Why There's ONLY 25 Blimps Left | Tales From the Bottle
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Blimps are going extinct! But what's causing this to happen? And is there any hope for the future of the airship?
"A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hydrogen) inside the envelope and the strength of the envelope itself to maintain their shape"
More on Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.o...
Join membership: / @qxir
Second Channel: / @qxir2
Merch: qxir.creator-s...
Patreon: / qxir
Twitter: / qxiryt
Discord: / discord
Twitch: / qxiryt
Subreddit: / qxir
I very ironically mention ocean liners in this video - there's only one of those still in operation today! I should have just said ships in general but y'all know what I meant ;)
Join membership: th-cam.com/channels/GHDQtN_vzFYJaq_Fx1eikg.htmljoin
Second Channel: th-cam.com/channels/t93hxFmjppL5nLRAX94UrA.html
Merch: qxir.creator-spring.com/
Patreon: www.patreon.com/qxir
Twitter: twitter.com/QxirYT
Discord: discord.gg/jZzvvwJ
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/qxiryt/
Subreddit: www.reddit.com/r/Qxir/
Ayyy im watching 10 days later on the very day you correct that error. The chance of that is probably more than seeing a blimp but quite lucky.
You should make a last moments on the sultana,truly a horrific tragedy.
Thanks for correcting!
can you cover the battle of palmdale? it wasnt an actual battle, but you will find out what i mean when I say that
Qxir sir your propaganda is not even square it’s terrible quit
Regarding the entire hydrogen vs. helium thing: It appears that the buoyant gas choice isn't really the achilles heel for rigid airships. It turns out that most of them were just damaged/destroyed by weather. Ripped apart by strong winds mainly. They are just too light/fragile for their size to be properly useable. It's the old square-cube-law screwing them up if you summarize it.
@peter not clicking that
@peter what is here
Do the modern ones also do that?
@@kreuner11 I'd assume, mostly because they are literally just large balloons, even if it didn't get ripped apart, strong wind would probably carry it away even if it used it's propellors to try to avoid iy
@@ILoveFood0911 But with the invention of weather radar it might be easier to avoid hazardous weather.
It's such a shame to see blimps/zeppelins disappear. They're definitely a hell of a lot cooler than your basic hot air balloon and definitely a lot safer
They are literally air ships, they float in the air like a ship floats in the ocean, its just so cool
Although they're no longer used for transportation, they could still be used for air tours or air cruise. Better to look at things from above.
@@irwinisidro there is a blimp flying over Munich, Germany in the summer and you can book rides on it. So they are used for air tours but maybe this is even the only one.
@@Skilan506 That's actually pretty cool. I don't any in the U.S. but I could see blimps being used over National Parks or coastlines.
@@irwinisidro Helicopters took on this role and are probably cheaper to maintain since they don't need helium. Then there's hot air balloons, which I can imagine would be dirt cheap to run, you'd just need a cabin or basket, some sandbags for weight, propane for fuel, a burner, and a huge nylon or polyester tarp (the balloon itself) that's in decent shape.
Qxir: wants us to guess how many blimps are left.
Also Qxir: Puts the number of them left in the title.
Jokes aside, bloody brilliant video, mate. Your videos really help put a smile on me face with some new fact or massive levels of incompetence. Thanks for everything and I’m looking forward to the next video.
@peter Immeidately wasn't there. NO
@peter it's been here for ages now. You're a dinosaur pete
Quite literally took the words outta my mouth. Dick. Give them back.
He has faith in his audience
Haha I was thinking the exact same thing
My robotics teacher back in high school was 1 of only 3 female airship pilots in the world. She was completely insane, encouraging us to find the most creative uses for the skills we learn in the class. She turned it into an engineering course that just uses robots to apply what we learn. She is my favorite teacher, and I still call her if I have questions at work. I may have a bachelor's, but she has wisdom.
@@davesmith3023💀
does she happen to have any online/college courses or anything?? she sounds awesome, i'd love to meet her one day 😭
She sounds awesome 😮👍
Blimps are super interesting really. They’re literally huge “whales” of the skies. They’re obviously absolutely huge, obviously are super cool to look at. Crazy to to think only 25 exist in the whole world now.
As cool and quirky and rare as they are, by far the main problem (as stated in the video) is the scarcity of helium. A finite resource, that is hard to obtain, and much is wasted in the process (with it being lighter than air and so on, ensuring that a large amount just diffuses into the atmosphere on contact with air)
We have much better and more crucial uses for it than blimps or in other words essentially just advertising in the modern era. Supercooled helium is part of MRI MACHINES and necessary for their function... I think we need those more
And who knows what other uses we may find for it in the future, provided there is enough left of course
@@J3diMindTrix Yeah, definitelty.
Here in Los Angeles they’re quite common
@@AliTheGreat-u1k As the video mentions, most of the world’s blimps are now US ones, so that makes a lot of sense
No, they're huge manatees!
I saw a lot of blimps as a kid ( I’m American and used to be taken to sporting events and they flew there all the time) My dad was good friends with the pilot and I got to ride in one. As a kid it blew my mind but as a grew it all kind of slipped away. After this video I remember so clearly inside and outside the blimp and I wish I could experience it one more time as an adult
@Emotional D this is a cooking video?
