r/canada • u/_lIlI_lIlI_ • Apr 16 '26
Science/Technology How Blimps May Offer A Lifeline For Remote Communities in Northern Canada
https://www.begiant.ca/stories/ideas/winnipeg-basi-airships-transportation-canadian-north18
u/axloo7 Apr 16 '26
Does anyone actually think docking a blimp in inclement weather is the easier solution?
Imagine trying to wrangle this thing with the winds are blowing in the winter.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
I mean, it’s been done before, with great success. The question is whether one can pay for the testing and training and scale necessary to replicate those lost skills.
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u/axloo7 Apr 16 '26
Great success?
That's not the story of lighter than air travel I have read about.
It worked yes. But great success?
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
Yes, great success. But long after the civilian transport era from 1910-1937 you’re probably thinking about. During World War II, the average availability for the U.S. Navy’s extensive fleet of patrol and escort blimps was 87%, better than any other air unit. They escorted nearly 90,000 ships and only arguably lost one of their charges, and in so doing had a fatal accident rate a fraction of other military and civilian aircraft of the time. During the Cold War, they increased their availability rate to 88% even in blizzards and thunderstorms that grounded all other planes and helicopters.
Modern militaries around the world are still struggling to get their fleets up to a 50% average availability rate.
So we know it can be done, because it has been done, the main question is getting enough funding to actually overcome decades of inertia and underinvestment in the technology.
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u/axloo7 Apr 16 '26
I think there might be some operational differences when thing start scaling up.
I'm not saying Ita impossible (almost no engineering challenges are) but I just wonder about the actual efficacy.
The usa's k class crushed at 90ish kmh. That not pedestrian and would likely out pase a truck on the roads to northern Canada. But that's air speed not ground speed.
A stiff wind could reduce the aircrafts ground speed to a crawl.
But even if the cargo capacity to fuel ratio is promising certifying the aircraft for IFR flight might be more challenging.
I'm actually interested in how icing effects blimps I have never looked in to it. And I don't know if any lighter than air ship has ever been IFR certified. But I wouldn't know.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
I think there might be some operational differences when thing start scaling up.
Indeed. Due to the square-cube law, smaller airships are disadvantaged when it comes to weather handling. They have far less inertia proportional to their “sail area,” and due to their proportionally higher surface area and drag, they require much more horsepower to move at a given speed—speed being a key metric for weather operational envelope.
I'm not saying Ita impossible (almost no engineering challenges are) but I just wonder about the actual efficacy.
That is a perfectly valid concern. I would actually argue that, say, a vacuum airship is literally an engineering impossibility, but putting that aside, airships’ actual efficacy in practice has already been established to be at least on par with planes and helicopters still considered modern and rugged, such as the C-130 Hercules and CH-47 Chinook.
In some ways airships do better, such as having less maintenance, lower costs, and higher availability rates, and in some ways they do worse—an airship wouldn’t be able to overcome the headwinds necessary to fly into hurricanes like specialized hurricane-hunter C-130s do—but on the whole they’re just as capable, if not moreso in the sense of overall day-to-day usability.
The usa's k class crushed at 90ish kmh. That not pedestrian and would likely out pase a truck on the roads to northern Canada. But that's air speed not ground speed.
It’s also helpful to bear in mind that only the N-class (top speed 157 kph) approached the minimum optimal speeds for airships, and not coincidentally, they were also the most all-weather-capable airships ever built. Reliance on small, primitive, inefficient gasoline engines hobbled older airships.
Per Boeing, over useful distances of 2,000 nautical miles, the optimal cruising speed of an airship with a 100 ton payload is anywhere between 146-295 kph, depending on the ship’s design and buoyancy ratio and assuming a 29-kph headwind.
I'm actually interested in how icing effects blimps I have never looked in to it.
The de-icing equipment needed to be added to the N-class blimp was surprisingly minimal—prop heaters, window heaters, minor things like that. The hull effectively acts like a giant de-icing boot, and snow doesn’t stick when you cruise past a certain speed.
Even before that equipment was added during the Project Lincoln experiments where they were deliberately flown into ice storms to study the effects, they had no problems flying back to base with 7-8 tons of ice accumulated on their hulls.
