Thunderbird 2 flies again: The astonishing airship set to revolutionise haulage, tourism...

Daily Mail ^ | 1/4/13 | Damien Gayle

[Nachum]

A radical new kind of airship funded by the US military is about to make its first test flight - and it looks uncannily like the Thunderbird 2 craft from the classic TV show.

The Aeroscraft airship will carry three times as much as the biggest military cargo planes over thousands of miles, use a third of the fuel, and it doesn't even need a landing strip.

It could also have major implications for cargo haulage, and almost everything now laboriously transported across the planet's surface by boat, train and lorry could within years be carried through the skies, its makers claim.

[Nachum]

Full title: Thunderbird 2 flies again: The astonishing airship set to revolutionise haulage, tourism... and warfare

It's..um... a blimp

[frithguild]

[Candor7]

Not a blimp. Blimps have no rigid air frame. This has a rigid air frame and it is therefor a lighter than air ship.

[mike_9958]

66 tons of cargo ?

[kingu]

I've seen this from a distance twice - once for a few moments before they rushed to close the doors because there was a very light breeze and it was pushing the blimp across the hanger floor, the second time with it trying to lift off, a slight breeze coming by and it nosing into the ground.

I'm sure this is just the growing pains of a prototype, but this was funded as a long shot program, and so far it's lived up to those expectations. I wish them the best of luck, but if someone’s looking to start placing orders, they might want to hold off. I love the design ideas, seems quite possible to work, just not sure how they'll handle the energy requirements in flight for their fancy ballast system.

[LibLieSlayer]

Fly that over bezerkley and Alien reports will be pouring in.

LLS

[Delta Dawn]

I am confused...

[repentant_pundit]

Overgrown as it may be, I thought it was illegal to let such metallized mylar party balloons fly untethered in most urban areas...shorting out power lines etc.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

No reason to be confused. Candor7 is correct.

[real saxophonist]

It's not a balloon, it's an airship!

[BubbaBasher]

I believe the word is “Dirigible”.

[exit82]

Well, that was uplifting.

[Dead Corpse]

Sexy beast...

Airship Pirates...

[TurboZamboni]

[SparkyBass]

SUPERTHUNDERSTINGCAR!! ??

[Conserev1]

Holy Helium Batman!

[Little Ray]

You mean “dirigible.”

[ThomasThomas]

Thunderbirds go!

[Sherman Logan]

Couple comments.

Would appear to have the capacity to haul a LOT of fuel, so why is range limited to 3000 miles?

For military applications, it looks an awful lot to me like a very large, very slow target.

I would expect the biggest difficulty to be taking off or landing in windy conditions, especially gusting winds.

[lurk]

Tremendous advantage to not need a landing strip.

They conceive of it delivering to the front line of a battle. Not sure what would protect it from arty or missiles.