Rail was just the first example that sprang to mind. I could just as easily have said pretty much anything.

The resources that would be competed for mainly would be people, technical expertise, energy (electricty, etc) and fuel to shift the required materials to the construction areas.

In 2000 and onwards all those resources would be in extremely short supply requiring the leaders and decision makers to make some very tough choices.

Agreed. I wonder if the Joint Chiefs will start to experience health problems like the successive presidents after Thanksgiving, 1997.

Webstral

Airships are a good idea, but I doubt that what remains of the USAF would be putting all of their eggs -- and resources -- in one basket. Airships may be produced for transport and strategic bombing purposes, but I suspect that we would also see the return of light WWI-style, cropduster-like aircraft (something along the lines of a Curtiss JN-4D Jenny) that can operate from crude landing strips and have been modified to burn regular gasoline. You wouldn't get much airlift out of them, but they would be ideal for providing local air superiority.

Here in Tucson, with the annual golf tournaments around town (Tiger's been here the last two years), I get to see a variety of blimps floating about on a fairly routine basis. Last year, a semi-rigid frame German airship operated out of the regional airport two miles from where I teach, for about a week.

Anyway, it's surprising how fast they get around. I honestly couldn't tell you the average blimp/airship's top speed, but their ability to overfly tricky terrain types (rivers, hills, swamps, etc.) and bypass roads lets them get to places faster than trucks travelling the same distances.

The other thing they've got going for them is that they are extremely quiet. You really don't know they're around until you actually see them coming. Granted, that's not too hard, but they are really quite stealthy, sound-wise.

So night ops would be their preferred MO then?

(Yes I'm having another crack at commenting in this thread - hopefully I'll start making some sense).

Military Airships during WW1 worked primarily at night. If you get a chance to research it, look up Peter Strasser. A WW1 German Airship commander who was one of the best the Germans had. He was actually respected by the British, when he was killed the British treated him to a military funeral with full honors just like they had gave the Red Baron. During WW2 the british flew stationary blimps all throughout london to keep fighters from flying low to the ground.

I have absolutely no disagreement with what Targan said above ;), In fact I support it.

Targan, what I probably ought to have said already is that differing opinions are what makes a final product strong. I get a lot out of being challenged. I'm forced to do more research, and I'm forced to look at things I thought I knew. The more I read, the more I come to believe that it will be many years before Colorado Springs can attempt an Akron class of airship. I've been obliged to look at the Colorado-Oklahoma-western Kansas economy in an attempt to formulate some rational idea of how many people can be freed for industry of every type. Obviously, only a small number of them can be diverted to something like airship production, as every day life requires items like ammunition, soap, and clothes.

Webstral

Sorry Natehale, those weren't blimps, they were unmanned balloons called barrage balloons. They were used throughout the uk and even off the back of ships. Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly building, is near where I live, and along the sides of the driveway up to it you can still see some of the baseplates where barrage balloons were tethered.

I knew they where unmanned, i just didn't know what they where called... To me, the pictures i saw looked like what we call blimps here. :) But thanks for telling me what they where. I have always wondered... didn't they use them to hold up metal nets?

Sorry, when you said blimp I thought you meant they'd been manned. Not sure about the nets but I think they did dangle cables from them, as well as the mooring cable. If I'm down towards Stormont anytime soon I'll try and get a photo of the base mountings, although they aren't particularly inspiring, just concrete blocks with rings through time iirc.

I'd say a big yes to that.

I had to pick up my son from his preschool last year. I had to drive about 7 miles (averaging about 45mph) and cross through a narrow pass between two high hills to get there. The airship I mentioned took off from the regional airport at about the same time that I got started.

I got to my son's classroom, signed him out and was walking him back to the parking lot when a large shadow blotted out the sun. I looked up, and there, about 300m or so away, was the airship. All I could hear of it was the faint thrumming of its motors. If I hadn't have been outdoors, I wouldn't have heard it at all, I don't think.

I can see blimps/airships being extremely useful in inserting teams by parachute at night.

I remember when they blew up Three River's Stadium in Pittsburgh to make room for the two new stadia that was being built at the time, the Good Year Blimo covered the implosion from the air. After it was over on TV, the Good Year Blimp went on it's way back to Akron, Ohio and it flew really low over my house. Before I saw it, I heard it's engines, it sounded like a huge swarm of bees, it even scared my poor cats.

Chuck

I remember when I worked for the Firestone tire company, I felt it was my corporate duty to plan a take down of the Goodyear blimps. Just in Case our corporate cold war ever went hot :D

Epic thread necromancy for great justice!