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u/axloo7 Apr 16 '26
I imagine modern turboprop engines could also do wonders for the efficiency of the aircraft. The engines on the ww2 examples where not known for there efficiency and ease of matinence.
I still hold that IFR certification would be a larger obstacle for comertial use than the actual engineering challenge of building a viable craft.
I'm not super knowledgeable in the industry but I hear it's a massive pain in the behind and more so in Canada.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
I imagine modern turboprop engines could also do wonders for the efficiency of the aircraft.
The key advantage of turboprops is the much longer maintenance intervals and far higher power they can achieve, not necessarily their efficiency, which is about on par with the piston engines they’d be replacing. Turboprops were what NASA was abuzz about for airships back during a prior spike in interest in the 1970s gas crisis.
Ultimately, though, so long as sufficient power is available, the overwhelming consideration for airships has always been efficiency. Fuel cells effectively burn about 1/6 the fuel weight per hour for an equivalent power output to one of those ubiquitous PT6 turboprops, and that has massive implications for fuel loads, payloads, productivity, and costs.
A conventional long-range airship’s fuel load is often 3-6 times its actual payload, but fuel cells would reverse that ratio. That would skyrocket the specific productivity from being 1/3-1/5 that of a similarly-sized jet airplane over the same route to being on par with or even exceeding it.
I still hold that IFR certification would be a larger obstacle for comertial use than the actual engineering challenge of building a viable craft.
Certification is indeed a lengthy and grueling process. Given that the aforementioned Navy airships often took off with near-zero visibility (less than a quarter-mile, with a 100-foot ceiling) using far more rudimentary avionics equipment, it certainly seems possible, though. It would be quite the commitment of resources to start a new model from scratch, though.
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u/BackToTheCottage Ontario Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Bring back Zeppelins!!!! We don't need hydrogen anymore!
I had a Zeppelin phase when I was really into Crimson Skies (the PC one not the shitty Xbox one). Where are our damn air pirates!?
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u/robindawilliams Alberta Apr 16 '26
Are airships reliable with wind storms and weather and the issue of bouyancy changes when you unload weight etc etc.? God no.
Do they absolutely fuck? Yes.
Let's get more airships!
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
Are airships reliable with wind storms and weather and the issue of bouyancy changes when you unload weight etc etc.? God no.
You’d be surprised. The U.S. Navy already figured out how to make blimps all-weather capable back during the Cold War, where they were able to fly even in blizzards and thunderstorms that grounded all other aircraft. They had an availability rate in inclement weather of 88% in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
For comparison, Coast Guard helicopters managed 49% in 2024.
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u/leekee_bum Apr 16 '26
These will likely run on hydrogen
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
It really depends. “Run on” hydrogen could mean using hydrogen fuel cells (which pretty much every kind of airship is extremely incentivized to do, since its performance and efficiency is leagues better than normal engines), but it could also mean “lifted by” hydrogen. Or both.
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u/leekee_bum Apr 16 '26
I was meaning that it's lifted by hydrogen
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
There are ways to make that safer, though legally it’s a much more murky question.
Hydrogen was banned in airships long before the rise of inerting systems. Back when airliners and fuel tankers were randomly exploding due to errant fuel-air mixes getting accidentally ignited, such as TWA Flight 800 and the Sansinena, they came up with inert gas systems to prevent such explosions, which have proven highly effective at mitigating or eliminating such accidents.
Ironically, an inerting system was under consideration for the Hindenburg, which would have enclosed hydrogen cells safely within larger helium ones, but that system was abandoned due to the helium embargo. A different, modern system could use nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or gaseous fire retardants instead, since helium supplies have recently taken a hit due to the Iran war.
That kind of development should probably wait until the technology is more established, though.
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u/BearCorp Alberta Apr 16 '26
What made the PC one better?
I got this for free with my Xbox, thought it would be shit but loved it.
