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Comment by jodrellblank | Hacker News Reader

Even with the Akron, we're focusing on the first disaster and not on the improvements or possible improvements since then.

Akron crashed into the Atlantic in April. "Most casualties had been caused by drowning and hypothermia, since the crew had not been issued life jackets, and there had not been time to deploy the single life raft."

Followed by: "Macon and other airships received life jackets to avert a repetition of this tragedy. When Macon was damaged in a storm in 1935 and subsequently sank after landing in the sea, 70 of the 72 crew were saved."

The R101 was a stupid tragedy - they designed and built it, then extended it, then launched the first flight without sufficient testing to learn how the extension had gone and how it handled after, in poor weather conditions, because the launch date had been decided by politicians as a piece of propaganda about reaching the far corners of the British Empire by airship.

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> Followed by: "Macon and other airships received life jackets to avert a repetition of this tragedy. When Macon was damaged in a storm in 1935 and subsequently sank after landing in the sea, 70 of the 72 crew were saved."

Yeah, but notably they hadn't solved the problem of wind tearing airships apart.

In the case of Macon they landed gently and in warm water, and lifejackets certainly helped. But a soft landing is by no means a guarantee in any airship crash, and even with most people surviving the Navy still lost their investment in the airship because of some wind. Putting lifejackets on an airship flying over water should be common sense, but it only makes the airship marginally safer. It's hard for airships to be viable when they're so prone to tearing apart and falling out of the sky.

I think his point is that most of these are measurable, concrete problems that can be solved or mitigated enough to be considered "safe," in the same way airplanes have all sorts of risks and issues we solved or mitigated to make them safer than the cars many use every day.

The way I see it, aircraft have become mechanically reliable and airships could become mechanically reliable too. But airships will always be structurally vulnerable relative to aircraft. They're inherently very light with very large surface areas and there's no way around this.

The strength to weight ratio of a carbon fibre scaffolding would be far superior to steel.

Isn't the clothy stuff the problem though rather than the scaffolding?

Same on most sailboats: what makes them get into trouble is not the hull cracking but rather the sail tearing up in a storm or the mast snapping off and making them uncontrollable / sink.

(Im guessing out loud here, statements probably wrong)

If the clothy bits tear on a sailboat it’s an inconvenience. When the hard bits (eg keel) fail, it’s a problem.

Mast snapping happens. Rudder snapping off is also bad. Often the issue is running into rocks/a reef due to a navigation failure. Sails do tear, but for sailboats I don’t think it’s as simple as the clothy bits being the main weak point. I don’t know about airships though.

For airships, the entire structure (frame, envelope, gas bags) are at the limits of materials engineering. Failure of any of the components is both likely and catastrophic to the craft.

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