Homebuilt hot-air airships

[Jim Logajan]

One of the desirable mission requirements I've wanted in an aircraft is the
ability to do serious sightseeing by allowing me to pause it in flight and
gaze at things. The problem with fixed-wing aircraft is that you can't stop
or sometimes even slow down enough to get a good long gander at things.
Only helicopters, airships, and (to a lesser extent because you can't
direct them much) balloons have the desired capability.

So about a year or so ago I began looking into designing and building a
homebuilt hot-air airship that required little or no ground crew to launch
and land. While doing research into airships, I came across the Skyacht
Aircraft company:

http://www.personalblimp.com/

Late last year I had an e-mail exchange with the Dan Nachbar, the inventor
of this particular design, and at that time he wished to maintain a low
profile. I see now he will be giving a presentation at Oshkosh, so I assume
he is no longer trying to keep such a low profile. Looks like he still has
some ways to go, but if my own (top secret! ;-) ) airship idea never get
off the ground I will definitely be looking into getting one of his
creations once it becomes generally available. (Other existing hot-air
airships seem to require too much ground support and because they rely on
pressurization, are a little too performance limited for my taste.)

So - has anyone reading these groups ever built or considered building a
homebuilt gas or thermal airship?

[[email protected]]

Jim Logajan wrote:
> One of the desirable mission requirements I've wanted in an aircraft is the
> ability to do serious sightseeing by allowing me to pause it in flight and
> gaze at things. The problem with fixed-wing aircraft is that you can't stop
> or sometimes even slow down enough to get a good long gander at things.
> Only helicopters, airships, and (to a lesser extent because you can't
> direct them much) balloons have the desired capability.
>
> So about a year or so ago I began looking into designing and building a
> homebuilt hot-air airship that required little or no ground crew to launch
> and land. While doing research into airships, I came across the Skyacht
> Aircraft company:
>
> http://www.personalblimp.com/
>
> Late last year I had an e-mail exchange with the Dan Nachbar, the inventor
> of this particular design, and at that time he wished to maintain a low
> profile. I see now he will be giving a presentation at Oshkosh, so I assume
> he is no longer trying to keep such a low profile. Looks like he still has
> some ways to go, but if my own (top secret! ;-) ) airship idea never get
> off the ground I will definitely be looking into getting one of his
> creations once it becomes generally available. (Other existing hot-air
> airships seem to require too much ground support and because they rely on
> pressurization, are a little too performance limited for my taste.)
>
> So - has anyone reading these groups ever built or considered building a
> homebuilt gas or thermal airship?

Dunno if he reads these newsgrousp but the comedian Gallagher
built one, or had one one built for him 2 or 3 decades ago.

--

FF

[Jim Logajan]

wrote:
> Dunno if he reads these newsgrousp but the comedian Gallagher
> built one, or had one one built for him 2 or 3 decades ago.

It was built for him, used helium, not hot air, and was pedal powered:

http://home.teleport.com/~reedg/whitedwarf.html
http://www.myairship.com/database/whitedwarf.html

Much as I could use the exercise, I was thinking more along the lines of
mechanical propulsion. ;-)

[john smith]

> While doing research into airships, I came across the Skyacht
> Aircraft company:
> http://www.personalblimp.com/
> So - has anyone reading these groups ever built or considered building a
> homebuilt gas or thermal airship?

As with most homebuilt advertising, look to see it the article has
actually flown.
From the photos on the above website, this one hasn't. What does that
tell you?
The one photo of "tethered" lift is taken at night. Again, one must ask
the question, why?

[Jim Logajan]

john smith > wrote:
> As with most homebuilt advertising, look to see it the article has
> actually flown.

I know it hasn't flown untethered yet. The inventor had taken some effort
to avoid people getting the wrong idea about the pace of progress. He went
to the trouble of using HTML metatags so as to have his web site excluded
from search engine results. I only found his web site rather obliquely. I
only mention his site now because it appears he has finally removed those
metatags and is making a presentation at Oshkosh.

> From the photos on the above website, this one hasn't. What does that
> tell you?

Nothing I didn't already know. Dan Nachbar has already stated that the pace
of progress is much slower than expected.

> The one photo of "tethered" lift is taken at night. Again, one must
> ask the question, why?

