Boeing's Skyhook JHL-40 blimp gives us hope for yesterday's future

We love dirigibles and we're not about to apologize for it, so that's why Boeing's new Skyhook JHL-40 airship has us ooh'ing and aah'ing in wonder. The eight-engine blimp is being developed for 40-ton 200-mile hauls in adverse environments such as wildernesses and what Boeing calls places "no other kind of transport can go." It is also slated to have a minimal impact on the environment with a carbon-minimal footprint as it won't require new roadways in remote areas. Of the eight engines, four provide lift while the other four control direction. Two production prototypes are under development at its Rotorcraft Systems facility in Ridley Park, PA. Can we sign up for a test flight? Maybe? Just a little?

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

[Rick @ Jul 11th 2008 7:51AM]

Why not recycle all the hot air that has been expended for the 3G iPhone release and employ it as an hot air balloon heavy lift craft.

Imagine all the B.S. hype that could lifted into the stratosphere by such a device.

[Jarhead2012 @ Jul 11th 2008 8:07AM]

I see what you did there!

[JamesR @ Jul 11th 2008 7:57AM]

Buoyancy is a principle that has worked very well for shipping heavy goods over water for centuries. It is awesome that companies are starting to once again look at lighter then air vehicles for over land duty.

I wish Boeing well on this venture so that other companies will follow their lead.

[patsy @ Jul 11th 2008 9:22AM]

Yeah, but ships ride the interface between air and water, taking advantage of the huge difference in density. Airships are analogous to submarines, and I haven't seen freight submarines take off in any big way. The problem of payload release with an airship is a very significant one that doesn't really exist in any other mode of transport. A ship can discharge its entire cargo and sail completely empty if required, something an airship cannot do. One solution is what Boeing is trying to do--use only a smaller fraction of the airship's net lift for cargo, and compensate for the loss in buoyancy when fully loaded with dedicated lift engines. That way only when empty does it truly behave like an airship with neutral buoyancy.

[JamesR @ Jul 11th 2008 9:38AM]

@Patsy

You make excellent points. You are correct that the insane density differential at the interface point between air/water makes investigating submarines as cargo transporters uninteresting. However I believe that the unique challenges of carrying cargo over undeveloped land and the unavailability of an interface differential analogous to air/water makes airships interesting.

Although I am sure Boeing has thought of this but one way around the issue of loading/unloading is to compress the gas used for buoyancy by pumping it into compression tanks. This technique is not new as it was (is?) used to adjust altitude in rigid lighter then air ships.

[patsy @ Jul 11th 2008 10:41AM]

Don't get me wrong, I do like the idea of freight airships very much. It just takes some novel engineering approaches to save the problems. CargoLifter were going to solve the change in buoyancy problem by swapping cargo with ballast, taking on or releasing the equivalent weight in water. That way they could use the full lifting capacity of the ship and were shooting for a 160T payload capacity. The downside was that it required a certain infrastructure at the payload destination, at the very least an easily accessible source of relatively clean water. Boeing's approach provides more flexibility at the cost of reduced payload capacity and higher fuel consumption (because of the lift engines).

I do wish them well, it would be great to gather some operational experience with such a new mode of transport. I am disappointed at the very limited projected range of only 200 miles, though.

[patsy @ Jul 11th 2008 8:11AM]

The company was CargoLifter from Germany and enjoyed incredible popularity amongst the nerd community at the time. They went public and had tens of thousands of small investors (mainly individual nerds in love with the idea). Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargolifter. I went and saw the hangar myself in 2000. It was mind-bogglingly large, so large in fact that while standing inside you simply couldn't convince your mind that you were inside a building--there were simply no walls or ceiling to focus on, they were all at infinity focus, almost like mountains in the distance. Check out the second picture on Wikipedia to get an idea of the scale.

Anyway, it turned out that the company severely mismanaged the money. They spent over $400M building the hangar and only peanuts in comparison on R&D. In retrospect you probably can't call it a hoax, since I'm sure there were people there genuinely working on and excited about the technology. But considering how little they actually had to show for at the end--other than the hangar--it does make you wonder.

Today the hangar is an indoor recreational facility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Islands. What a cheap let-down!

