ON THE LOOP

On Jul 21, 10:34*pm, Kevan Smith wrote:
On 7/21/10 4:15 PM, pm wrote:

Rigid airships built after 1937, anyone....?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Modern_use

none of which are rigid airships....

On Jul 21, 3:17*pm, Peter Cole wrote:
pm wrote:
On Jul 21, 8:31 am, kolldata wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/sc...?_r=1&scp=1&sq...

this is stupid:

"Devices fall out of favor, but seldom if ever get abolished by
design. The explosion of the Hindenburg showed the dangers of hydrogen
as a lifting gas and resulted in new emphasis on helium, which is not
flammable, rather than ending the reign of rigid airships."

Rigid airships built after 1937, anyone....?

Sure but the following quote was worth a petty mistake:

"Eric H. Brown, a British engineer who developed aircraft during World
War II and afterward taught at Imperial College London, candidly
described the predicament. In a 1967 book, he called structural
engineering “the art of molding materials we do not really understand
into shapes we cannot really analyze, so as to withstand forces we
cannot really assess, in such a way that the public does not really
suspect.” "

This stupidity is less petty (being the entire thrust of the article):

“The industry knows it can’t have that happen again,” said David W.
Fowler, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who teaches a
course on forensic engineering. “It’s going to make sure history
doesn’t repeat itself.”

Certainly, going forward the Industry ought to never again have an
exploratory oil rig suffer a failure of the blowout preventer spilling
millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of months
during which several attempts at plugging the leak including an
unsuccessful "junk shot" and a few iterations of "cap" were attempted,
while dispersants of unknown toxicity and booms in short supply
attempted to restrain the damage.

Of course my previous sentence is indistinguishable from one I could
have written following Ixtoc I thirty-one years earlier. "Make sure
history doesn't repeat itself," indeed.

-pm

On 21/07/10 22:15, pm wrote:
On Jul 21, 8:31 am, kolldata wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/sc...?_r=1&scp=1&sq...

this is stupid:

"Devices fall out of favor, but seldom if ever get abolished by
design. The explosion of the Hindenburg showed the dangers of hydrogen
as a lifting gas and resulted in new emphasis on helium, which is not
flammable, rather than ending the reign of rigid airships."

Rigid airships built after 1937, anyone....?

http://zeppelintours.com/#/airship-flight/4521248673

I've had a go in one, a proper gentlemen's way of flying

On 7/22/10 1:27 AM, pm wrote:
On Jul 21, 10:34 pm, Kevan wrote:
On 7/21/10 4:15 PM, pm wrote:

Rigid airships built after 1937, anyone....?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Modern_use
none of which are rigid airships....

Some are semi-rigid.