Sky Snake
Flexible blimps are bending the rules on UAV design.
- By Michael Klesius
- AirSpaceMag.com, December 18, 2009
An artist's concept shows how the STS-111 segments each come with winglets made of carbon fiber rods with nylon material stretched over them to aid with lift, steering, and overall stability.
Sanswire-TAO Corp.
(Page 2 of 2)
While research is moving ahead on how to get propeller-driven, airplane-type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to stay aloft for weeks, months, or even years—mainly with light, durable solar cells that charge batteries by day to keep the propellers turning at night—Sanswire-TAO claims they’re ready to fill a need now for more persistent UAV loitering where it’s needed: mainly in the military, but also for homeland security, border patrol, environmental study, commercial telecommunications, and maritime needs.
“We said, ‘Duration, duration, duration,’ measured in weeks. That’s what our soldiers need now,” says Erdberg. Sanswire-TAO conducted their latest demonstration of their airship on December 17 and 18 in Stuttgart. “We’ve built about 30 prototypes and have flown them thousands of times,” he says.
He claims that the cost of a Predator-class UAV is many times the cost of an airship of this kind. An STS-111 would run about $3 million to purchase, but only about $50 an hour to operate. “You crash a Predator, and that’s a tremendous cost, somewhere between $12 million and $18 million a pop,” says Erdberg. “Predators run around $2,000 an hour [to operate], and sometimes much more.”
The Stratellite, the company’s high-altitude vehicle, would find what Erdberg calls a “sweet spot” around 60,000 feet where it would experience the least amount of average wind. “Below and above that layer it’s very windy,” he says. “The idea,” he continues, “is to mix a balloon with an airship. Without fuel, it just becomes a balloon.”
Erdberg says that solar cell technology isn’t as far along as it needs to be. One of many problems for solar cells operating at very high altitudes is overheating from the sun’s powerful radiation. “We do believe that solar technology is the future,” says Erdberg. He claims that the company is doing research in that area. “But our gas technology is ready today.” In the second quarter of 2010, the company plans a public unveiling of their airships for two days at the Orlando Sanford International Airport.
“This is outside the box,” Erdberg says. “You’re taught something in school every day, but then this is something very different.”
Comments (8)
As a commercial pilot and one of the early investors in Sanswire, I still think this design and related technology makes a lot of sense! I, for one, will be in Orland for it's testing in Orlando if I know where and when!
Posted by David Bodley on December 19,2009 | 12:35 PM
We need to get this vehicle operational and in the field as soon as possible. With expanding operations in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and with the drug/illegal alien problems on our borders, this technology is available now and is more cost effective than alternative systems.
Posted by richard white on December 19,2009 | 06:51 PM
"the blimp, or zeppelin as it’s never called anymore,..." Good reason for that is that they are two different types of airships!!! The blimp is non-rigid while the Zeppelin is a rigid airship
Posted by Lance on December 21,2009 | 05:18 PM
It's wonderfully affordable, even for countries like ours that are broke, and it's not the viability of the technology that concerns me. As a longtime Sanswire shareholder, it's Erdberg's historic inability to market anything the company does that is my primary concern.
Posted by KJ on December 22,2009 | 01:48 PM
“Their biggest drawback is that when the wind blows hard from the side, they don’t stay on course very well.”
and
“As it undulates in the sky in a cross wind, it bleeds off the energy of the gusts, and stays on course or in place more efficiently.”
Looks like we are back in down-wind-turn country here!
“The forward bladder is filled with helium, which gives the airship its buoyancy.”
So, what does the rest of it do: dangle down below?
“The rest of the bladders are filled with a gaseous, combustible fuel that gets…fed into [the] engine”. And what happens to the bladder after that?
Posted by Bill Tomlinson on December 24,2009 | 06:14 AM
Lance-
From the World War I aircraft spotter's guides:
Class "B" limp = became the word: BLIMP
Class "D" rigid = became the word: DIRIGIBLE
Zeppelin= A company in Germany- named for Airship Pioneer Count Ferdinand von Zepplin. Made lots of airships in that era.
There is a modern day Zeppelin company- http://www.zeppelinflug.de/
So yes- Zeppelins are back in style with the Zeppelin NT, now giving tour rides in Germany, and out of San Francisco.
Posted by Jim on December 24,2009 | 11:24 AM
The tired old carousel of LTA continues to revolve, on average once every twenty years or so. Is that an Aereon or a Megalifter? In a poor light a Skyship looks much like a Dynairship. Whatever virtues LTA once possessed have now been overtaken by the enrmous reduction in payload size and power consumption and the ready availability of uav's of all sizes, from Globalstar downwards, with which to deploy them. Time on station has been a red herring for years, the area to focus on being "on station" LTA has never been any good at this, a twenty knot headwind reduces your speed of advance by 40%, and is likely to result, if prolonged for anytime, in the vehicle being as likely to be found in Alabama as Afghanistan. In the trophosphere the situation gets worse!
The main attraction of LTA lies in the fact that those seeking investment in such crackpot schemes know that investors have no reliable database of what the build or r&d costs for such turkeys ought to be, it's rich picking time for the snake oil salesmen when an air ship project hits town. Luckily, the tired old carousel at DARPA and similar institutions revolves at about the same speed, whenever anybody at such government offices wants a little extra cash for themselves, why not flag up a new "Walrus" or "Skycat"? It like goldfish, a short attention span means you can re-introduce the same nonsense time and again and wait hopefully for the cheques to drop through the letterbox!
It is just possible that a conventional blimp of about 100 metres, approximately similar to a "K" class but with advanced glass cockpit and lightweight diesels, could make headway in the coastal surveillance/anti piracy field, but its a small r&d task, no money in it for the speculators you see.
I know what I am talking about, invest at your peril!
John Wood
(Ex Chief Exec and co-founder of Airship Industries)
Posted by John Wood on December 26,2009 | 10:19 AM
I stopped reading at "blimp, or zeppelin as it’s never called anymore." A writer who doesn't have the inclination, time, or whatever to look up the difference on wikipedia before writing an article on the latest innovations in the field loses all credibility. What kind of journalist doesn't care enough to learn the tiniest bit of basic history about what they're writing about? The kind that just rewrites press releases without further investigation, probably.
@Jim: B-limp is folk etymology. Not true. (Also covered on wikipedia.)
Posted by C on March 16,2010 | 06:02 PM