@@axolotlfeverdream as if it'd be anything remotely interesting lmao
I saw blimps as a kid too.
I'd love to ride in a blimp! Not a lot of people can say they have! Lou Pearlman, the boy band manager & Ponzi schemer was fascinated by blimps as a kid and went into the blimp business as an adult but his blimps were worn out and his business went bust after his blimp for "Jordache Jeans" came crashing to the ground (a crushing blow to his over-inflated ego too I'm sure, lol)!
same thing with ma dad except he lived near sporting events and his dad didn’t let him go on
I lived less than a mile from the Goodyear blimp hangar in Akron Ohio for almost a decade. Definitely something I took for granted on the daily to an extent. My kids and I enjoyed watching the takeoffs and landings
Especially since in Ohio, we've got two major league football teams, one major league baseball team, and a Top Ten college football team, all with extremely fanatical fans who packed the outdoor stadiums -- I use to live in the Cincy/Dayton area, and when I was a kid, we'd see the GY blimp passing overhead all the time, on its way to a Reds or Bengals game. It had an LED display on the bottom of the balloon part, usually with ads for Kahn's Big Red Smokeys (popular local hotdog/bratwurst brand back in the '70s) or Bartz soda.
Nice dude, I was there for the christening of the Spirit of Innovation. I grew up in the Akron area, so I used to see them all the time
I'm in SW Pa, they were a pretty regular sight when I was younger. Akron is only 2 hours away so they would pass over heading to Pittsburgh or where ever. They were really cool to see, especially when the billboard was lit up.
Even if they were still common people have their faces glued to phones, they'd still not see them lol
I was there for the national at the BMX track next to the hangar. It is huge and pretty ominous when it rains lol
I lived in Lake County Ohio as a teen and loved occasionally spotting a Goodyear blimp. I once got to see one docked at the small airport near my home. Such an amazing thing to see up close.
I chased one across the North Sea once. It was tethered to the ground until a small
cloud came by and struck it with lightning, breaking the tether. Then it headed off
for Norway - albeit looking rather floppy. We spent about 12 hours in a fishing boat
chasing it and dragging it back to land.
holy shit. same
You must have had a huge fuel tank to be full throttle for 12 hours in a fishing boat while also dragging a load with that much resistance.
@@werbnaright5012 Your version of events is very different to mine.
Skál!
That is a great story to have .
Fun fact: There hasn't been a single year of my nearly 28 year long life where I haven't seen a blimp at least 3 times. This year alone, I've seen one almost a dozen times. I remember someone telling me that blimps were rare a long time ago, and I thought they were lying. It turns out, of the 3 air bases owned by Goodyear in the United States, I happen to live right next to, what I would assume is, the most active one.
I grew up in San Diego California and we saw blimps all the time.
I live in Germany next to the lake of Constance and 3 blimps are regularly flown here. So I basically see a blimp almost every day.
I'm 30 and have never seen a blimp once.
@@fakename503 Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen a blimp in the last 30 years. Coincidentally, I moved away from San Diego about 30 years ago.
It’s a blimp. Who cares?
As a kid my brother got a severe fever and at one point started yelling that he saw a rocket ship. My mom sort of freaked because she thought he was hallucinating from fever and ran upstairs, but when she got to his room the Goodyear blimp was floating outside his window right above our neighborhood. 😀
When comparing a helicopter and a blimp at 4:00, its also worth mentioning that helicopters are also much louder than blimps, making them more disruptive to whatever event it might be observing.
debatable. also sometimes thats not really relevant. unless the news is doing a helicopter view of the library during reading week
You could also just use the AMERICA solution and just make the obnoxious part an important feature
I got to board an anchored one at an airfield while refueling a small plane during pilot training. I didn't even know they were so rare. There was a fancy camera control setup in the front that was going to be used for filming a golf tournament and apparently there's only 1 camera operator in the US who really knows how to do the job well.
lmao i live near a golf corse so i see one every once in a while
I just wanna point ot that the airship you show vanishing at 4:58 is actually a Zeppelin NT, which has an internal support structure, but only for basically keeping the rear propellers and the cabin in place. It's a semiridgid airship. Quite a neat machine.
Out*
It really is...a neat machine! (I'm so glad it's my favourite rock band's namesake)!😊🎵
Ackchyually guy again..
@@specialprojectsdevgroup raito
@@Infernos94 English.
Interesting fact: the reason the hindenburg used hydrogen instead of helium was because the US was the largest supplier of helium at the time and we refused to sell it to them as part of the west’s boycott/embargo of imports/exports with Germany. They understood the dangers of hydrogen and therefore wanted to use helium but were unable to obtain sufficient quantities of it.
The germans loved building zeppelins and filling them with hydrogen though, I doubt the embargo could have made much of a difference, also, filling that massive thing with only helium would be extremely expensive compared to hydrogen
Stop defending Nazis !! 😂
@@da4127 My initial comment applies to all Zeppelins, not just the Hindenburg.
Another point I don't really see mentioned is that hydrogen has a lower density than helium, so it provides more lift and allows you to carry more load or make the gas envelope smaller.
@@da4127 those germans do love their gas
A lot of people never realize how big a zeppelin or a blimp actually is. The Hindenburg was not only the largest airship, but also the largest flying vehicle ever made.
