Comment by Fade_Dance
Comment by Fade_Dance 2 days ago
Hindenburg.
I know it's silly, but it was an instant mental blurt, and I can't be the only one.
Comment by Fade_Dance 2 days ago
Hindenburg.
I know it's silly, but it was an instant mental blurt, and I can't be the only one.
Actually it wasn't about the hydrogen that much. More like the hull painted with flammable stuff. With todays materials it couldn't have burned like that. So any airship design of today NOT using hydrogen is wasting buoyancy, and a rare (on earth) element, which could be put to use for more important things.
Out of irrational fear...
Also, remember that half the people on the Hindenburg walked away from the incident. Jetliner passengers do not usually fare so well in crashes.
FWIW it was about hydrogen - the Hindenburg was designed around Helium (and thus didn't have various safeties around hydrogen) but due to embargoes against Nazi Germany they couldn't get the necessarily helium, so they filled it up with hydrogen against the original spec.
Yes. But still the paint burned first. And the hydrogen didn't explode, there was no "Knallgas". Even in all that chaos, the opportunity to mix in the right ratio with air to enable that, didn't arise. It just flared off.
One could even argue that all that flaring off generated some lift by updraft, making it crash softer, more slowly.
Airship design has advanced since the Hindenburg. Notably, they don't use hydrogen anymore.