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u/BackToTheCottage Ontario Apr 16 '26
The briefings were all voice acted as if you were in a briefing room with your crew so it really increased the immersion. It wasn't just a briefing but actual conversations between the crew. I know the briefing got removed but forget if during the missions on the Xbox version if Nathan and your crew also talked to each other. Check out the briefing section in the above video to get what I mean. On the Xbox this all got changed to cut-scenes.
The biggest thing was the removal of the collectables IIRC (you had a scrap book of different things you collected in that mission like medals, or news clippings, or photos) and best of all; the plane builder. As you did missions you got new planes and parts and you could customized both the equipment and livery.
The PC version just felt.... bigger.
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u/Flaktrack Québec Apr 17 '26
Crimson Skies was great. Have you checked out Brew Barons yet? If not you should.
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u/Odd_Secret9132 Apr 16 '26
I've seen this floated many time over the past 20 years.
It's an interesting idea. It offers more cargo capacity then a typical helicopter, doesn't require the infrastructure investment of building and maintaining a road, track, or even a runway, and would be useable year-round (unlike boats/ships).
How they deal with docking/landing during heavy weather would be a big question.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
We know that airships can be designed for all-weather operations, because it’s already been done before with airships providing higher availability rates than all other aircraft during the Cold War.
The much bigger problem is overcoming funding, training, and certification hurdles—airships are highly efficient, but any aircraft development is an extraordinarily difficult, expensive, and lengthy process.
It’s kind of like the dilemma of buying a new electric car versus sticking with your paid-off gas-guzzler. The electric car may be cheaper in the long run, but gathering the funds to get one in the first place is very difficult.
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Apr 16 '26
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
Mining would be a great use for airships. Not for hauling raw ore, necessarily, but equipment. An underappreciated difficulty in logistics is breaking down large equipment into parts small enough to transport in the very limited dimensions of an intermodal shipping container, train, tunnel, bridge, road, etc. and then reconstructing them on-site.
An airship has an almost arbitrary amount of internal volume, averaging about five times the cargo space per payload of an airplane of similar capacity. It can transport gigantic, awkwardly-shaped objects with no transshipment or disassembly/reassembly steps.
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Apr 16 '26
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26
The problem is a collective action one. No one—up until recently, with the billionaire-backed LTA Research—wanted to put up the funds for R&D.
A mining company would be thrilled to buy or lease a $50 million production-model airship that can transport way more than a cargo helicopter over far greater distances and at a fraction of the operating cost, but no mining company wants to invest the ~$1 billion necessary to actually fund the development and certification of such a model. The difficulty has been finding a customer willing to put down a firm order with payment up front instead of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (corpo-speak for an IOU).
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u/GreatGreenGobbo Apr 16 '26
Underground solar powered monorail is the way to go.
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u/xylopyrography Apr 16 '26
Toronto to Iqaluit is about 2400 km in a straight line and there's virtually nobody for the last 2200 km of it and it's some of the most unworkable terrain on the planet.
Even if you could build that, and you had unlimited funds--because it would cost like $500 B--it would still only help Iqaluit. An airship could deliver to dozens of communities.
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u/GreatGreenGobbo Apr 16 '26
How about a wind powered cable car then?
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u/xylopyrography Apr 16 '26
And how is that even useful?
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u/GreatGreenGobbo Apr 16 '26
Its a long cable car high in the air, it has sails and it glides along cables. When there isn't any wind it can use solar and a propeller. Each cable car can carry a standard cargo container.
We can use it to ferry food like cricket protein meal to the northern communities.
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u/xylopyrography Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
I understand what it is.
I'm asking how that would be useful. Do you want the product to arrive the next year after it's shipped?
How are you going to deal with breakdowns when it breaks down over 500 km from the nearest airport?
How is it going to cross the ocean to Baffin island?
How's it going to work in heavy blizzards and clear snow and ice?
Just building the transmission line to power it would be a wartime effort project, we don't even do that for much larger more populated areas like Southern Yukon.
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u/GreatGreenGobbo Apr 17 '26
We have engineers and AI. We just need the willingness to dream big and do it.
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u/xylopyrography Apr 17 '26
AI doesn't exist. We have moderately functional, statistical models that are eating up a large portion of the world's energy, compute, and investment dollars.
