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Tech NewsFakesThis Amazon Mothership is Terrifying as Hell, Even If It’s Completely Fake
Have you seen that viral video of an Amazon blimp that deploys delivery drones? Twitter users are calling it “borderline dystopian” and “what the last human alive will see.” In reality, the blimp is totally fake, but that doesn’t make it any less scary. There’s still reason to be unnerved by what you’re seeing. The … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsNewsAirlander 10, Butt-Shaped Airship Prototype and World’s Longest Aircraft, to Be Retired
Hybrid Air Vehicles, the company behind the Airlander 10 airship (the world’s longest aircraft and also known as the “flying bum” for its resemblance to a butt), said on Sunday that its current prototype will not be rebuilt but that it plans to build a new generation of airships, the Guardian reported. HAV, which is … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsLockheed Built a Blimp-Crawling Robot That Finds and Fixes Leaks
Satellites and autonomous drones have reduced our need for cutting-edge spy planes and stealth fighters. So Lockheed’s famed Skunk Works, creators of the SR-71 Blackbird, have now built a unique robot called the Spider that can crawl over the surface of blimps to find and fix tiny pinhole leaks. Inspecting an airship’s fabric inflatable envelope … Continued
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Tech NewsThe World’s Biggest Aircraft Could Launch a New Age of Airships
Airships lost much of their popularity after the fiery Hindenburg disaster in 1937. But one company’s looking to revive the technology with thebiggest aircraft on Earth. It’s called the Airlander 10: over 300 feet long, it’s a floating airship that’s 25 percent bigger than a Boeing 747. It’s 1,340,000 cubic feet in volume, and can … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
io9Only The Greatest Airship Pilots Could Reach The Forest Sanctuary
It took a great deal of skill to navigate through the trees, and a woodsman’s memory of the forest to remember the exact location of the sanctuary. But any who found their way to the dock could expect comfort, food, and wisdom that couldn’t be obtained anywhere on the ground. “Arrival at Svetoslav Sanctuary” is … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
ScienceSpaceNASA: Let’s Explore Venus in Solar Zeppelins and Build Cloud City There
There’s a lot we can learn about Earth’s atmosphere from studying Venus, however, it’s Venus’ crushingly thick air—precisely what we want to study—that is preventing us from sending manned missions there. But this radical zeppelin could finally help us unlock the secrets of our celestial neighbor. We’ve remotely visited Mars nearly two dozen times already, … Continued
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io9How NASA Could Build A Cloud City Over Venus
Owing to the extreme conditions on the Venusian surface, it’s going to be quite some time before a human ever steps foot on that planet. That’s why NASA is developing a plan to deploy human-occupied airships in Venus’s upper atmosphere. And yes, permanent occupation is the ultimate goal. As reported by Evan Ackerman in IEEE … Continued
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Tech News
These Massive Hangars in Orange County Once Housed WWII Airships
Rising conspicuously above the red-tile roofs and big-box stores of suburban Tustin, California, these two massive hangars stand as monuments to a lost age of aviation, built when lighter-than-air dirigibles held promise as the future of air travel—and air warfare. They rank among the largest wooden structures in the world. Step inside one, and the … Continued
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Tech NewsThese High-Flying Drones Almost Hit Satellite Status
Low earth orbit is becoming increasingly crowded with satellite traffic and, as Gravity showed us, increasingly treacherous. So rather than try to squeeze yet another spacecraft into the mix, a French consortium has begun development on a super-high altitude, autonomous dirigible that will skim along the edge of the stratosphere. The Stratobus, which is still … Continued
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Tech News
Goodyear’s Newest Blimp Isn’t Actually a Blimp
This ain’t no blimp. The first new dirigible in nearly a half century to bear the the iconic Goodyear logo is actually a rigid airship—a safer, more efficient, far less explodey form of air travel than conventional blimps. Though orders of magnitude safer than the ill-fated Hindenberg—switching the lifting agent from explosive hydrogen helped to … Continued
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Tech News
The World’s Longest Aircraft Finally Gets Off the Ground
The HAV304 took the crown of “world’s longest aircraft” with its inaugural flight today. The gargantuan spans a football field and towers just over two stories in height, owing its construction to pure metal. It sacrifices little in being the world’s longest, as it still reaches 100 mph, which is triple that of the dwarfish … Continued
By PJ Smith -
Tech News
The Coolest Toys from the 1911 FAO Schwarz Catalog
Smithsonian’s Around the Mall blog recently dug up an awesome FAO Schwarz catalog from 1911, found over at the Internet Archive. It’s filled with some pretty fantastic toys, including airship-themed board games, Kodak cameras, and carriages led by sheep. But these gifts didn’t come cheap. Even the board games were expensive. That airship-themed game (complete … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
The Airship Heaven That Upstate New York Never Was
All Over Albany recently posted this futuristic illustration of Troy, New York, drawn in 1916. The image shows Troy in the year 2016: the streets lined with streamlined buses and trolleys, the sky filled with giant airships, and a rather phallic-looking building towering over downtown. The director of the local historical society is quoted as … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Super Sad Guy Watches Hindenburg Show, Tries To Blow His House Up
Gotta feel bad for this guy: a Pennsylvania man who’d hit some very hard times wanted to end it all in a fiery blaze after watching a TV show about the Hindenburg crash. He’s still alive, but the explosion he set off leveled his house. According to police in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh, … Continued
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Tech News
31 Photos From the Golden Age of Airships, When Zeppelins Ruled the Sky
It’s been nearly a century since airships floated by the Empire State Building. But now that the aluminum airship of the future is here and almost ready to carry passengers, it’s high time that we took a look back to those few decades when majestic zeppelins seemed like the future of travel. https://gizmodo.com/the-aluminum-airship-of-the-future-has-finally-flown-1301320903 Below is … Continued
By Attila Nagy -
io9
Fantastical illustrations of airships from the early 20th century
Charles Dellschau was a butcher, but after his retirement in 1899, he became an artist, laboring over intricate collages and illustrations of flying machines. He filled notebooks with gorgeous, multicolored airship designs and mysterious, coded records of the “Sonora Aero Club.” Between 1899 and 1922, Dellshau created 100 airship designs, and you can see a … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
io9
Concept Art Writing Prompt: Flight of the Fish Airships
We love a good airship, but what about airships made of giant floating fish monsters? What kind of stories take place in a city in which these creatures fill the skies? This week’s concept art piece is “Floating Fish” by Mats Minnhagen, via The Art of Animation. You can see the full image below. Study … Continued
By Lauren Davis
