a maximum takeoff weight of 560 fucking metric tons. that's half-a-million Kilos.
The A380 barely breaks 70 meters long. the Hindenburg? 250 meters.
The Hindenburg, fully bloomed, had an order-of-magnitude greater volume than the A380, and could carry about 1/5th of the weight.
Then you get to speed, range, everything else - it's not even a comparison.
people still bitch that the zepp design could be improved, but really, it couldn't be, not by enough to match airliner numbers. Dynamic lift aircraft really are amazing - hence the reason why all modern proposals lean heavily on hybrid solutions.
