Any recommended polls?

Does anyone have any poll they think we need to have. It is important to gauge where people are on different issues. Also, does anyone think we need to redo old polls to see if people's minds have changed since the poll was first done?

Good idea to take new polls to guage what the airship fan desires. Just put dates on the polls title and leave the old ones on view so we can see the changes over time? The visitors seem to be a casual lot! Mainly daydreamers who stop by on a whim. Actually, what difference does it make what they think or how they answer polls? We want action people who can and will make models and proceed from there, don't we? Competitions will appeal to them more than polls, surely. Valuable polls which are useful to constructors might be; How much would you pay for an airship kit, When can you buy a kit for 10 grand, 20 grand, or would you spend 200 grand for the assembled Sky Yacht? Can you build anything? Have you done aluminum welding, epoxy work, etc.? WOULD YOU VOLUNTEER TO TRAVEL AND HELP CONSTRUCT AN ULTRALIGHT? cAN YOU HELP PAY FOR MATERIALS FOR A SHARE IN THE VESSEL? IN other words, ACTION polls rather than opinion polls. Opinions are a dime a dozen. Cheers, let's giddy UP! "Gaiter"

Any new polls yall want done? 

It would be good to test the interest levels and goals of all the casual members:

+Are you able to build your own airship for under $10,000
+ How about for under $5,000?
+Would you buy shares in an "Airship Flight Club" for a few hundred bucks enabling you to help build and fly an UltraLight Dirigible in Alabama?
+
+ Would you travel to Florida to share flight time on a club-owned dirigible at a nominal rate of $50 an hour?

  What else?  
Something like that sound like useful fun ?

K, good suggestions.

Right now I cannot afford to build any size air ship, but I would like to help someone else to get theirs done and the knowledge gained will help me in the future when the economy picks up a bit.

    I am in Pontotoc Mississippi, the middle of the low wind area of the U S.   Alabama also has low winds,  if you check out the wind topography maps  it favors the south and part of texas.   I think what we need is called "Nucleation"  we all want to build air ships, even large models would be a good start, but we cannot all afford the space and materials.   If we could team up around a central location, in small groups we could have the man power to do the work, but someone has to have access to a large hangar and a little start up capitol.  Then, some of the others can cluster around that person and get things started.   I would love to work with anyone in north Mississippi or even Alabama if there is a person ready to start.   I have sewing and assembly skills and experience working with PVC.   Perhaps some of us could help by performing the little experiments that we all want to know about, such as how ridged PVC becomes at certain pressures over given lengths, also what materials hold in Helium the best, and where to find our resources.

[[  Perhaps some of us could help by performing the little experiments that we all want to know about, such as how ridged PVC becomes at certain pressures over given lengths, also what materials hold in Helium the best, and where to find our resources.  ]]

This is square one as far as research questions go. Lift bags are crucial to airships. We know that PE is fairly impermeable to helium and hydrogen and, at the price, that makes it the #1 choice for home-building. The question is, what thickness has the best weight/permeation ratio?

Ace Hardware sells  Cheep! PolyEthylene, PE, plastic "dropcloth" in a variety of thicknesses, from about 1 1/2 mil to 7 mil.  That's a four-fold range of weight and naturally, we want the lightest-weight film which also holds gas well.  We just need to know what thickness that would be. The film only costs $5 for 10' X 20' sheets. And rental helium cylinders are available from welding supply stores.

A practical answer to this question would benefit the project a LOT.

[[  Remember, regarding permability and gas size, H is a smaller atom than He but occurs naturally most often as the duo-atom H2, making it actually a molecule, and larger than the mono-atom He.   So, H leaks through PE plastic less than He. ]]

[[I think I just found our logo. Check out the H2 diagram....]]]

Yes  !  I like it ,  Especially for  the   Lady's  Tee's    
 Guess I  better layoff the  Egg Nog for  the night .

 BTW  Merry Christmas  Everyone !
 
  Some  where   we  did  a  discussion on    the helium  and  hydrogen  molecules  and  determined   that   H2  will  last twice as long   because of  its size  and  its  natural  tendency  to  bond to  everything    instead of  repel  from  everything  Like  He.  does .  He. is  a  real  unsociable  atom .  it  doesn't like  even itself.  
   I  personally  would like to  try  a   aluminum  foil lined bladder  of  any  quality heat  seal-able plastic  ,  And  the   Boat cover   shrink  wrap   seems like  a very likely  candidate  because of  the  size , durability  and low cost  it can  be bought in .  I think  it  can  be  heat sealed  very  well  . However I dont know  this  as fact . 
 It needs  to  be tested  .
   

How about a poll on control and instruments needed? There's probably a lot of stuff that could be hooked into a laptop. If you plan to control by wire and pulleys to keep it cheap, you'll still need some kind of flight condition sensors.

P.S. you can't wait too late to think about this.

Ok, I think that is a good poll. I will work on that.