The airship described in this article seems to be of a Lifting Body Airship design like those described in Airlords of the Ozarks: The world's largest aircraft has been unveiled - and it's a mammoth

The title is a bit confusing though. It's not really a mammoth :D

After reading this post again...I love this idea for a comms satellite.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/tars.htm

Here is a Nova program about WW One Zeppelin.
Their is a lot of info about how they work.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/militar...or-attack.html

Care and Feeding of Airships in the Twilight Age
 

In the name of thread necromancy, I command thee....RISE!!!! (pun intended):D

I'm with you on the epoxy angle, but there are other framing materials suitable and strong enough to form an effective airframe. Pultruded fiberglass/epoxy rods are fiberglass cables/strands stretched lengthwise, encased in epoxy resin, and cured. Think dome tent frame material only longer and thicker. These are being manufactured in at least one factory in Pennsylvania (and were, within the timeframe of the Twilight War). The combination of strength, lightness, and flexibility make the product suitable for heavy-structures--the owner of the factory told me that a large-diameter--around 3 or 4 inches-- model of their product was being used for safety rails at Disney World and had stood up to much punishment and didn't rust or degrade from constant exposure to the elements. Smaller diameter models were also in production, some solid, some with a hollow core. As an aside, I was exploring sources for making spears shafts for the SCA, and pultruded fiberglass was one of the options. Ya never know just when one bit of info comes in handy.;)
Also, lifting gas can be obtained in small caches from shoppes that offer helium balloons--a tank here, a tank there, and if you can luck into an industrial gas supplier, a whole bunch of tanks there. Also, if helium is the major lifting gas, it could be supplemented by a central hot air ballonet which could provide raw lift when needed, or allow rapid descent without venting precious helium.
Here's where the aramid, et al, fibers and fabrics come in; high-tech ripstop nylon, kevlar, nomex, etc. Racing sail manufacturing has embraced these materials to make relatively invulnerable sails. Modern airship designers have, too.
So, I take it Akron, OH, would be a prize location to any wannabe blimp driving organization. The Goodyear blimp and its hangars are still there, AFAIK.

Airship Construction and Gas Generation
 

I was reading about how you thought one might construct an airship. your concerns about resources are unfounded if you have access to the resources of a military base or air base.

First. The range and speed of the Airships in the posts above are VERY SLOW. Even an improvised prop motor could push a Blimp at 80km to 100km per hour. The typical range at about 90km per hour would EASILY be 1000km with a standard sized fuel tank.

Aluminum would be (and is) the metal of choice. Airships can have multiple Gas Bags inside the superstructure and these bags can be made out of the same fabrics as hot air balloons. Old parachutes would make good material for the bags. You can seal them by simply coating them with either wax or mass produced pine resin. Just double stitch every seam and seal them with the materials above.

The gas is harder but can be generated anywhere IF YOU ARE WILLING TO USE HYDROGEN GAS.

Hydrogen Gas Generation Method 1:

Put an electrical current through ordinary water. If you use salt as an electrolyte, you can generate the gas with as little as 1.5 Volts of electricity. This method generates BOTH Hydrogen Gas AND Oxygen Gas (which is useful in a variety of ways). Carbon Graphite (from a #2 pencil) will make a good "electrode" in order to boost current flow from your electric source WITHOUT
contaminating your gas.

Hydrogen Gas Generation Method 2:

Mix Hydrochloric Acid and Zinc. This dangerous method will generate huge quantities of gas but also harmful byproducts. The reaction and acid byproduct are BOTH dangerous.

Hydrogen Gas Generation Method 3:

Put water in drain cleaner (or any product containing Sodium Hydroxide) or mix water with shredded aluminum foil (or aluminum dust) over low heat.



As you can see, there are a number of ways to make Hydrogen Gas that can be scaled up. You just have to be willing to live with the potential fire hazard of the gas.

As you can see, blimps are a very easy technology to reproduce in Twilight2000.

ISTR that the zeppellins used lots and lots of "goldbeater's skin" to line the ballonets to contain the Hydrogen. Luckily they later moved to using gelatine-impregnated cotton layer between two more structurally strong fabrics.

Sodium Hydroxide="Washing Soda", no?

During the American Civil War, Thaddeus Lowe had gas generators that used sulphuric acid to dissolve iron filings, thus producing H2 gas and Ferric (ferrous?) sulphate, or so my long-ago Chemistry lessons are trying to convince me.

