>>12906100>What are they building them from? That honeycomb meme shit?Normal materials, I mean you can build a small prototype for much less than that but a proper 50 ton+ airship that was sufficiently tested is expensive. Airlander has already flown a 10 ton model but with only 30 hours of flight time, and this guys opinion was that they need this much to really last as a company. This isnt the price per airship, but the initial capital injection needed. In theory they should be cheaper to build than airplanes because there are less parts and less precision. Most airplane R&D phsses cost more in fact
>>the hangar collapsed in a freak accident>Nothing suspicious?It was just a crappy hangar from WW2 blimps. They sued the navy for giving them that garbage, so now the navy probably doesnt want to get involved again.
>Why? Boiloff like with hydrogen?Yes, it seeps through the envelope material as the molecules are smaller, but there is talk about special aerogel sealants that could help.
>Also how is it produced? Surely not fusion because it is still only just about 10 years away.Natural helium mines. If it belongs to the military there might be a nice discount. But there was a tourism business called Airship Ventures that got thoroughly fucked because helium prices rose by 10 times in the course of their operation
>>In all cases they would cost at minimum $10-20,000 for a customer to charter per day>Insane. I guess they really are not viable.These were the estimates I got from industry vets, perhaps they can be lowered one day
