Did this forum fold up and leave, or what???

"Bob" wrote in
:
There was no body...just the subject

Someone, actually some persons, complained at some length about
this group being dominated by professional pilots when the title
begins with rec. and they wanted it left to kitbuilders and
amateurs. Most of us complied, and it has been left to
kitbuilders and amateurs, and you see the result. There just
aren't that many helicopter kitbuilders left alive, but they are
welcome to the newsgroup. The professional pilots have found
other forums.

Terry K writes:

Well then, I'm gonna do the nasty horrible here, and suggest an
ultralight contra rotating H2 inflated slow, fat, quiet, 8
rotorblade hybrid personal helicopter / airship version of this
wacko idea which evolved in ..\ulralight into a possible human
powered, easy to fly helicopter with H2 inflated low speed aerofoil
rotor blades / lift bags shaped by high pressure tubes, low
pressure foils tensioned light lines. Kind of an inflated airborn
sailing rig you could row / pedal...

So what if it won't qualify for the award?

This giving me nightmares, all very entertaining.

The subject went like this...

Stan Gosnell wrote:

neat ideas but hardly practical,

hydrogen is explosive,

Only if it gets ignited, like gasoline. If the Hindenburg was
ignited by static, as has been proposed, modern antistatic materials
will eliminate the one biggest hindrance to the airship evolution.
Airships are safe, except for that.

insurance for suspending a bus sized container of

hydrogen above your house might be a bit prohibitive,


Who needs insurance? Any fireball would go straight up, and my
metal roof won't mind a few globs of melted plastic film, heck the
seagulls are worse. What subdivisions regulations? We're talking
way in the wilderness housing, with no taxes or infrastructure
maintenance for roads, water, sewer, sidewalks, streetlights
policing, etc. Think solar, batteries, hydrolysis as a system of
storing energy in a battery medium like hydrogen, 100% efficient,
hydrogen storage, free flight lift fuel costs.


also, weight for a ul is the empty weight, gas bag, controls,
power, not
the gas to inflate it,,,


Well, OK. That was the question. Is an ultralight an airship? Or,
is there a seperate class of rules, etc? Same allowance for safety gear?


also, the gas to support it isn't the same as 'gas' to propel it,

Why not? The fuel tank is a reservoir for the lift bag, a one time
investment to obviate lift / drag costs, at the expense of simple
translational / transit / airspeed drag. The fuel pump controlling
bouyancy gas recycling might cost some unexpected energy
consumption, being it neccessasy to pump H2 gas into the fuel tank
so as to descend. Gee, that sounds like regenerative braking energy
recovery with management losses, doesn't it?

and mollers stuff ran out of steam years ago, although I can
surely see
the medias facsination with it but my inbterest won't be rising until
Moller flies it around the city sans tethers,,,,,,,,,

Yes, yes! Imagine the interest when a quiet personal sport airship
proves safe and cheap, even bouncing off off skyscrapers made smooth
for safety! The lift bag might deflate to a parachute shape, I'm no
seamstress. Your lawnchair with lawn mower engine burning gaseous H2
might just glide after exhausting it's fuel and descending as a fat
Rogallo glider on a diet.


Terry Spragg wrote:

How about making an ultralight hybrid aircraft / dirigible inflated
with hydrogen? Would you weight it empty (deflated) for weight
restrictions if it was aircraft like? Would the 5 gallon gasoline
fuel restriction for ultralights convert in any useful way into a
volume of gaseous hydrogen equivalent?

A dragonfly's wings are stiffened by internal gas pressure, that's


,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Terry K

(posted in re.ultralights, recently)

How about making an ultralight hybrid aircraft / dirigible
inflated with hydrogen? Would you weight it empty (deflated) for
weight restrictions if it was aircraft like? Would the 5 gallon
gasoline fuel restriction for ultralights convert in any useful way
into a volume of gaseous hydrogen equivalent?

A dragonfly's wings are stiffened by internal gas pressure, that's
obvious if you look at one. So are other insect wings, and they are
the most efficient flyers there is. Are they inflated with hydrogen?
That would seem like an advantageous evolution. Now, I can't wait to
capture one and see if the wing burns especially brightly.

After watching the Discovery channel about Moller's skycar, I can't
help wondering if an anti static hydrogen dirigible using fat wings
shaped for lift would be more a conventional a/c or a dirigible.

Seems a dirigible would make a far more practical aircar than a
million dollar 8 engine robot flyer, at least for relatively short
commutes to downtown from a suburb without roads, that would make
housing developments cheaper. Besides, who is going to do a hundred
miles an hour between skyscrapers in traffic on auto pilot, with the
way winds flip around near them?

I believe Moller's idea is doomed, a millionaire's pipe dream.
Totally impractical and inefficient in a hydrogen powered world.

If a dirigible had a hydrogen bouyancy compensating tank of variable
but still relatively low pressure and volume inside a lower pressure
bouyancy envelope, would pumping hydrogen gas between high and low
pressure envelopes control lift and gross altitude in an efficient
and effective manner, like some fish do, without needing inefficient
ballast?