The US is the world's largest producer of Helium in the world; it is a by-product of many chemical reactions, including the oil and gas industries, and is also present in large quantities in some caves, and the US has large networks of caves that contain helium pockets. I know hydrogen is easier to manufacture, but why not think about non-flammable helium for your balloons and zepplins and blimps?

Yep. Any Sodium Hydroxide will produce at least some gas. There are more than a dozen ways to make Hydrogen gas; Those three were just off the top of my head (scary note... there are at least as many ways to make poison gas from ordinary household chemicals too).

Helium is a "Listed Material" like Nickle, Titanium, and dozens of other materials. This makes acquisition of Helium very difficult. Gathering Helium from mining will only produce small amounts compared to what an airship requires. This also raises the issue of replenishing the gas "while underway" to a destination. The replenishing gas will have to be carried onboard as well.

Hydrogen can be generated virtually anywhere (even onboard the airship) and in pretty large quantities. This common availability will trump Helium's inert nature.

It was the US government's refusal to sell Germany Helium that resulted in Hydrogen being used in the Hindenburg. The same would undoubtedly be true for any "private venture" airship.

The Helium repositories are mostly in Texas and Oklahoma, a fair distance from Colorado for gas transport in the Twilight2000 world. Getting the gas depends on whether the Government even controls the Strategic Reserve Sites anymore and would they be willing to part with the gas. Thus acquiring the gas could be an adventure in itself.

Airship Fundamentals, How I'd start Building One
 

I can say that I have some experience in sailing and as many of you know, I'm doing my ground school for flying right now. Any real pilots input would be welcome here.

Airships for logistical support make a great deal of sense. As large as a small freighter. Travels as fast as a train and capable of transiting the world. The only issues seem to be acquiring the gas needed for both lifting and propulsion.

If I were building an airship, I would use wood (non-structurally) and Aluminum (either welded or pop-riveted depending on what materials I had on hand).

I would build three decks high for starters. The top deck (say about 5 meters high) would house the gas bags in two parallel rows with an inspection catwalk in between them. I'd put the airship's fuel tanks in a single line along the airship's spine over the top of the catwalk. This is for two reasons. First, The tanks being located on the dorsal line would not affect lateral trim. You could place valves and pumps fore and aft of each tank to trim the airship's pitch (the angle from nose to tail) as fuel is used. You could put gun stations at either end of the catwalk but I would have to put in a bulkhead to separate weapon's fire from the Hydrogen gas bags.

The main deck would be roughly 2 meters high and house the bridge, engine room, batteries/aux power room, and all crew and passenger's quarters.

The Cargo Deck (say about 5 meters high) would house not only the cargo but also gun mounts, a winch room that is used for both docking and cargo handling from aloft, "Gray Water" & Sewage Tanks, Hot & Cold Potable Water tanks, and food and parts storage. There would also be pipeworks for control cables, steam (for heating), water pipes, and electric cables running down the central hall of the airship (overhead, with manual valve access). The various water (and sewer) tanks would be spread across the underside of the airship. This would help with lateral trim AND protect the ship's internals from ground fire. A cargo loading ramp would be built into the airship's "chin."

I would use electric motors salvaged from cranes used in manufacturing. Most electric cranes in the 1990's are DC powered and are NOT generally computerized (most used transistorized controls). They range from 1 ton to 500 tons of capacity and can change rotation by simply reversing the polarity. Put a prop on a big crane motor and install both rudders (for horizontal yaw) and ailerons/elevators (for vertical pitch) at the rear of the prop. This could replicate the maneuverability of "vectored thrust" type engines. Since you only have an electric cable and a transistorized "control" cable going to the engine (mounted on a pylon), you could design that engine pylon to "pivot" the engine (say through up to 270 degrees of range) so you could use engine thrust to counter atmospheric conditions or movement/trim based "deflections" of the airship.

I would also put large Elevators and a Large Rudder on the rear of the airship, this is IN ADDITION TO the control surfaces on each of the FOUR Electric Motors (two forward, two aft). This, in combination with the variable geometry motors, would give the airship a great deal of maneuverability. All flight controls (including pylon rotation) would be primarily pressurized hydraulics.

These electric engines would be powered by an onboard PAIR of multi-fuel generators. A larger Main Generator and a smaller Auxillary Generator in the Engine Room. This room would also contain a large boiler for making hot/purified water AND for generating Hydrogen gas (for replenishment) and Oxygen (for cooking, medical and welding) gas.

This is just an idea of how an airship might be designed and built using the technology available after The Exchange.


Swag.