I've always had the faint dream of living in a blimp, I thought it would just be a houseboat but cooler. Hearing about the less refueling got me really excited! Why did you do this to me
sportacus
3:02 cruise ships are still popular, ocean liners are meant to take people from point A to point B over the ocean. cruise ships are more for the pleasure of the cruise itself. there is only one ocean liner still active as a ocean liner (although there are a number of former ocean liners that have been converted to cruise ships.) that being the Queen Mary 2. This isn't a criticism
just something a though you and those who read this comment might find interesting.
Was gonna point this out but you beat me to it 👍
Interesting, although I think it is a bit different. Cruise ships could be seen as an evolution of ocean liners rather than a truly different type of transport, since in the modern world, if travel speed is important you take a plane. But if you were scared of planes, you might take a cruise there, in which case you are basically taking the cruise ship as though it was an ocean liner idk. Whereas Blimps are just a type of airship going extinct with a few bizarre uses left.
Huh. No shit? Learn something new everyday.
Thank you for making the animations my dude, they're so simple yet so damn effective
He didn’t even draw 400.000 pilots…
@@eliaskarasik194 he did good enough and he's a saint
“Animation”.
I live in Germany and we installed railings at an blimp hangar. I met a blimp pilot and showed him this video, he really enjoyed it. 😊
I saw a no-kidding rigid airframe Zeppelin over San Francisco around 2007. I thought I was hallucinating, but it turned out they were running air tours out of Moffett Field.
I'd seen a Goodyear blimp a few times over the years, but a Zeppelin was bizarrely unlikely.
My favorite blimp appearance was in "Black Sunday."
You saw a blimp... so what
@@Bianchiboy Zeppelins and blimps are different things.
@@Bianchiboy people will think you're high and or a time traveler before they think you've actually seen a Zeppelin.
Nothing is lighter than hydrogen. By filling an airship’s balloon with nothing, aka a vacuum, it would be even lighter and less explosive than one filled with hydrogen. Unfortunately, the pressure of the atmosphere would crush/deflate the balloon and make it unbuoyant. You could fight against the atmosphere by building a structure underneath the balloon to stop it from deflating, but that would add weight and take away your advantage. That said, with lighter materials like carbon fiber, vacuum airships might be feasible after all.
I'd rather fly on hydrogen. A vacuum airship would undergo more drastic destruction in the case of damage to the hull and loss of vacuum.
@@waynebimmel6784 how so?
@@aliatef7203 hydrogen will just flow out like a from a hole in a tire, while with the vacuum the fast inrush of air might damage the structure further
@@aliatef7203 See what happens when you rapidly cool a sealed container of boiling water
Its a similar dilemma to the Hyper-loop idea, AKA trains in a vacuum tube, an idea actually from the 50s.
They both share one thing, you would be making the worlds largest and strongest pressurized tank, look up the Myth-Busters vacuum train car clip, a pressurized tank design is much more effective at keeping pressure in rather than out, a vacuum tank has to be even stronger.
Its similar to a submarine at great depths, if a sub approaches its "crush depth" the structure will collapse.
Except when in atmosphere with a vacuum the effect is much harder to control and prevent, its 0 or 100, no crush depth or maximum pressure you can control, only thing you would be able to do is release air into the vacuum chamber, but you would never have time to react if something did go wrong with it, unless your already preparing for an emergency landing/crash, otherwise its just like a submarine collapsing except your depth is irrelevant and EVERYTHING else is.
Even with carbon nano-tubes every part of the structure would be a weak point, that's just what makes the whole concept of vacuum technology so daunting.
Arizona here. Goodyear flies their blimps frequently, so to hear there's only 25 is insane. Anytime they are apart of an event or theres a race going on at the track they will fly their blimp around and sometimes they'll fly the blimp around for a few hours and you'll randomly see it in the sky. I've also seen it out landed in a field along side hot air balloons but idk if it ever flew along side them. I usually see it every few months or so but Ill see it more or less some years depending on what local events are taking place that year
yeah i live near akron ohio. extremely common. makes it all the more hilarious when it gets mistaken for a ufo
Having spent a lot of time growing up in Arizona I appreciate having been able to see blimps even if theyre just in passing and/or for advertising
you're the entire state of arizona?
@@morzinbo Florida here… stop picking on Arizona. It’s just mean.
@@morzinbo haha gottem
Last week had the pleasure of meeting two Blimp Captains and a Blimp Crew Chief with 25 years of Blimp Operations. Currently the Blimp is visiting Philadelphia and is flying along side one of the Goodyear Blimps. The Crew Chief in question let us observe the landing and recovery while explaining the various aspects of Operations. My Girlfriend and I were allowed to spend time in the gondola and cockpit and I was even able to wrangle the Blimp as it was being secured. The entire time I had the voice of Qxir in my head and imagined what the image of my girlfriend, our friendly Blimp Crew Chief Friend Julian and myself would look like in Qxir Animation. Awesome video Qxir, and thank you for your part in highlighting this aspect of Aviation which is an art form that is threatened.Cheers!!
Blimps in America? Go to any McDonald's and you'll see a couple in the lobby.
I had an acquaintance who was a science fiction author named David Kyle, now deceased, who told me he was in New York City and saw the Hindenburg fly over the day it crashed and burned (or burned and crashed). It adds a keen sense of realism to a historic event speaking to a witness of it.