What would happen if you lost power and coudn't compress lift gas,
and continued to rise out of control as the gas in the envelope
expanded at increasing altitude? Would you need to dump H2 to come
down, until you lost the capability to maintain altitude? Parachute
time?

Wouldn't a dirigible inherently display good fuel efficiency,
considering it doesn't need to utilise power to generate lift, but
perhaps only a little to fine control altitude for landing, etc?

How good is the lift drag speed fuel economy tradeoff for a
dirigible at useful speeds? How much could you gain or lose to
headwinds and tailwinds?

Why don't we hear more about personal dirigibles fuelled and / or
lifted by hydrogen, especially since modern anti static materials
would seem to remove the Hindenburg terror factor?

If the vectored propellors used to drive and control a dirigible
were perhaps partly powered by thin film solar cells, hydrogen fuel
cells, or hydrogen or gasoline internal combustion engines in
various configurations, might there be a capability to build an
affordable, quiet, backyard vtol vehicle, fuelled with H2 generated
by home electrolysis?

A hydrogen powered dirigible "car" doesn't need expensive
infrastructure like roads or bridges. How would that affect the
national economy, considering fuel scarcities, especially if roads
were abandoned off the main legacy routes?

Is the box too small to think about this? Is there any comprehensive
research on this?

It seems a one or two person H2 dirigible might only be about as big
as a bus, and it could be tethered to your rooftop. The fuel could
be hydrolized from waste water during low hydro demand hours, or
while the sun shone on solar shingles.

Opinions? Don't bother telling me I'm crazy, I suspected that
decades ago, after talking to many of the sane dullards I meet.

Most just need a consuming interest to become as crazy as me.

Terry K

So now, it grows into a silent, 8 bladed contra copter with very
slow moving, fat aerofoil rotors, with very little need for rotor
lift to overcome lift induced drag.

Why does this seem so beautiful and interesting?

You don't suppose that this H2 liftbag idea is surpressed by the
mechanical airplane mfgrs and oil salesmen, in the same manner as
water injection schemes to reduce exhaust temperature losses in
internal combustion engines is rumoured to be?

A drop or 2 of water injected sometime after the spark might slow
the combustion, expand by absorbing heat to boil the water into
steam, giving a net increase in efficiency as seems to be implied in
the reduction of lost heat in the exhaust with it's temperatue
reduced to just above boiling point? Perhaps in a supercharged
diesel 2 cycle? Wouldn't that wash a lot of CO2 from the exhaust
when the steam condenses in the muffler? Soda pop exhaust?

Does that dent the inside of your box?

Terry K

Oh, talk in Comanche circles suggests that quiet, plasic bag H2
dirigible contra helis might be stealthy to radar, too.

An Arsineo Hall moment, HHHMMmmm?


Terry Spragg wrote:

"Bob" wrote in
:
There was no body...just the subject

Someone, actually some persons, complained at some length about this
group being dominated by professional pilots when the title begins
with rec. and they wanted it left to kitbuilders and amateurs. Most
of us complied, and it has been left to kitbuilders and amateurs, and
you see the result. There just aren't that many helicopter kitbuilders
left alive, but they are
welcome to the newsgroup. The professional pilots have found other
forums.

Terry K writes:

Well then, I'm gonna do the nasty horrible here, and suggest an
ultralight contra rotating H2 inflated slow, fat, quiet, 8 rotorblade
hybrid personal helicopter / airship version of this wacko idea which
evolved in ..\ulralight into a possible human powered, easy to fly
helicopter with H2 inflated low speed aerofoil rotor blades / lift bags
shaped by high pressure tubes, low pressure foils tensioned light
lines. Kind of an inflated airborn sailing rig you could row / pedal...

So what if it won't qualify for the award?

This giving me nightmares, all very entertaining.

The subject went like this...

Stan Gosnell wrote:

neat ideas but hardly practical,

hydrogen is explosive,

Only if it gets ignited, like gasoline. If the Hindenburg was ignited by
static, as has been proposed, modern antistatic materials will eliminate
the one biggest hindrance to the airship evolution.
Airships are safe, except for that.

insurance for suspending a bus sized container of

hydrogen above your house might be a bit prohibitive,


Who needs insurance? Any fireball would go straight up, and my metal
roof won't mind a few globs of melted plastic film, heck the seagulls
are worse. What subdivisions regulations? We're talking way in the
wilderness housing, with no taxes or infrastructure maintenance for
roads, water, sewer, sidewalks, streetlights policing, etc. Think solar,
batteries, hydrolysis as a system of storing energy in a battery medium
like hydrogen, 100% efficient, hydrogen storage, free flight lift fuel
costs.


also, weight for a ul is the empty weight, gas bag, controls, power, not
the gas to inflate it,,,


Well, OK. That was the question. Is an ultralight an airship? Or, is
there a seperate class of rules, etc? Same allowance for safety gear?


also, the gas to support it isn't the same as 'gas' to propel it,

Why not? The fuel tank is a reservoir for the lift bag, a one time
investment to obviate lift / drag costs, at the expense of simple
translational / transit / airspeed drag. The fuel pump controlling
bouyancy gas recycling might cost some unexpected energy consumption,
being it neccessasy to pump H2 gas into the fuel tank so as to descend.
Gee, that sounds like regenerative braking energy recovery with
management losses, doesn't it?

and mollers stuff ran out of steam years ago, although I can surely see
the medias facsination with it but my inbterest won't be rising until
Moller flies it around the city sans tethers,,,,,,,,,

Yes, yes! Imagine the interest when a quiet personal sport airship
proves safe and cheap, even bouncing off off skyscrapers made smooth for
safety! The lift bag might deflate to a parachute shape, I'm no
seamstress. Your lawnchair with lawn mower engine burning gaseous H2
might just glide after exhausting it's fuel and descending as a fat
Rogallo glider on a diet.


