Design an aerostat that is small enough to be used to personal transport

Design an aerostat that is small enough to be used to personal transport.

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youtube.com/watch?v=_hYC-ukmlU0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffard_dirigible
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Right then, since no one is responding I'll bump the thread with my personal idea:
So I'm thinking a kind of backpack-like oversized lightbulb that intakes atmospheric gas through the top and heats it up to a plasma-like state and then expels the plasma to steer the craft and prevent the device from heating to the point that the filament burns out or the user gets burnt.

vacuum lifted derigables when?

also, james had one on that episode of top gear

I want zeppelins back. It's a sin something so cool has been abandoned.

Simplificamus.

Now w/ simple descent mechanism...

why not just use a knife to cut the string?

>You will never be as awesome as this guy.

youtube.com/watch?v=_hYC-ukmlU0

It's like you WANT to be a pussy.

>vacuum aerostats
I am fairly sure that the lost mass in lifting gas would be more than compensated in structural mass. Think of the slightly over ambient pressure helium as a substitute for thick steel walls/struts

Yeah, but force-fields an shit...

...

Not if you used carbon fiber and had a strong internal lattice

I want to know the lifting capacity of a vacuum aerostat considering these params

A carbon fiber shell and strong internal lattice is likely still going to be heavier than helium gas and a light tensile skin.

Rope tension. Might just kill you.
Also

Assume we invent a material with the same density as air and enough tensile strength to withstand the implosive pressure

Why not assume antigravity fields then? Anyway, large pressure vessels have lots of inherent safety risks associated with them and any meme supermaterial is probably going to be expensive and have better uses than an atmospheric flotation device. I don't think there ever will be differential pressure aerostats.

Floating cities a la bioshock infinite would be cool, though.

I'm fully aware meme supermaterials are cancer. I'm really just curious to understand how the ratio of contained vacuum to lifting capacity would look.

The total density of your vehicle, aka mass/volume, needs to be lower than the density of air. This is why a helium baloon floats and an evacuated railroad car doesn't - even though the high vacuum is far less dense than atmospheric pressure helium, the steel that makes up the cylinder walls makes up for it. The total density is above that of the atmosphere so it stays put. Whereas in the baloon's case, the added mass of the baloon is covered by the difference of He vs ambient air.

If you want to, you can work the ratio out using geometry.

>you will never wast this much helium

fucking retards

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffard_dirigible

You are not fun at all.

i'm working on worldbuilding for a clockpunk story
(like steampunk but with a renaissance setting)

can someone here help understand how airships will work in this setting

Hot air in silk bags. Big slow clockwork-driven propellers, I guess.

what this user said: everything is powered by mechanical energy and perhaps some very limited chemistry. I say lighting oil and using it to create hot air would be pretty valid.

Hydrogen envelope shaped into a flat lifting wing.
Ultralight seat frame with pedal operated drive fan, shifter to switch between wheel drive, fan drive and compressor to remove hydrogen from envelope.
Begin at just slightly heavier than air and pedal to take off. Release some hydrogen into envelope to gain altitude. Pedal down some hydrogen to lose altitude.
Fly free, dude.

Since you're already talking alternate reality, propose a type of rubber tree with latex that doesn't degrade in sunlight, coated on to silk and baked to make airtight fabric.

Natural hydrogen vents that are normally constantly aflame

And a kind of bamboo that, cut while green, coated in a varnish made from a kind of oilseed and turpentine, and kiln dried, is stronger than steel and weighs almost nothing. It can't be easily made into plates because the warping caused by weaving destroys it in the kiln, but it makes incredible struts, axles and gearshafts. Also small gear/machine parts that can be cut to shape, but nothing too precise beause the drying process isn't perfectly predictable. Finished parts can't be easily modified except with diamond tools, which breaches the finish and allows moisture(and rot) in. Revarnishing isn't possible as it won't bond to dry wood.
These products are also flammable at decently high heat.

100 years ago German zeppelins bombed my hometown

Stop crying, they didn't even hit anything

Does anyone know if it's true that the empire state building was designed with zeppelin docking in mind? I've heard this somewhere but never fact checked it.

...

is there something wrong with using hydrogen

>GoPro: Be An Hero

He actually did die in a later accident

could you use amonium in zeppelins

its lighter than air but not so expensive as helium

idk they fear it exploding

but if there is no oxygen inside no danger

Surface increases by power of 2. Volume increases by power of 3. So you just need to make it big enough.

It's called a hot air balloon

Read "The Flying Sorcerers" by Niven and Gerrold. Don't copy it, but get inspired by the flight of the "Cathawk."

Yes, it is true. iirc, though, the mast was never used for docking.

Does hydrogen allow the funny-talking like helium? would thing that it would, even higher-pitched... If so, then that would be sufficiently funny to be acceptable.

what about sails?

Pic related is probably about as small as you can get.

What the fucking fuck did you just say? How the fucking fuck would you get more thrust from fucking plasma than you could from a goddamn propeller?

Read the young lady's illustrated primer and weep at the impossbility.

It's dihydrogen so it won't give you painful acid burns, but be very careful nothing at all cn ignite it.

why arent we using amonia?

cheaper than helium
not explosive
not burning

Just because nobody has succeeding in building a vacuum aerostat doesn't mean it isn't possible.

Also you wouldn't want a vaccuum aerostat because of the loss of lift through rapid pressurization.

A leaky hot air or helium/hydrogen with near ambient pressure won't fail catastrophically.

It would be interesting if you could make a closed sell structural foam.

>balloon lifted by piss