When I was 17 i worked as an orderly in hospital and befriended a few WW1 vets. They were 90-95. Really cool to talk to them as they were just about died out. It’s is cool.
My late grandfather who was also a WWII veteran was in a car being driven by a family member when they saw the Hindenburg explode. It no doubt must've been very traumatizing.
@@mumbles215 I was 17 and I worked at a hospital with civil war vets. It was cool to see those vets talk about their war stories.
@@Cuyt24 Darling, they aren't lying?
Blimps are cool, ive lived in/near Akron, Ohio for alot of my life and we always saw the Goodyear blimp. Really cool sight that i miss now that i dont live there, its cool seeing both up at once too.
Went down here to comment this myself, saw it up in the air earlier this week
I live in Akron Ohio and saw the Goodyear blimp yesterday. It's been years since I last saw it.
The hangar in Suffield, Ohio is shown at 5:10.
@@charlescooper6377 yeah, but fuck suffield. they cheated against us in baseball 😭
One Goodyear blimp read out "ice cube is a pimp" on its side..
They didn't even look in that nigaz direction as he ran an intersection. That was a good day.
I spend my time between Canton and Cleveland Ohio, I see the Goodyear blimp quite often. The airdock for the blimp is unbelievably huge to see in person.
I'm living near Friedrichshafen, Germany. Seeing those things nearly every day never raised a through how rare Blimps (or in the case here in FN, a Zeppelin) really are. And in times when big exibitions take place, you can see one starting and landing in a 30 minute cycle.
Considering the literal DOZENS of times I've seen blimps I never would've guessed they were that rare.
Very cool video
Blimps are some of the most fascinating pieces of engineering history
I apparently was first. Hooray and who cares
A few years ago I was at an RC airplane show in Friedrichshaven, Germany. It was right next to the Zeppelin hangar. If I remember correctly there were three in the hangar and one anchored outside. Didn't realize I saw such a large portion of the world's blimps.
haha
My friend and I passed through Freidrichschafen on our round the world trip a few years back. Seeing as it's the birthplace of the Zeppelin, there was one floating above.
I live in Switzerland, and am in Konstanz quite regularly. I already saw it two or three times since 2021. When seeing it, I actually remembered that in the 90s there seemed to be more around
I didn’t know they were that rare now. I have memories of seeing budweiser ads at the beach as a child, and seeing one’s at baseball games.
I'm an old man (in my 50s). In my early 20s I worked with an old man whose daughter was a radio DJ and who, through that connection, got to fly as a passenger on the GoodYear Blimp in the San Francisco Bay Area of the 1980s.
I live in Austria, going to school near the Lake of Constance and I see Zeppelins rather regularly - in spring/summer/autumn I see them flying around about once a month, but it is still a cool feeling seeing them fly around. In Friedrichshafen there is also a museum about Zeppelins - their history, underlying technology and lots more!
Bodensee ist halt auch geil so
Near munich it‘s pretty common to see two different blimps flying around.
bei lindau sieht man mehrmals die woche welche im sommer
SERVUS FFS!
I lived in Friedrichshafen for a year a while ago and saw blimps nearly daily. Surprised that they are actually as rare as mentioned in the video.
1:20 fun fact the medieval astronaut helmet kinda exists. During the 40s the British were exploring how one would survive the harsh environment on the Moon so they made a pressurised suit that literally looked like a suit of knights armour
Well actually…pretty sure that was made in the modern day from drawings created in the 1930’s. Tom Scott did a video on it.
@@zacharytracy3797 I bet we all know it from that Video
Most helicopters can land safely after running out of fuel or otherwise losing their engines, using a technique called autorotating.
Also, in the 50s and 60s, the US Navy did some actual serious research into the feasibility of using blimps to deploy nuclear weapons (in particular against submarines). It was... not feasible.
Finally, it is possible to make more helium, essentially via the same process that helium on earth is created today (radioactive decay of uranium and other elements) or the way it is created in stars (nuclear fusion of hydrogen). We haven't built the infrastructure to do it, but when we run low enough that it's impossible to get for things more critical than blimps and party balloons, we just might start.
"not feasible" could be the name of a documentary series on US millitary and government research programs from the 50s and 60s.
Ok you arent wrong, but at present helium is worth like a penny a gallon. If we were using friggin nuclear energy to make it it would be like the most expensive gas on earth. Seems way smarter to just stop using it for balloons
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 we already do use nuclear energy for it. A decent chunk of the world's supply comes from decomissioned nuclear weapons.
Dont forget the zepplin aircraft carriers
@@RAFMnBgaming Can you point me at any info about this? It sounds interesting, but I couldn't find anything.
I live in Germany near Friedrichshafen (I think the blimp, or Zeppelin, was invented there) and I see one almost every day. The kids still find joy in seeing one but its become boring for me. I would love to ride one of course, but thats damn expensive!
Nice, I live there too
Yep I'm from the area too, they used to fly right over our house so I've seen them countless times. Growing up I had no idea they were that rare
I live nearby too (in Austria) and actually got to fly in one of them as a kid.
There's never been a more fitting analogy for how my life feels without new Qxir videos. When I see there's a new video a small, white light fills my heart... Then it radiates, illuminating my entire life and lifting the constant darkness surrounding my life.