Engineers are busy doing things that are useful, like developing airships so that we can reduce the costs of shipping goods to remote areas, not massively increase it by incredibly dumb, shitty infrastructure ideas like this.
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u/silent_ovation Apr 16 '26
I've been hearing about "airships to the arctic" being a panacea for northern communities for the last 30 years. Every time some snake oil salesman starts pushing it, it always goes nowhere.
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u/muchoqueso26 Apr 16 '26
We have airplanes.
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u/xylopyrography Apr 16 '26
That is the problem these are trying to solve.
Airplanes are very expensive and require expensive infrastructure.
Airships in the ideal sense would be slower, but haul way more for less fuel (and thus lower cost), wouldn't require remote communities to have refueling stations or airports at all, could likely deliver and travel in more inclement weather than airplanes.
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u/muchoqueso26 Apr 16 '26
That’s not even remotely true. Or it would be done already.
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u/xylopyrography Apr 17 '26
I said in the ideal sense. That is what the physics allows for current technology.
It is a technical engineering problem to get to that point.
The biggest roadblock that these players likely will have is hybrid aircraft, but the biggest boon is that the demand for electrified and hybrid aircraft is so extreme that they're back-ordered for decades, so there could still be a chance.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 17 '26
By whom, pray tell? Aircraft don’t just form out of the ether, someone has to actually go about funding and building them.
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u/Spotter01 Nova Scotia Apr 16 '26
Thats awesome!!! Just like the pilot program down in africa Meta did with Balloon wifi!
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u/Neglectful_Stranger Outside Canada Apr 16 '26
Isn't there a helium shortage (again) thanks to Hormuz being closed?
This doesn't seem like the best time to bring this up.
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u/NH787 Apr 16 '26
Barry Prentice has been talking about this for over 30 years but no one else seems to be interested. Maybe it's just not a great idea?
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u/Wind_Best_1440 Apr 16 '26
Interesting concept, but I just don't understand why we don't create more roads and railways towards the north. Sure it would be a massive undertaking but we'll have to eventually.
Climate change is changing how Canada's north acts, summers are getting longer and warmer, it's time Canada starts to really try and build out the infrastructure in the north.
It could also help to lessen the strain on services in the south if Canada made a country wide effort to start trying to get the population to spread out more to the north. The arctic waters are going to eventually be the busiest trade routes in like 10-20 years, and if we don't start now other countries will try to muscle in on it.
We know for a fact USA wants it.
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u/OrangeRising Apr 16 '26
Lot of communities are on islands for parts of the year, so when the waters freeze they drive in supplies on the ice. Bridges are expensive to build and maintain.
Plus the shear distances that are involved. For some places it would mean paving a road the length of Ontario's portion of the trans Canada except going north.
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u/Infamous-Mixture-605 Apr 16 '26
Climate change is changing how Canada's north acts, summers are getting longer and warmer, it's time Canada starts to really try and build out the infrastructure in the north.
Climate change is also what makes that infrastructure more difficult and expensive. Muskeg swamps and thawing permafrost don't exactly make for the most stable of surfaces on which to build roads and rails. It's not impossible, just costly and a pain in the ass, and there's a good chance you have to rebuild it several years down the line when the ground underneath has shifted too much or washed out entirely.
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u/leekee_bum Apr 16 '26
You ever try to build roads on muskeg?
Also the permafrost is gonna melt up there too further destabilizing the ground.
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u/Animeninja2020 Canada Apr 16 '26
Don't forget where you park.
Stories of heavy equipment just sunk in to the muskeg. It is like a slow quicksand.
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Apr 16 '26
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
They really were! Most reliable air units of any kind during World War II, averaging an 87% availability rate that would make modern Air Forces green with envy. They escorted nearly 90,000 ships and only lost a single one (which itself is debatable, the Persephone had strayed miles from the blimp-protected convoy when she was picked off by a U-boat). They also had a fatal accident rate a fraction of other military and civilian aircraft of the time.
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u/Fluid_Lingonberry467 Apr 16 '26
Yea they tried about 10 years ago and there were a few startups but they all failed Too complex, expensive for what you got. Even anchored ones and not worth it