True--just as a supertanker requires a structure capable of supporting the its larger hull and mass vis-a-vis a smaller tanker. The airship designers of 2001 are going to have to find the limits of their fabrication capabilities and build within them.
Esteemed colleagues, I’m reading a lot of idle speculation about the ability of airships to do the simple task of moving cargo while there’s a stiff breeze blowing--as if somehow LTA was a new technology with no track record. German-operated airships in the 1930’s were a quantum leap ahead of the machines that bombed London during the First World War. Large airships carried luxury passengers at a high price. The affluent of the Depression would not have paid today’s equivalent of thousands of dollars for a shaky ride on a deathtrap. All this was sixty years prior to the events of Twilight: 2000.
There are specific challenges to be overcome in the construction and operation of airships in Twilight: 2000. Let’s address them rather than try to rewrite aeronautical history with unfounded observations about suicide trips and the like. Here are a couple of ideas for objections to airships:
Q: Where’s the helium going to come from?
A: Good question. The map Kato provided is a good starting point. As a matter of interest, there are also small helium mines in Arizona, too. In addition to being found in natural gas fields, helium is a byproduct of U-235 decay; so wherever uranium is mined one gets pockets of helium. At any rate, very substantial supplies are available in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle—territory MilGov controls.
Q: What if helium can’t be made available?
A: Then MilGov uses hydrogen.
Q: Isn’t hydrogen much too dangerous? What about the Hindenburg?
A: The use of hydrogen is dangerous. “Too dangerous†is a judgment call. If MilGov deems airship operation sufficiently critical, then the Air Force will use hydrogen-lifted airships. It’s been done. There are ways to mitigate the danger, too. One of the Hindenburg’s problems was that it was designed for helium use but wound up using hydrogen because the US imposed an embargo on helium sales to Germany.
Q: Aren’t airships just too vulnerable to bad weather?
A: Transatlantic airship travel operated for years. The weather in the North Atlantic is as nasty as it is anywhere in the world. Unpressurized airships couldn’t simply fly above it. They had to fly through it; yet somehow they got repeat passengers. Yes, bad weather presents a problem. No, it is not an insurmountable problem. If it were, there’d have been no airship industry. Airships continue to operate today, albeit in niche applications. Again, there is a cost-benefit ratio in the minds of MilGov that must be considered.
Q: Can a proper airframe for an airship be manufactured in Colorado in 2000?
A: Now we’re getting somewhere. The answer is that I don’t know. The technology isn’t mysterious. The San Francisco public library has a few relevant titles. Even the Marin County library system has one. Colorado Springs is the home of the USAF Academy. You can bet there will be a few volumes on airships in there. Although I can’t perform the engineering, it’s not cutting edge technology. Surely there are a few engineers left in Colorado who can do the work. The real question is whether or not a workable airframe can be manufactured given the conditions in Colorado. There is plenty of aluminum around, given that plenty of aircraft will be grounded at commercial airports and military airfields. If making the airships commands sufficiently high priority, there is electricity available from the surviving nuke plant for rendering scrap aluminum. If anyone has the personnel necessary to do the work on a new airframe, the Joint Chiefs have those people.
Q: What materials will be used for the airbag?
A: Another good question. I’ve given that one the best answer I can earlier in the thread. At the very least, the wreckage of the Columbia might be used to build a couple of small airships to get the ball rolling. The technology to construct the skin of an airship isn’t new. The real trick is producing or finding enough material of the desired tensile strength to skin airships. Scavenging hot air balloons might be a good place to start.
Q: How about the fuel?
A: Since the airship doesn’t require thrust to achieve lift, aviation gas probably isn’t necessary. In any event, an airship will use much energy to move a ton of cargo than a heavier-than-aircraft.
Q: How will the airship be made a viable military platform?
A: If the airship can be made into a gunship, that’s a bonus. The primary role of the airship is to move cargo between friendly areas that are separated by hostile territory. The airship is an air truck with a technology and resource requirements that are within the capabilities of MilGov in early 2001
Q: Can all of this be done in a cost-effective manner?
A: Now we’ve come to the $64,000 question. I don’t know the answer. I see the Joint Chiefs in a tough spot. Even without the meteorological changes of Howling Wilderness, MilGov has real problems. More than half the nation’s population is dead. The prewar stocks of fuel are gone. The prewar machines are breaking down. A fragile equilibrium seems to have come over the nation by the beginning of 2001, but many forces are at work to shatter that equilibrium. If the pieces of the industrial society are not put back together such that they can reinforce each other as they must to survive, then America will slide further backwards into the darkness. An industrial society requires an effective and working transportation network. The remnants of the US infrastructure will be breaking up soon, and the routes are menaced by brigands. The remaining MilGov enclaves cannot support each other because they are separated by miles of hostile territory.
Along comes the airship from Missouri. Granted, someone could have thought of it before; but no one did. Colorado Springs has something like three million people and surpluses such that the Joint Chiefs are considering reopening the Denver mint. They have an agricultural base, manufacturing, a limited budget of fossil fuels from Wyoming, limited minerals from mines in the Rockies, academic and engineers, and an army. Husbanding these resources won’t necessarily propagate them. If ever there was an investment that could arrest the downward spiral, airships are that investment.
Granted, airships aren’t going to replace rail and shipping for bulk cargoes. While it might be practical to move some seed from one location to another, the volume of food necessary to keep tens or hundreds of thousands of people alive probably can’t be moved by airship. Ammunition, rifles, machine guns, and mortars probably can be moved to critical locations. Critical machines and spare parts probably can be moved to keep what has survived to this point functional a while longer. High-value raw materials might be moved. Experts can be moved from place to place to increase agricultural and industrial productivity. Infantry can be moved from place to place so that the nation’s surviving military resources can be concentrated for decisive action. All-important lubricants can be moved. Did I mention the spare parts? Just getting working radios into all of the MilGov cantonments will change everything. Once the Joint Chiefs see the possibilities, I believe they will commit everything they can to assembling a fleet of airships to turn the downward spiral right side up.
In the end, there’s a degree of suspension of disbelief required. A great deal is simply unknown. I do think that airships in Colorado are not a very significant drain on one’s stock of suspension of disbelief. They are the right technology for the occasion.
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