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Approximately how much demand is there for conventional non-rigid or semi-rigid blimps today?
I was pondering how hard it would be to set up a company that builds 60, 80, and 100 meter semi-rigid blimps on demand for customers, like the former Airship Industries company before that went bankrupt in 1990. They could potentially replace helicopters in some applications and be far cheaper to operate, though obviously being much less compact and sensitive to weather.
They could be configured for advertising, surveillance and observation, sightseeing, and possibly luxury "air yacht" variants. I would use distributed electric propulsion for the main propulsive motors and an auxiliary stern thruster. Smaller blimps could run on batteries and solar panels while larger blimps could use small gas or diesel generators.
Even selling about a half dozen blimps per year could allow such a company to break even.
I was pondering how hard it would be to set up a company that builds 60, 80, and 100 meter semi-rigid blimps on demand for customers, like the former Airship Industries company before that went bankrupt in 1990. They could potentially replace helicopters in some applications and be far cheaper to operate, though obviously being much less compact and sensitive to weather.
They could be configured for advertising, surveillance and observation, sightseeing, and possibly luxury "air yacht" variants. I would use distributed electric propulsion for the main propulsive motors and an auxiliary stern thruster. Smaller blimps could run on batteries and solar panels while larger blimps could use small gas or diesel generators.
Even selling about a half dozen blimps per year could allow such a company to break even.