Qxir... You make my life better and dare I say... Worth Living
They say crows are as smart as a seven year old. I’m 28, so I’m four times smarter than a crow, which really doesn’t sound that impressive.
I'm 40 and I've got thicker since I was 28. Some might say since I was 7..
Yet you're far more intelligent than 99.5% of TH-cam commenters! ;-)
Rarely stated fact that for rigid airships they had to use hydrogen. With such huge volumes the weight of the gas has to be taken into account, also the rigid frame, and the gas bladders where heavy. They didn't had modern polymers, composites and construction tech. The density of hydrogen is like half of the density of helium. I saw a calculation somewhere, that Hindenburg could barely lift off without cargo or passengers if they would have used helium, or maybe it wouldn't be able to fly at all.
Rigid airships don't have to use hydrogen, as long as it was designed for it a rigid airship could use helium. Probably the best known example is the USS Akron which still has the world record as the largest helium-filled airship. The Hindenburg was also originally designed to use helium but because of the Helium Control Act of 1927 it, and any airship outside the US, was forced to use hydrogen.
The Hindenburg would've still worked in its original Helium configuration but just with fewer passengers.
Good to know, now, here is an important hypothetical question. If someone made a zeppelin, painted it to look like a giant sausage, and called it the Hindenburger, would you fly in it.
@@anonomuse9094 yes.
@@MrAlex-ej8ov good choice
It's rarely stated because it's not true. Zeppelins did use helium when they were configured for it, including the Hindenburg could've. Hindenburg's sister ship, the Graft Zeppelin, used helium when available and continued flying.
Wow, I took this for granted! Had no clue! Live down in South Florida where we've got a blimp or two. It was such a ubiquitous thing in my years growing up here I never thought they'd eventually start to all disappear. Even as a kid in NYC, I'd seen the Snoopy blimp.
Same here! Our Goodyear blimp is based in Pompano, sadly it's been flying less and less in recent years
@@theussmirage
I grew up in Pompano, that's why I watched this video! I had know idea how unique it was to live just a mile from an active blimp.
The US Navy used blimps for submarine detection on our coasts during and after WW2. The famous Goodyear Blimp was once one of these Navy blimps, and on one mission, two crew went missing at sea and the "Ghost Blimp" piloted itself into Ocean City, CA, where it crashed without further injuring anyone.
When I was a kid in the 70s I would see blimps fairly often here in Minnesota. They have become so rare that when I saw one last year I was excited. I miss them.
I'm so glad you did this accurately! Professional news channels mess up airship history and classification all the time! I have seen four, maybe 5 airships in my life. I've seen a Metlife Blimp, a Goodyear airship, the DirectTV blimp, and the Carnival cruise blimp, and maybe another Goodyear when I was little. I really hope to play a part in the airship comeback as I study to be an engineer.
Please do, as a kid my goal was to either go to space (asteroid mining), fireman, or be a Zeppelin/blimp pilot. One isn't possible yet, I have an overly emotional response to injuries in others, and so I'm still holding out hope for that last one. I also wanted to fly a fighter jet but my eyesight is crap, so there's that.
I hope to see the zeppelin from Up become a reality at some point.
I've seen one, but that was years ago when I was flying through Frederick, Maryland during my training. One of my roommates in college had flying one of these as his top item on his bucket list.
Hell yeah, new Qxir upload 🤠
I used to live on Long Island, NY, and used to see the Goodyear blimp quite regularly.
One day, my daughter, who was about four or five at the time spotted it, and said "Look! It's the blump!"
We've called them "blumps" ever since.
"Ocean Liners are still popular today"
-Breathes in preparing lecture -
I've seen the Goodyear blimp flying over a nearby golf event and at EAA's Airventure in Oshkosh. They are so majestic in flight. Love your illustrations. Having the new pilot wear a propeller beanie was pure genius! :D
I live near Goodyear, and I see their blimp in the sky pretty often, in the summer. I never realized how basically nonexistent they were. They’re quite majestic to watch just kinda float around.
I've just seen a blimp promoting beer a few weeks ago and it was pretty fun to watch the big balloon-boy sailing through the sky, but never have thought I was witnessing a such a rare machine. I think it's a lot cooler than watching online ad's...which we ad block it without thinking nowadays.
I grew up a few miles from the (now defunct) Goodyear blimp base in Spring, TX. The blimp used to fly about 200 feet above my house all the time. I really miss seeing it.
Brag here: I live in silicone valley, and apparently money draws blimps, like giant, bloated flies to ... honey (let's say).
And furthermore, I've been super lucky and ridden on a dirigible, an actual Zeppelin, as in trademarked rigid-frame tri-prop floaty thing with giant windows hauling folks around for expensive 40-minute rides low and slow. (it was a gift- lucky lucky me).
The ride was low and slow and amazing and wonderful. Zeppelin leased one of their babies to a California company and they tried to make a go of it for 2 or 3 years but finally had to give it up and ship the thing (literally) back to Germany.
Here in Akron seeing a Goodyear blimp is a somewhat regular thing. I guess I never realized how uncommon blimps/airships actually are. Excellent video, and thanks for shining light on the truth about them :)
I'm hoping that the light gets brighter, I've always always wanted to fly in one, A flying ship. How can that not be cool? I hope something is figured out, like vacuum airships or even those tanks that re-compress(?) the helium, instead of just deflating normally. Not sure if recompress is the right term, but it pumps the helium into tanks within the ship to recycle it more effectively, it's some experimental thing.
