solar airship

See also hyperblimp dot com. This vehicle runs on sunlight, and thus can fly as long as the sun shines (which, of course, it always does above the clouds). You can see the panels inside (see hyperblimp.com for more info). It's made it with off-the-shelf materials, for about $1,000. Location: Sugarhouse Park, Utah, June '06. (Pat. Pend.)

If an elementary school teacher like myself can make this happen, with panels that are less than 6% efficient, it is worth contemplating what our country could have done by now if we'd made the effort. But as they say, better late than never.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• solar
• flying
• airship
• blimp
• renewable
• energy
• perpetual
• motion
• anti-gravity

[SomethingAwesome19XX]

What do you do when there are strong winds?

[danielgeery]

Don't fly. This is a small prototype, showing that off-the-shelf solar can move an airship quite easily. This is running on 25 watts only, with 6% efficient panels (three years ago). The idea is to go larger with better panels and get greater speeds.

[danielgosson]

Amazing. My biggest worry about airships is 1: They must be shocking to fly in a strong wind, & 2; The gas would be expensive woudnt it? Also how do you asend & decend this model so well, I thought you had to pump the gas in & out thus loosing some all the time.

[danielgeery]

Increasing speed will deal with winds. We now do about 40 with batteries, and could match that with higher end solar. Helium is expensive, a fossil fuel tied to petroleum fields. Hydrogen could be used with proper precautions and more development. Small ships use little gas, however.

[sixstringmania]

flying condom

[fox20012]

my dream is to make my own zeppelin and fly all over the country, that would be awesome

[hamid4222]

greenliving

[heliumblimp]

Good performance for a model. If you are in need of a Helium sniffing laugh try my Gasbags site:

3w dot airship dot me which is the worlds only lighter than air comedy web site.

[caribbeanchild]

All I can say is the developers of this project must live somewhere where there is no wind at all! I have lived in a few countries and never lived anywhere that this could actually work on a regular basis. It would simply be blown away!

[wernerkroneman]

@danielgosson You don't actually dump any gaz ouside an emergency situation. Actually airships are slightly heavyer than air. They use propellers to lift, and simply turn them off to descend.

[ttgrthomas]

Here is a group with a focus on personal size blimps for one or more persons on board:

h t t p : // s m a l l b l i m p s . l e f o r a . c o m /

[dafranx]

Dude, are you chewing gum or something? Nice solar airship.

[softbuzter]

sounds that you are fapping in the backround

[Nauzfy]

@datzan haha du läste också det från aftonbladet ;D;D ville se vad det var så man gick in i youtube :>

[datzan]

This needs more attention!

[RayDandy]

very cool, great idea !