[John @ Jul 11th 2008 1:55PM]

I kinda like the tropical islands resort thing better.

Not that there's anything wrong with liking blimps...or their hangars.

[teej @ Jul 11th 2008 4:51PM]

no lazy river? lame.

and the whole blimp company thing going under is lame as well!

[BradS @ Jul 11th 2008 8:28AM]

Boeing is big enough to make this economically viable, they have the resources and R&D experience. So hopefully it will become a reality. They also have military backing, I can see the military being interested in these for moving cargo in non combat active zones. Or the logging industry.

Can you see a huge brown one with UPS on the side? (a flying turd?) And the inevitable NASCAR logo....

When I was a kid in Boy Scouts we used to send the rookie scouts around to other campsites looking for left-handed smoke shifters and skyhooks, everyone knew to just send them to a different campsite when they came around looking.

[Andrew Condon @ Jul 11th 2008 8:57AM]

Yes, i can completely see that the "environmental impact" will be very low in those pristine wilderness areas - at least until all the trees are finally taken-out (check the cargo on those publicity images). What's more, with no roads into the pristine wilderness there will be fewer pesky environmentalists or journalists to see what they're up to.

Wonderful.

[swmarc @ Jul 11th 2008 10:34AM]

don't be a douche logging is an important industry and helps maintain our forests. Have you ever walked through a managed forest or clear cut? There is wildlife everywhere, and as a bonus its a renewable resource.

[johnzilla @ Jul 11th 2008 10:26AM]

Relax. Take a deep breath. Trees are renewable...you can grow more.

Harvesting renewable resources shouldn't raise alarms or get anyone into a panic provided those resources are properly managed. Properly managing them includes recycling wherever/whenever possible, reducing waste, etc.

[Josh L @ Jul 11th 2008 10:29AM]

Lumber is a renewable resource. Usually, it's one that we've planted years ago specifically for harvesting now and then replant again when we're through harvesting it.

Epic fail.

[Nash @ Jul 11th 2008 12:13PM]

Lol at all the log hogs trolling this comment. You must have hit a nerve. The "managed forests" are neutered versions of their former selves, especially in terms of biodiversity.

These logging clowns won't ever get it straight till u run a chainsaw across a couple of their skulls. Wait till the enviros get all MS-13 on yall asses. I see it in the winds.

[Benson @ Jul 11th 2008 12:50PM]

You living in a house made of logs, by any chance?

There's not much in the way of practical alternatives to logging at present; this brings logging closer to carbon-neutrality, lowers other environmental impact, and/or makes it cheaper. They're all good things, even if they're not the best thing (which it seems would be a massive suicide pact of at least 75% of the human race?).

[retro77 @ Jul 11th 2008 9:21AM]

Oh so we can do the deforestation "greenly". I see.....

[Garth Bock @ Jul 11th 2008 9:36AM]

I remember a boon doggle attempt at a heavy lifter that used 4 Sikorsky (sp?) helicopter bodies on a truss under a large blimp. On taxi and lift off the vibration from the helicopters tore the truss apart crashing one of the helicopters into the lift bag ending up with the entire thing crashing into the runway.

[Al Robbins @ Jul 11th 2008 10:57AM]

It wasn't a boondoggle.

Frank Piasecki formed his new company, with funding from the forestry service to investigate the viability of his heavy lift invention p/n 4,591,112.
He built his prototype primarily using "war-surplus" equipment, a ZPG-2 envelope and four H-34 helicopters cobbled together around an aluminum framework.
The result, as stated, disaster at the first low power turn-up.
From the pictures, it's impossible to identify anything new or patentable in SkyHook. Since the patent office doesn't list a patent application or patent issued to Jess or assigned to Skyhook it's not possible to guess if he's actually done something to make it possible to provide controllable lift in this unique environment.

The envelope is slightly larger than the ZPG-2. There are still a few hangars in the world large enough to hold the ship, some are at Lakehurst, less than a hundred miles from Boeing's helicopter facility.

