Just lurking - saw the following post, and thought you might appreciate a little local colour...
http://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/bed-news/Zeppelin-airship-graces-the-skies.4436055.jp http://www.staroverlondon.co.uk/ Chris. On Fri, 2008-08-29 at 23:56 +0200, Ralf Gerlich wrote: > Hi! > > Martin Spott wrote: > > I think Ralf Gerlich has quite some expertise on this one - his home > > airfield is the place where these beasts are being built and he's one > > of these guys who want to know every detail :-) > > As far as I remember he also has a nice livery for the "Gummiwoosch", > > yet I don't know wether it's ready for distribution. > > > > Ralf !? > > Yes, the Zeppelins are built at EDNY. Note that they differ from blimps > by the fact that Zeppelins have a rigid inner structure while blimps are > held in shape by the pressure of the gas. That's one of the tricks the > guys at Zeppelin have, so they can attach the engines to the body of the > Zeppelin instead of the cabin, which makes flying nearly silent for the > passengers. With a hull without rigid structure, there is nothing to > attach the engines to. They have space for 12 or 13 passengers. > > The hull generates dynamic lift and most of the time the ship is > actually not lighter-than-air. I was told that typically they have a > mass of about 2 tons, but a weight of around 700kg. If empty or with low > fuel and payload, they are lighter-than-air. > > IIRC the rule-of-thumb figure for the transition between dynamic flight > and hovering is at about 20kts IAS. They can activate a special system, > which directly puts thrust-vector-control of the aft engine on the > pilot's sidestick, allowing to control the ship the same way as with > elevator and rudder. > > The side-engines can be rotated upwards and downwards, which is used > during take-off and descend. > > These ships are flying at EDNY all the time. They're doing several > roundtrips around the Lake of Constance area each day, given appropriate > weather. Just today I had just vacated the runway coming back from a > short local flight, and I saw one of them taking off. > > One is currently doing trips in London, and is bound to be shipped to > San Francisco afterwards. IIRC it will take its homebase in Moffett Field. > > I don't have that livery yet and I had hoped to get some more detailed > information on the geometry etc. The livery takes reference to the fact > that the ship will be flying in the San Francisco area for tourist > attraction. I'm not sure, but somehow I seem to remember that this is > our standard scenery area ;-) > > That's all the info I could come up with at this late time of day ;-) > > Cheers, > Ralf > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > _______________________________________________ > Flightgear-devel mailing list > Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