I would think that pressurizing atmosphere into “reverse ballast tanks” and then offloading the helium on the ground would be more helium efficient, but I don’t really know about the differences in compression between the two gasses.
@@alexfrank223 Ye me neither, I'll see if I can find the video explaining it if I get the chance.
Finally someone mentioned vaccum airships! I feel like nobody knows about them. It's like compounding niches of airships and futurism lol.
If you go to Friedrichshafen in southern Germany you can still book Zeppelin tours
@@danielgstohl9993 I know of that place, Sadly it's too far away, but maybe I will do it someday.
There is a blimp still in use in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Also, we will NEVER run out of helium. It is constantly being created inside the earth due to both nuclear reactions and decay. It is extremely plentiful and tends to fill up any sealed cavities in the ground.
Yes, but the hard part is finding it and extracting it. There is a world-wide shortage right now, has been for several years.
Your videos never disappoint man, you make some of the best, and when you make a new one I say to myself "oh boy here we go!" Love it!
I always thought that whoever was narrating the hindenburg crash sounded really sincere and had lots of humanity. Most news people are pretty detached and robotic. It's kinda refreshing to hear them not be robots.
That's crazy, I knew blimps were rare, but not that rare. Living in Tampa Florida my entire life, I've seen blimps hundreds of times, I wasn't aware it was the same one 90 percent of the time.
That's cool, I recall seeing a blimp when I was maybe 6 years old or so (over a decade ago) but haven't seen one since.
There's actually a very good argument to start using airships again, in compliment to their practicality for carrying large cargo: they _can be_ rather environmentally friendly.
In a heavier-than-air variety of aircraft (airplanes, helicopters, VTOL aircraft, gyroplanes, even in ornithopters if you could somehow make one), you are burning a lot of fuel for quite a long time; you kinda need to in order for the thing to fly. Some of these do have ways to extend travel without burning fuel, such as by gliding, but they still inherently require a lot of fuel to get them in the air to begin with. The advantage of an airship is that getting into the air and staying there is the easy part, requiring essentially no fuel to do. Because of this, it becomes a lot easier to justify more eco-friendly methods of horizontal travel, methods that are exceptionally efficient but lack in speed. Hell, you could use sails to drive forward travel, taking advantage of the highter wind speeds at higher altitudes and earning some serious steampunk credibility (although also directed at the whims of the winds).
Of course, the flaws of airships haven't necessarily gone away; they'll still be at the tender mercy of the weather, they'll still be inherently fragile, they'll still be difficult to control, and they'll still be much slower than airplanes. But, if used smartly, they could reduce air traffic emissions by a fair amount and even potentially reduce emissions from terrestrial traffic by making it easier and less polluting to ship things that aren't time sensitive.
Also, airships are cool.
If humanity is to persist as an industrial species, it'll have to take its use of non-renewable resources _at least_ as seriously as it takes its treatment of the environment. There are far too many, far more critical things we use helium for than travel.
I always remember seeing blimps fly past my house when I was younger.. I still see them every now and then and my cousin used to work for MetLife and she was ground crew for the blimps, didn’t know they were that rare
Airships are so beautiful. Looking at the black and white photos of the massive 20s airships floating over cities is awe inspiring.
I live in Akron, Ohio. I'm very lucky to live near the Goodyear blimps; the Wingfoot Lake facility (shown at 0:49) is probably five minutes away from my house. People around here barely pay attention when blimps fly past because it's so common; I now realize just how rare that is!
Dover/Phila here and I feel the same. See them all the time in Akron/Canton. Just saw one last week. It's always cool to see them, but not something I ever considered the rarity of. I'll definitely appreciate them more now.
Based on the comments, it Seems like that is the one and only bright spot of living in Akron.
I can count at least 20 in my local McDonald's so you're lying.
This comment is criminally underrated
Having seen the Goodyear blimp around Cleveland OH here and there over my entire life, I'd have never guessed how uncommon they are elsewhere
I live in Columbus, Ohio (U.S.) & I've literally seen a bump at least once a month for the entire football season since I was a child (even recently, they still fly over every home game) and we don't even have an NFL team in my city we just have the OSU buckeyes which is a college team and they still have a blamp over every single home game.... And I literally had no idea that blimps were this rare these days I mean I knew they weren't as common as I used to be but seeing as how I still see one on a regular basis I didn't realize they were this rare
I live in this little island in the carribean called Puerto Rico and we got one over here that still gets regular use to this day as a radar
If you ever get the chance to ride one, take it.
Hovering in one spot and opening the large windows with all engines off is an unreal serene experience.
It slowly sways like a boat along the long axis and you realise you're essentially on a flying boat.
The many propellers going at different speeds make it sound like a badass drone when manoeuvring. Actually sounds terrifying when you hear it land but can't see it yet, the war of the worlds movie comes to mind.
You should do a video about the 1989 Tacoma, Washington shootout between the US Army Rangers and the Crips.
