I mean, the whole problem with airships is that they’re just big inflatable sails, and to be barely economical they have just enough propulsive power to move about in normal weather conditions. Once they hit bad weather they’re fucked, which is why nearly every airship built before WWII ended up crashing in a storm. They’re only marginally viable today because of weather prediction that grounds them before they hit the shit. Adding sails isn’t going to help anything.
Yeah it’s a terrible idea, airships barely work as camera platforms cum billboards. But sails aren’t just windbags, they can function as airfoils to provide power in directions the wind isn’t blowing. I’m exactly one episode of Mythbusters curious about it. I remember going to a hockey game and the stadium had a remote controlled blimp the shape of a Coke bottle that would fly around the arena, I’d like to attach rigging to one of those and contrive a 5-6 mph wind scenario to see if it can do anything other than go downwind under sail.
I mean, the whole problem with airships is that they’re just big inflatable sails, and to be barely economical they have just enough propulsive power to move about in normal weather conditions. Once they hit bad weather they’re fucked, which is why nearly every airship built before WWII ended up crashing in a storm. They’re only marginally viable today because of weather prediction that grounds them before they hit the shit. Adding sails isn’t going to help anything.
Yeah it’s a terrible idea, airships barely work as camera platforms cum billboards. But sails aren’t just windbags, they can function as airfoils to provide power in directions the wind isn’t blowing. I’m exactly one episode of Mythbusters curious about it. I remember going to a hockey game and the stadium had a remote controlled blimp the shape of a Coke bottle that would fly around the arena, I’d like to attach rigging to one of those and contrive a 5-6 mph wind scenario to see if it can do anything other than go downwind under sail.
I always wanted to get one of these and program it to follow me around the disc golf course with my bag slung underneath it.