what's up everyone
John retina from TechnoBuffalo here most
days we're bringing you up-to-the-minute
news on phones tablets and gaming today
though we've got something special we
are in Tustin California at the arrows
craft hangar taking a look at what the
company is hoping is the future this is
their LCA or lighter-than-air airship
Zeppelin whatever you want to call but
make sure you call it the future
companies hoping this is gonna have
tremendous civilian military and
government applications as a way to get
a to places where helicopters and planes
can't get to in land we just got a
tremendous tour of the airship and we've
got some technical information let me
walk you guys through what this is and
what you might see out your window over
the next few years why I do believe that
this is a historical moment in aviation
history and why this is a unique vehicle
is basically because as you said and as
I told you before this is literally a
flying submarine and it's never been
proven before so in one hand you have
airships which are pressurized balloons
basically full of helium that use that
that a lightness of the helium to lift
away and then on on the other side you
have the back history of the Hindenburg
which is a which is a rigid airship so
this vehicle it's combining the airship
world with the rigid structure of the
past and bringing the technologies of
the submarines which allows to compress
and decompress helium to control the
buoyancy let's say you have a bag a
plastic bag full of air pull of air in
front of you and you suck the air inside
of it so now the air goes into your
lungs this is what we do when we
compress right we put that into lunch
this goes into this machines and it into
this envelope now the back of the bag
goes like smaller like that like
collapses yeah but this this aircraft
cannot collapse because it's rigid right
is a rigid thing so what we do is we
have this wide air bag together the air
has to get in and that is actually this
what you see it the wide bags that you
here those are like the key technologies
because it's not about how much you can
compress but it's about the air that you
can put in like in the Supermarine it's
not about it's about the water that can
get into the tanks to make it go down
yes all right so it's the same thing so
actually the key point is trying to get
as much air as you can into this bag to
make the aircraft heavy and then when
you release the helium releases expands
and pushes the air out of the bag and
now you have less air you have more
helium you become more like the problem
is like it's never been feasible from
the engineering point of view always
when you talk about compression or the
compression you talk about like rigid
metallic cylinders way too heavy for any
aircraft to to even think about the math
and that this vehicle here is 270 feet
long 100 feet tall and 75 feet wide it's
envelope volume is roughly 700 thousand
cubic feet the dry the dry weight of
this vehicle with no gas no helium in it
weighs roughly 36,000 pounds it's a
multi-layered fabric there's there's a
couple different materials on this
aircraft on the outside the main one
that you see there is the silver shiny
stuff that is one seven layers fabrics
and then you got helium barriers UV
protection and other other stuff that
we're incorporating this for testing
this this vehicle is gonna solve a big
niche that we have in the market today
of getting to locations around the world
that aren't accessible right now or you
need to build the runways landing system
stuff like this this vehicle could fly
in it's got vertical takeoff at full
maximum payload that means we can just
offload the payload directly down we
don't even have to land we could hover
the vehicle offload it directly down and
then just take off and return to the
destination from the engineering
perspective we see plenty of
applications because we know what's the
cap ability the capability of this
vehicle is heavy cargo transportation so
when you think about cargo
transportation you are not limited to
anything what do you want to transport
we'll be able to transfer them now what
I see is a unlimited uses depending on
our society needs for instance somebody
brought up the idea of FedEx being maybe
interested in that because they handle a
lot of the mail in this planet and this
is such a good idea me from the
engineering perspective I wasn't
thinking about that I think more of a I
would say more of a social benefit I'm
thinking about fire fighting like a
instead of a especially here in
California where we have fires in doing
some are very very damaging instead of
having like sixteen helicopters going
back and forth to the sea picking up the
water and doing that you have a 60 tons
of water or Regina retardant that can be
dropped in one spot very slowly you
don't have to go fly way you have to do
you can you can choose your target
perfectly so you know firefighters I
mean but then we have like in the wind
industry or the pipe industry where you
want to build windmill farms or when you
want to bring the oil from Alaska and
you don't have the ground is the
structure to take your trucks with it
with whatever you have to build you have
something big enough that transport
enough weight that doesn't need
infrastructure in the ground you don't
have to build the roads for the actual
construction to have it so you can do
the deliveries in a very very efficient
way
for instead this one goes down an opera
so so I can go this up like that right
make sure that it's not touching and
then I go here then I go like this
that's okay and I can and I can be you
know if my aircraft has to be flying
this way I can be targeting you know I'm
following some on a vehicle or I'm I'm
just trying to deliver something towards
this side and I mean I'm looking at what
those are exactly actually the
advantages like you can you can have no
limited view around you whether whether
the aircraft has to be pointing to some
direction or not like you have an
advantage of that now after after you
see my enthusiasm you understand why I
say that this is a this is truly an
historical moment because even if it's
not something major still is still is a
little dot on the aviation history
because nobody has ever done something
like that and we try and actually no
we're not trying to to take anyone out
of business because all what exists
already it does what it's supposed to do
and it serves a purpose it's just
there's a gap that nobody has been able
to fill and this is what we're doing is
filling the gap off of being cheap at
the same time as getting a lot of cargo
up with nobody can do there's an
aircraft has to have you know how to
have a huge rail you know like one way
to to land and all that so you can you
can have aircraft that can lift a lot of
weight but can you lift a lot of weight
and at the same time be hovering at the
same time you can't
very important for this people it's the
fact that it can take top vertically and
you know vertical takeoff and landing is
a is a key point in this vehicle the
fact that people sometimes don't pay too
much attention to that and that they
should is because one of the major
problems that for instance today as this
vehicle has been sponsored by the
military from a military point of view
you are restricted where you where you
going you restrict it to where you can
land so having this vehicle being able
to offer or not even not even doesn't
have to do any it doesn't have to have
any infrastructure in the ground keeps
all the doors open for delivery for the
US military it's like completely
unlimited especially when we're talking
about like countries like Afghanistan
with a very complicated orography on the
terrain and if you don't want to have a
specific target on the ground which is
your Airport where where's where's your
aircraft is gonna go then this vehicle
is at total solution so we've had a lot
of incredible opportunity to
TechnoBuffalo we've interviewed heads of
companies and taking a look at some of
the most cutting-edge products the world
has to offer this though today at the
aircraft hangar might take the cake is
one of the most incredible things that
we've seen I hope that the video
displays the scale and the technology of
this airship and what went into it it's
absolutely incredible experience to be
in that cockpit stand outside the hangar
and see the size see the scope and here
the application we really might be
looking at the future of transport and
the future of hopefully getting care to
those that need it in places where
airplanes or helicopters are unable to
land hope you guys enjoyed this really
incredible tour of the aircraft behind
me thank you to the aircraft people I'm
John render from TechnoBuffalo and I'll
see you guys
you know it's an old idea but it takes a
lot of imagination and a lot of you know
I would say like brainstorming to make
things happen and make it look like it's
a simple way you know how they say like
oh they always say that in science and
engineering they say the simple stuff is
there is the most beautiful one is the
one that really shows you know how
successful the idea could be
you
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