Oddly enough I had one flying over my house a few weeks back for the PGA gold tournament. It was wild to see it so close. It was like 600 feet from my house and maybe 1000 feet in the air. Not exactly sure on height since its really hard to gauge that. But it was cool to see one of the goodyear blimps so close. They are also really quiet. I couldn't hear any noise from it at all.
I feel unjustly intelligent for not only noticing the lack of blimps years ago, but then taking the time to research and figure out why they aren't around anymore and getting answers on my own. My research lead me to the fact of how susceptible they are to bad weather, making them not only that much more impractical on top of all the practicality issues stated in this video, as you can only fly them essentially on sunny, non windy days, but their also just generally unsafe because of this, learning of how nearly every military blimp was lost due to bad weather. Even just the data on how many have been lost due simply to wind either damaging them on the ground, or setting them free from their tethers, yeah, it makes a lot of sense why they've stopped flying.
0:38 he has a gun in a holster, good artwork
I guess I was in a rare spot. Friedrichshafen, Germany offers tours on them you can even visit where some are housed (made) recall seeing a few there in 2017 at the airport. Went on a sightsetting trip there on one over the Bodensee, I guess I did not realize how rare they are. Glad I did It. Weirdest sensation is movement, almost feels like your not moving at all, maybe a little rocking back and forth when it was windy over the Bodensee.
Also went to the zeppelin museum, got a neato retro zeppelin watch. They brew a zeppelin beer around there but eh, did not really elevate me (pun!)… cool glass tho
I remember seeing one at least once (maybe twice) when I was smaller like a decade ago in the south of Hungary (where I live) and I have thought about the absence of them a couple times since as well. It made sense that they became unworth, thanks for the confirmation tho. great video!
Helium is massively misunderstood, the reserves are from the USA hoarding it many many years ago and that's generally the reserve we are talking about. Helium is being created as we speak, underground and not like oil it's not something that takes eons
Helium is a noble gas. It can only be made through nuclear reactions and I don't know of any radioactive elements that decay into helium so the only way to produce it is through nuclear fusion, which at the moment is only really occurring in the heart of a star. So no its not something we have an unlimited amount of, at least it wont be until we master nuclear fusion reactors.
Not created, just mined (drilled), as its often found along with oil and gas. But its an element, and can only be made by nuclear processes, which we do not do. When a mining company extracts a resource, they still refer to it as "production". In the case of helium, they are only separating the helium, from other gases, which is a refining process. The helium it self, is not made.
Its not like methane (CH4) which is one carbon atom bonded to 4 hydrogen atoms. Methane can be chemically made, or consumed (burned). Burning it is a chemical reaction, where it reacts with oxygen (CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 +2 H2O). In a chemical reaction, the elements (Carbon, Oxygen, & Hydrogen) are not destroyed, only rearranged. Helium is a noble gas. Noble gases rarely chemically react with anything.
The "Helium Reserve" was set up by Congress, in 1925. Congress controlled the price until 1996, which artificially kept its price low, in later years.
@@michaelmoorrees3585 ah thats what they meant. I see. I had miss understood what was being said my apologies
@@meepfanmeepster8620 All alpha decay produces helium nuclei. Alpha radiation is particles, made of 2 neutrons and 2 protons joined together, AKA helium.
The problem is the rarity of this occurring somewhere airtight, where it becomes trapped and we can drill for it (which as previous poster said is usually in oil and gas wells).
Free helium floats to the top of the atmosphere and off into space. Once a party balloon deflates, the helium has left the planet forever.
Deflating is the other problem, since helium atoms are so tiny, they escape from pores in rubber, they can even escape from between gaps in molecules. Metal tanks are needed to really keep hold of it. So in zeppelins it will gradually escape and need replenishing.
That makes controlling buoyancy into a labour. As an airship's engine consumes fuel, it loses weight. A hydrogen airship can compensate by venting gas, but helium is too precious to vent. So instead, zeppelins experimented with complex machines to condense water vapour from the exhausts and store it as ballast. Some collected rain.
The goodyear blimp and MetLife blimp would flyover my house and neighborhood every day for 10 years, their course was heading west towards nyc so they were obviously covering yankee and giants games. The goodyear blimp was my favorite, the pilot was so fucking cool he’d do nosedives in the baseball field behind my house and he waved at me all the time when he passed over.
i love your voice, style and humour. it doesn't matter what you are talking about, it's always funny.
Me: "man I wish we could go back to the days when airships conquered the air"
Also me: remembers the Hindenburg
0:56. Looks at title*
I love blimps and zeppelins so this makes me sad
I’ve only seen one and I think it was the good year blimp in the Bay Area of California.
Goodyear blimps at NFL games in the 70s. Then I started focusing on cheerleaders to see if they have Adam apples. Now I just watch Hockey.
I'm one of the lucky people that have gotten to actually fly in a blimp. About 20 years ago I was neighbors with the guy who serviced the Goodyear Blimp captains car. He mentioned to the captain that he'd like to ride in the blimp someday. Generally only VIPs and celebs got to ride.
One day the captain called him and told him they had a last minute cancellation and to get the Blimp Operations center in 2 hours. My neighbor called me and told me that there were some empty seats on the blimp and to get my ass to the Blimp Ops center. I left work immediately which pissed off my boss, and drove up there and got to fly in the Goodyear blimp. The captain even let me fly it. We flew around L.A. and Long Beach, Ca. One more Bucket List item checked off.
