Are Airships Making A Grand Comeback?

Sir David King, who you know is a big deal because dude’s knighted (and he’s director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford), sees a different method of freight delivery becoming a reality in the near future: cargo blimps.

While a blimp moves significantly slower than an airplane (currently not going much faster than 75 mph), they could potentially haul more, deliver goods to a wider range of places and do it without leaving a huge carbon footprint.

Where planes rely on fuel and runways, a blimp could take advantage of alternative methods for each. Solar power could keep a blimp in the sky, for instance, and it could be designed to be its own loading dock, so it wouldn’t have to land at any specialized facility. Depending on its size, the floating crafts could also haul twice as much as your average 747 freight plane.

Just how possible is the idea? Sir King thinks it could happen within the next 10 years, and that’s not as crazy as it may sound. “There are an awful lot of people we talk to who say this is going to happen,” said King. “This is something I believe is going to happen.”

We have certainly been writing about more and more zeppelins and blimps lately, and all around the world there’s been an increased interest in the technology, including America’s own Lockheed Martin, which received a grant from the US government.

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X-51A Scramjet Breaks Record For Longest Hypersonic Flight

The X-51A Waverider blasted itself into the longest hypersonic flight in history yesterday, streaking across the sky at Mach 5 for just over 200 seconds. That’s 10 times longer than the previous record, set in 2004 by NASA’s X-43. While the X-51A has already flown a couple of times while remaining attached to its mother ship, this was the first time the unmanned plane flew independently.

Hypersonic flight, defined as faster than Mach 5 (around 3,800 mph), is not easy. Conventional turbine jet engines can’t handle such tremendous speeds. To complete its hypersonic flight, the 14-foot-long Waverider launched from the wing of a B-52 over the Pacific Ocean, and with the help of a solid rocket booster, screamed up to Mach 4.8 before that booster was jettisoned.

That’s when its SJY61 scramjet engine took over, using its supersonic combustion to create a shockwave upon which the jet rides (that’s why it’s called the Waverider). After its record-breaking 200-second flight was complete, it splashed into the Pacific Ocean, not to be recovered. There are three more of these X-51A missiles, set to take their test flights later this year.

It was a big day for aviation technology. Says Air Force X-51A program manager Charlie Brink, “We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines.” Could it be long before we can travel from New York to L.A. in the time it takes to deliver a pizza?

Here’s a more-detailed video created before yesterday’s historic test flight:

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