Eh? The caption to that picture seems to explain things rather clearly:

"October 28, 2005 -- Here's a shot of your intrepid adventurers piled into
the cabin and making a first tethered flight. The winds died very late that
day, so this picture was taken in near darkness. So while the photo quality
isn't very good, the moment it captures was quite momentus. It took nearly
4 years of work to get off the ground this first time."

[Jim Logajan]

Dan Nachbar of Skyacht sent the following e-mail to me in response to my
posting to these groups (rec.aviation.balloon and
rec.aviation.homebuilt). Please note that he refers to some attached
photos he included in his e-mail, but since these are text-only groups, I
am not able to include them.

=== Text of message from Dan Nachbar:

Greetings.

Somebody pointed me to the discussion of our project on
the rec.aviation.homebuilt group at google.
Feel free to forward this message to the group.

You are correct, we are raising the profile of the project a bit.
Although, this change wasn't part of our plans.

Our plan was to have the ship flying before the big Oshkosh
air show (next week.) But record rains here in the Northeast have
delayed our work by about 3 months. So the ship won't be at Oshkosh.
Unfortunately, I had to sign up to give a talk there long ago -- before
it was clear that the ship wouldn't be ready. So I'm with stuck with
the commitment to give the talk, even without a ship to show.
I guess our days of operating in "stealth mode" are about to come
to an end and I expect to be met with a good bit of skepticism.

And such skepticism is well placed. Most "great new
aircraft ideas" have a very high hype-to-aircraft ratio. That's
exactly why we've been keeping such a low profile. Most serious
folks, with good reason, won't take any new idea seriously until
it's off the ground.

We have in fact been off the ground, albeit on a tether,
a fair number of times this year. We're still tuning
the longitudinal balance and load-suspension system, so the
ship isn't ready for free flight testing just yet. We'll get to
that point in August.

I appreciate the comment about the less-than-convincing photos
on the project website. I hadn't realized how far the pictures there
had fallen behind our actual progress. I've attached a couple of
shots that show the ship off the ground. You can see one fellow
acting as ballast on a line on the nose, a pile of sandbags in the
cabin, the cabin is tipped at a bit of an angle and the fact that
the bottom of the ship is distinctly flatter than the top. These are
the sorts of things that we are working on before we can start
free flights.

I'll be updating the website photos soon.

Regards,
Dan Nachbar

[john smith]

Jim, thanks for the followup postings.
I am courious as to how Dan plans to control ascent/descent?
Is there going to be a ballonette inside the envelope?

[Rich S.[_1_]]

Some time ago I read a book about Alberto Santos Dumont and his "Personal
Balloons" which he used to commute about Paris. It was altogether
fascinating.

http://www.earlyaviators.com/edumona.htm

Rich S.

[Jim Logajan]

"Rich S." > wrote:
> Some time ago I read a book about Alberto Santos Dumont and his
> "Personal Balloons" which he used to commute about Paris. It was
> altogether fascinating.
>
> http://www.earlyaviators.com/edumona.htm

In "The Giant Airships" by Douglas Botting, 1981 (ISBN 0-8094-3272-2) some
of Santos-Dumont exploits are also mentioned. But it appears he eventually
changed his interest from lighter-than-air, which he became disenchanted
with, to heavier-than-air. From that book:

"Santos continued to build airships over the next few years. The most
successful of them was No. 9, a small, tubby and splendly maneuverable
craft. In this runabout he performed all manner of wonderful - and impudent
- things. In 1903 a correspondent for the Paris weekly L'Illustration wrote
of one such incident: "I had sat down at the terrace of a cafe on the
Avenue du Bois de Boulogne and was enjoying an iced orangeade. All of a
sudden I was shaken with surprise on seeing an airship come right down in
front of me. The guide rope coiled round the legs of my chair. The airship
was just above my knees, and Monsieur Santos-Dumont got out. Whole crowds
of people rushed forward and acclaimed the great Brazilian aviator. He
asked me to excuse him for having startled me. He then called for an
aperitif, drank it down, got on board airship again and went gliding off
into space."

Such displays only faintly disguised Santos' growing inner disenchantment.
"To propel a dirigible balloon through the air," he was heard to remark,
"is like pushing a candle through a brick wall." He had developed his
airships as far as his talents and vision allowed, but they never evolved
beyond their role as personal vehicles for their inventor."