Terry Spragg wrote:

How about making an ultralight hybrid aircraft / dirigible inflated
with hydrogen? Would you weight it empty (deflated) for weight
restrictions if it was aircraft like? Would the 5 gallon gasoline
fuel restriction for ultralights convert in any useful way into a
volume of gaseous hydrogen equivalent?

A dragonfly's wings are stiffened by internal gas pressure, that's


,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Terry K

(posted in re.ultralights, recently)

How about making an ultralight hybrid aircraft / dirigible inflated
with hydrogen? Would you weight it empty (deflated) for weight
restrictions if it was aircraft like? Would the 5 gallon gasoline fuel
restriction for ultralights convert in any useful way into a volume of
gaseous hydrogen equivalent?

A dragonfly's wings are stiffened by internal gas pressure, that's
obvious if you look at one. So are other insect wings, and they are the
most efficient flyers there is. Are they inflated with hydrogen? That
would seem like an advantageous evolution. Now, I can't wait to capture
one and see if the wing burns especially brightly.

After watching the Discovery channel about Moller's skycar, I can't help
wondering if an anti static hydrogen dirigible using fat wings shaped
for lift would be more a conventional a/c or a dirigible.

Seems a dirigible would make a far more practical aircar than a million
dollar 8 engine robot flyer, at least for relatively short commutes to
downtown from a suburb without roads, that would make housing
developments cheaper. Besides, who is going to do a hundred miles an
hour between skyscrapers in traffic on auto pilot, with the way winds
flip around near them?

I believe Moller's idea is doomed, a millionaire's pipe dream. Totally
impractical and inefficient in a hydrogen powered world.

If a dirigible had a hydrogen bouyancy compensating tank of variable but
still relatively low pressure and volume inside a lower pressure
bouyancy envelope, would pumping hydrogen gas between high and low
pressure envelopes control lift and gross altitude in an efficient and
effective manner, like some fish do, without needing inefficient ballast?

What would happen if you lost power and coudn't compress lift gas, and
continued to rise out of control as the gas in the envelope expanded at
increasing altitude? Would you need to dump H2 to come down, until you
lost the capability to maintain altitude? Parachute time?

Wouldn't a dirigible inherently display good fuel efficiency,
considering it doesn't need to utilise power to generate lift, but
perhaps only a little to fine control altitude for landing, etc?

How good is the lift drag speed fuel economy tradeoff for a dirigible at
useful speeds? How much could you gain or lose to headwinds and tailwinds?

Why don't we hear more about personal dirigibles fuelled and / or lifted
by hydrogen, especially since modern anti static materials would seem to
remove the Hindenburg terror factor?

If the vectored propellors used to drive and control a dirigible were
perhaps partly powered by thin film solar cells, hydrogen fuel cells, or
hydrogen or gasoline internal combustion engines in various
configurations, might there be a capability to build an affordable,
quiet, backyard vtol vehicle, fuelled with H2 generated by home
electrolysis?

A hydrogen powered dirigible "car" doesn't need expensive infrastructure
like roads or bridges. How would that affect the national economy,
considering fuel scarcities, especially if roads were abandoned off the
main legacy routes?

Is the box too small to think about this? Is there any comprehensive
research on this?

It seems a one or two person H2 dirigible might only be about as big as
a bus, and it could be tethered to your rooftop. The fuel could be
hydrolized from waste water during low hydro demand hours, or while the
sun shone on solar shingles.

Opinions? Don't bother telling me I'm crazy, I suspected that decades
ago, after talking to many of the sane dullards I meet.

Most just need a consuming interest to become as crazy as me.

Terry K

So now, it grows into a silent, 8 bladed contra copter with very slow
moving, fat aerofoil rotors, with very little need for rotor lift to
overcome lift induced drag.

Why does this seem so beautiful and interesting?

You don't suppose that this H2 liftbag idea is surpressed by the
mechanical airplane mfgrs and oil salesmen, in the same manner as water
injection schemes to reduce exhaust temperature losses in internal
combustion engines is rumoured to be?

A drop or 2 of water injected sometime after the spark might slow the
combustion, expand by absorbing heat to boil the water into steam,
giving a net increase in efficiency as seems to be implied in the
reduction of lost heat in the exhaust with it's temperatue reduced to
just above boiling point? Perhaps in a supercharged diesel 2 cycle?
Wouldn't that wash a lot of CO2 from the exhaust when the steam
condenses in the muffler? Soda pop exhaust?

Does that dent the inside of your box?

Terry K