>>976970>you'd have to have massive engines to get truly stationaryHaving massive engines is kind of a nicht-nicht with airships. The Zeppelins had extremely modern (for their time) diesel engines, which were very light for the power they generated.
I wonder how much you could do with modern technology in this respect.
Also, to manage hovering you need more engines than the zeppelins had, they only had engines on the side for forward or backward propulsion. When hovering, side winds would be a major issue, since the airship has a large area from the side which would cause wind resistance. Airships had difficulty maneuvering to land for this reason, since they had lots of trouble with winds.
Maybe the solution to this would be round airships with engines on all sides. That way no one side would offer more wind resistance than others.
I think your idea is probably viable, but it just needs so much developing that it doesn't offer enough advantages over helicopters. You can just get a bunch of helicopters to rescue many people, that would also be faster than one airship rescuing many people one after the other.
It hurts me that airships or blimps have little future, I wish it were otherwise, but I think that ship has sailed for ever.
In fact, I believe leisure-purposed lighter-than-air craft are prolly the best option. A bigass rigid airship as an air cruiseship would surely be interesting. But then again, seeing how few passengers they carry that would make tickets really expensive, and with fewer amenities than regular cruise ships.
Sightseeing tours could also be a great use for airships, THAT would surely be a better option than helicopters. I believe there are those kinds of services in Germany somewhere, but imagine a zeppelin tour of New York or something like that, floating around at just a couple hundred feet above the street, passing next to skyscrapers, and without the uncomfortableness and dangers of a helicopter.