[spinifex777 @ May 22nd 2009 2:49PM]

Boondoggle for sure! A $40 million boondoggle of US taxpayer money. What bunch of jack asses thought this was a good idea, I'll never know. Probably a bunch of Republicans no doubt. This fiasco and the balloons discussed in this article point out the conflict of having an single agency responsible for both the care and the exploitation of the forest. And NO, old growth forest is not a renewable resource. Have you ever seen a managed forest? It's a mere ghost of an old growth forest, with vastly reduced biodiversity. Also older growth forest also filters the water that flows through it, something that logged forests do not do. In fact logged forests contribute to water pollution because they don't trap sediment from run-off, which causes destruction of fish habitat downstream.

[jay.viz @ Jul 11th 2008 9:43AM]

I hope they use something other than Helium. I heard somewhere that helium supplies are endangered.

[erislover @ Jul 11th 2008 10:18AM]

It is only the second most abundant element in the universe.

[John @ Jul 11th 2008 10:39AM]

as soon as we can stop off at the sun and pull some out, then it will matter that it's so damn abundant in the universe. right here and now on earth, it's getting harder to come by.

[smartmove @ Jul 11th 2008 1:21PM]

"as soon as we can stop off at the sun and pull some out, then it will matter that it's so damn abundant in the universe. right here and now on earth, it's getting harder to come by."

Helium is only in TEMPORARY short supply because its been turned over to the oil companies, who seem to have peculiar habit of making widely available resources scarce and expensive. As new plants come online it will be back in wide supply, there is definitely no shortage of it on earth, despite what these ass-clowns on here are lying about.

"The price of liquid helium is about $5 per liter, having gone up more than 50 percent over the past year because of what Sobotka calls "conventional" economics. He cited the withdrawal of some companies from the marketplace, and the emergence of others that are not yet in production, as the driving force behind higher prices, and (as yet) a scarcity of the element.

Helium capture in the United States began after World War I, when the primary use of the gas was for dirigibles. Because helium is non-flammable, its use in balloons prevented another Hindenburg tragedy. The U.S. government ran the helium industry for 70 years, but since the mid-90s it has been in the domain of the oil and natural gas industries."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080102093943.htm

[Benson @ Jul 11th 2008 12:44PM]

Well, then, H2 it is. Better heavy-lift capability anyway, and (hopefully) modern plastics will do better than lacquer/aluminum/cloth anyway... from charge dissipation, ESD ignition, and leak-proofness!

[bob @ Jul 11th 2008 10:02AM]

The firefighting abilities could be pretty cool. 40 000 litres of water. Awesome.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jul 11th 2008 10:02AM]

The Company has been reformed and may make a comeback.

http://www.cargolifter.com/index.php?id=31&L=1

[patsy @ Jul 11th 2008 10:51AM]

I went and checked out the "new" company. Ugh, same people running it the second time around. Salient von Gablenz quote:

> The idea of the CargoLifter survived the economic crash

Umm, it wasn't any "economic crash" that took them down, it was severe mismanagement of resources and a lack of proper focus. If they learned the wrong lessons from their first failure, I don't see them succeeding this time, either. However, they do seem to be more technology focused this time, so perhaps they do stand a chance. Good luck!

[Ladderless @ Jul 11th 2008 11:13AM]

"It really sounds like a great idea and with sophisticated enough positioning navigation and navigation controlled engines it should be able to work in relatively strong winds. Definitely not stormy weather. "

Do they use aircraft now to do heavy lifting in stormy weather?

[Kevin Farley @ Jul 11th 2008 12:29PM]

Sorry to burst your blimp, but this is actually the brain child of Calgary's SkyHook International Inc. who has teamed with Boeing to build them. This is Canadian baby!!

[Kevin Farley @ Jul 11th 2008 12:34PM]

On a side note it was developed more specifically out of the needs of the Oil industry in the Tar Sands in Alberta. They're stuck using helicopters that can't carry half the load this thing can.

[jinjin @ Jul 11th 2008 12:59PM]

how much of a factor does weather play into using this system? Can it withstand a thunderstorm? Can it take heat if they are fighting a forrest fire? Will heavy winds delay the transporting by a significant amount?

[Dan @ Jul 11th 2008 3:09PM]

"Oh, the humanity!"