posted on Jul, 24 2018 @ 06:01 PM
I have to admit, I am not really a fan of lighter than air craft. Oh, to be sure, I enjoy hot air balloons and have flown and crewed on them before.
They're pretty awesome, but when it comes to zeppelins and airships, I tend to roll my eyes. There is a reason they were largely abandoned back in
the day and with helium becoming more and more at a premium price, it has struck me as being even less viable.
Not everyone agrees with me though and there have been multiple attempts to revive the airship for commercial purposes, whether for tourism or cargo
lifting or surveillance or communication. It's been tried several times. Always in the hope that tech has improved enough that THIS time will be
different. To date, it hasn't been.
Every so often, even with my skepticism, a big player does something...weird.
This time, the Walmart of the Internet, Amazon, is looking to do so.
Amazon's vision is to place airships with cargo in the airspace of metropolitan areas so that drones can deliver goods in minutes.
You want a new iphone? click and an automated system loads it onto a drone and away it goes. A few minutes later, a drone buzzes up and drops it off
for you. That's the concept at least.
I can see a number of weird problems with it. I have to wonder if the automated equipment might be heavier than expected. I also wonder about the
weather, the ever terrible bane of all airships has been the wind and a lot of metropolitan areas have winds that make airships problem matter. I
have to wonder when the first robberies will take place. If Amazon can build a drone for delivery, someone can send a drone up to snatch something.
Finally, this thing is supposed to fly at 45k feet. There might be some...issues with that.
Enjoy.