I will start this post with a disclaimer. I have to travel about 1000 miles every holiday season to see my family. I have been stranded in airports, charged extra for the first checked in bag, charged $40 more because my bag was 2 lbs too heavy and been fed stale pretzels that were deemed “lunch”. I may have a bit of a dislike for the way airlines treat their cattle, uh I mean, sheep, uh I mean passengers.
Flight is a terribly complicated thing, especially when you are doing it inside of a steel drum powered by things that spin an 15 thousand RPMs. Ever since the Hindenburg exploded and burned all those people to death we have as a people become terrified of dirigibles. Understandably so mind you, I would not want to be burned alive in a hydrogen fire either.
So flight with airplanes is expensive, no way around it really. And flight with dirigibles is dangerous. Well, no, helium is actually very safe. Modern designs also use much lighter weight materials for the canopy which allow for more chambers, so the chance of very quickly making your acquintance with the ground is astronomically low. To put it in perspective, it would be like digging a hole to plant your petunias and finding oil or gold in your back yard.
I have seen designs of new airships and frankly I would love the idea of a scenic flight of a 2-3 days over America in luxury similar to one of those old time trains or ocean liners.
Write your congressman and let them know that you are not happy with the cost of flying and that dirigibles are something that more research should be put into. Don’t do it just because I told you, look into the subject yourself and form your own opinion, but please look into it.
According to Wikipedia, "Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew on board, 13 passengers and 22 crew died." I'm pretty sure that's a better ratio than most airplane crashes, where nobody survives. It's just a terrifying mental image that's become almost mythical.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest disadvantage is the slowness of travel. It's hard to convince yourself that taking two days to travel to another city is worth it when a similar journey by airplane that would probably not be too much more expensive would only take a few hours. (Similar reason to why more people fly than take the train - aside from Amtrak always trying to route me through Chicago when I want to go from Dallas to New Orleans, but that's another gripe.)