Australian here. Only got to see a blimp once in my entire life.
It was a yellow blimp advertising a brand of chocolate called Whitman's while my family went out for a walk on the beach.
I've seen a couple Goodyear blimps here in Italy, one was landing in the field next to my sports center and being deflated for transportation.
Waaaay later I found out how surprisingly rare they were XD
And I believe the last sighting was in the last two or three years? Was way more excited that time knowing how few there are : )
I wonder if they capture the helium to use again.
@@bagel_deficient Sounds like a good idea to me, not sure how hard it is to compress helium in tanks, buuuuut I guess if balloon seller can do it, so can a blimp, with more helium tanks and better compressors. Although I wonder if it's not cheaper to just fly to the destination, since I remember it was a clear day when they deflated it. Maybe the maintenance for racking up flight hours is way more expensive than a couple of trucks, would have definitely tried to ask had I known they were that rare to see around back then : P
@@STPromosMusic It was strangely difficult to find a solid market price for bulk helium. My best estimate is it would cost between $3000 and $5000 USD to fill the European version of the Goodyear GZ-20 with helium. I might be off by a lot, but it probably wasn't worth it to save the helium. Thanks for sharing your story, though.
@@bagel_deficient Fair enough, probably it isn't very expensive to just dumped the helium away then XD
Also, I just found out a Goodyear blimp will be visiting Milan on the 9th, and well, perfect timing because were it not for this video I wouldn't have been thinking about blimps at all, it's just a 2h drive from where I am, not gonna miss this one : )
@@bagel_deficient Time for an update, I have been searching for a long time for info about the blimp I saw being deflated, I was like 10-12 at the time but I had the impression it was fully colored in blue, unlike the Goodyear ones I saw in flight.
I have found a single, blurry picture of what might be the one I saw (with zero information attached to the image, no idea how google knew it was related to my search).
It seems like it was a completely blue advertisement blimp, doesn't look like it can be maneuvered but it did have a cabin, and most likely it's what I saw back then, more or less in 2010, probably anchored on the field where they lowered it later and deflated once time was up for the advertisement : )
As an American I thoroughly enjoyed how you portrayed America as a fat guy eating a big hamburger, with guns on his hips. Thank you for the accuracy.
Love it, 😆
REPORTED FOR BULLYING
6:59 I was waiting the entire video to see if you would bring this up. Personally I think that this is actually a pretty good idea if it were implemented as it could directly deliver shipment to the city itself as long as there is platform made to accommodate them, but it's definitely something doable (unlike for Cargo planes for example) meaning that you could also skip a huge trucking trip. I am personally really hopeful about Airship shipments
I was just saying to my better half the other day how I used to see a local blimp every summer as a child. But now not so much. Now I know why. Thanks Qxir!
I've actually had the fortune of seeing a Goodyear blimp in my own backyard! I couldn't believe my eyes, but I still have the video.
I actually saw one flying above my house. This is because i live near Cardington airhangars. So does my entire town. I have pictures on my phone its so cool
edit: FOUND A VIDEO OF IT th-cam.com/video/ye__XmwSKsA/w-d-xo.html
OOOOOhh..! That's a pretty one! :-D
I remember in my Aeronautics class last year, my class members had to make a carbon free or nearly carbon free way of air travel. I went with a vacuum airship, and my teacher actually helped me. I then proceeded to add it into a fictional world I made, and made these airships "air cruises". I have an odd fascination with the big balloons because of that class.
cant make a vacuum air ship without carbon. carbon fiber
@@Videoswithsoarin Yeah, that'd make things much easier.
@Dave Smith Essentially, yes.
I remember seeing blimps almost frequently in the 80's. I even remember saying a Pink Floyd blimp when they came to Philadelphia in '94. But I haven't seen one in a long time now that you mention it.
I love this channel
Helium is an interesting topic, because although it is non-renewable, it's not finite to the reserves we have. We can make helium. It's a natural product of decay of many isotopes.
Blessin' me lucky stars.......born in '62 in America, and.......YUP! Saw blimps in beautiful blue skies, white, big puffy clouds........flew over superbowl.......we knew even then we were watching something special, given that whole Hindenberg incident.........used to love reading the sides with those scrolling electronic lights 'n stuff, it was so slow, wasn't like it was there and gone.....you got to enjoy with your neighbors and family.......the seventies were freakin' awesome!!
I've never felt the need to comment on the quality of a "call to action" type sub ad before, but the quality of this one is absolutely amazing. I'd go so far as to say that end bit was more interesting than the video itself.
I lived in Southern California most of my life, and not far from where they moored and serviced the Goodyear blimp. My last 25 years there, I worked at a Naval Air Station on the ocean front. There was a tall hill that blimps going north had to navigate around so we saw many through the years. Also, when blimps went around that hill, it was in the controlled airspace for the station so our pilots had to know when a ‘slow mover’ was in the pattern. Sometimes it delayed a launch or recovery.
I honestly never thought about blimps being rare. I live in SoCal and I see the Goodyear blimp every now and then.
A blimp once randomly flew over my house it was surprisingly low. One of the coolest most random things to ever happen to me
There was one that did a lot of advertising in Sydney in the late 1980s - early 1990s. It spent most of its time hovering over the inner city suburbs and was very audible. Everyone hated it.