Electric hot air balloon, sort of.

Joined
Nov 27, 2015
Messages
783
Location
S.E. Idaho USA
https://www.flydoo.fun/
Wow, this guy has been working overtime on this concept. I bet it's driving him crazy he has not found a practical way to use the in flight propulsion system to also do the initial inflation. I see he still uses a gas powered rig for that. It'd be interesting to see how many cubic feet of air that ICE powered inflator moves, versus how many for the electric thrust system, and how many watts it consumes. Any thrust at all is better then no thrust at all I guess, and the thing is far from a practical dirigible, it looks more like an aid to make minor course corrections on landings. I couldn't tell if he uses his removable ebike battery in the balloon, I'm sure that's occurred to him?

Hot air ballooning takes LOT'S of propane, and the big burners make a fair bit of noise, and they are on quite a bit. You are limited to all but dead calm conditions, meaning dawn launches in most cases. For this fixed wing pilot though they still look like a lot of fun.
 
The standard "football/hot dog" shape of past dirigibles remains the configuration that has the most volume with the smallest support structure (and thus hopefully lighter and less expensive)

There have been issues in the past with side-winds overcoming the on-board engines and propellers of a 3D cylinder that is airborne . As a result, several modern concept prototypes used a flattened hot dog shape to make the sides less of a target for high winds.

Also, the world-record endurance attempt finally achieved success when they adopted a dual envelope model. The outer "balloon" held sealed compartments of helium, and the inner envelope contained the hot air that could be added or vented to control altitude.

The helium was on the outer shell in order to provide heat-loss insulation.

The complexity of a hybrid craft that coupled all these ideas I just listed might be too heavy to be worthwhile, but I am intrigued by the possibilities.
 
Hehe... Trying to get into the local tourist biz... including dirigibles with energy to spin electric props stores in swapable Li batts... recharged from solar cells... using hydrogen for lift (!!!) generated by using more solar electricity (surprise!) to break down lake water. Inside, looks something like:
article-1313132-0B2C8392000005DC-92_638x336.jpg


... or this:
MUS-FAPC1114_850.jpg


Outside looks like:
HAV%20304-%20web.jpg


The idea is to convert a local airport... looks like:
toronto-island-airport.jpg


(Hehe... plenty of hydrogen nearby...) :wink:

How long d'you think before someone fires a gun at it? Hehe...

The "trick" of course is how to do this using someone elses money. :mrgreen:

Would anybuddy buy a share/shares in a tourism biz?

Edit (again...) and PS... Like lots of places these daze, the folks that live and work on the Toronto Islands have "too much" water... :wink:

PPS: Taking hydrogen directly from the lake... Governments would want to tax it... so far, they haven't figured out yet how to tax solar. :lol:
 
The Airlander 10 ship above is crying out for electric drive (even if hybrid) because it's diesel ducted fans can only rotate to a limited angle meaning it can't hover of VTOL.

Interestingly, it's not lighter than air, it deliberately has a net wet of about a ton to improve stability.
 
^^ Hehe... Some sailors LOVE "ships". :lol:
...and "crying out for electric drive"... agree 1000 percent. :wink:
 
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