Aircraft Carrier Submarine
erco
Posts: 20,256
Sort of... submarine launches drone: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/12/22/first-flight-of-americas-underwater-aircraft-carri.aspx#.Urj_6Dx3teM
Still an order of magnitude LESS cool than the uber-beautiful 1931-35 Navy zeppelins Akron & Macon, flying aircraft carriers in their own right. (Sadly, both ended up as submarines after crashing into the Atlantic and Pacific, respectively.) Start watching at 1:00:
Still an order of magnitude LESS cool than the uber-beautiful 1931-35 Navy zeppelins Akron & Macon, flying aircraft carriers in their own right. (Sadly, both ended up as submarines after crashing into the Atlantic and Pacific, respectively.) Start watching at 1:00:
Comments
-Phil
http://www.airships.net/hindenburg-smoking-room
Holy Smoke!! and people question why we have health and safety these days.
I suppose that if the Smoking Room was below the lift balloons, any leakage would drift up and away safely.
Landing an airplane on a hook below a blimp has always seemed a bit amusing to me. And the fact that the pilot has to climb out and down to get into the airplane is rather dramtic. Pilots really had a lot of fun in their workplace.
The USS Akron & Macon were built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin corporation, so they may correctly be called either airships, dirigibles, or zeppelins. Just not blimps.
Years ago, Nova (PPS) did a show on blimps and dirigibles. The show had a segment on the airborne carriers. Seeing the Nova video was the first I had known of these dirigible aircraft carriers.
While "landing" on the dirigible looks like a challenge, I bet it's not as nerve racking as landing on a water based carrier. The two aircraft look like they have matching airspeeds when the connect together.
You've just got to love those Zeppelins. Beautiful ships.
IIRC Zeppelin was a dirigible manufacturer. I think Zeppelin and dirigible are often used interchangeably since there weren't many dirigibles made that weren't made by Zeppelin.
Someday it will be Degn and dirigible which will be used interchangeably (once I get my fleet of dirigibles into the air).
I noticed a prominent poster of a Zeppelin displayed in erco's robot room.
Edit: I hadn't seen erco's post just previous to this one when writing this post. Blimps don't have a rigid airframe. They require the envelope to be pressurized to hold their shape. IMO, blimps don't look nearly as cool as dirigibles.
-Phil
-Phil
It'd be great for lifting heavy or bulky objects. It'd also be cool to go on a cruse over the amazon rain forest. Too bad dirigible's don't work well small, Having to build the first 'ship at full scale before earning revenue is too scary for most investors. (and too rich for most eccentric dreamers)
Marty
http://aeroscraft.com/
-Phil
I seem to recall you built a RC Zeppelin and gave it to some big wig in the Zeppelin company? Weren't you cycling across Europe at the time? I often wondered how one cycled across Europe with a Zeppelin in tow.
One of my back burner projects if to make a RC dirigible.
I got to fly in the local Goodyear blimp and pilot it briefly (it's in my logbook!). I've been in most of the existing giant empty zeppelin hangars across the US, UK, and Germany.
Another favorite story is when I got to go out on the research ship with a huge underwater ROV from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, because I struck up a friendship with ROV pilot Chris Grech who helped find the wreckage of the Macon off Point Sur, California. The most excellent video below (part 3 of 3) shows Chris and tells some of his story and shows some amazing underwater shots of zeppelin and airplane wreckage 1400 feet underwater.
I had never seen that before either. "Cool", I thought, "it's a hovercraft blimp." but it turns out that those hover pads can reverse their thrust and act as suckers that hold the ship down to the ground. So it can operate where there is no mast or other ground facilities.
I get "This video is not available in your country" WTF?
Hmmm. My dear old departed dad would always point out the Goodyear blimp flying by at a sporting event. People generally accept blimp. Why not blimp?
And Erco says he actually flew in a Goodyear blimp. So...........?
@Heater: Lockheed also used those big "elephant pads" on their recent P791 airship:
Original plan was to go around south America and attack NY, as planes could not return to the submarine for landing it was a one way trip for the pilots.
The plans changed to attack Panama Canal instead but half way there the war was over.
Then you're also nearby the real fire station they used for Station 51 in the the 70s TV show Emergency!, one of Jack Webb's productions. My understanding is that iif you ask nicely, being ultra cool fire fighters, they'll give you a tour. In real life it's Station 127. Gage and DeSoto are long retired, though.
Address is 2049 223rd St, if you care to visit. Take pictures. Don't tell them you play with flame throwers.
-- Gordon
There was a recent story about the Japanese aircraft carrier subs -- seems one of them was scuttled to prevent the Russians from getting hold of it, and recently discovered on the bottom of the Pacific near Hawai'i in 2300 feet of water...
http://japandailypress.com/sunken-world-war-ii-japanese-aircraft-carrier-sub-found-off-hawaii-0340405/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episodes/japanese-supersub-watch-the-full-episode/591/
Right you are, Gordon! Pretty cool. I will check it out.
http://www.johnweeks.com/tour/emergency/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15218401@N04/1645471702
Now the giant aircraft is being brought back to life by a British company which plans to build hundreds of the environmentally friendly craft for passengers and cargo.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26372277
The video is well done and worth watching.
I though the world was in danger of running out of helium soon.