white dwarf

we know about this right?

http://home.teleport.com/~reedg/whitedwarf.html

well just in case here it is.

lots of info. almost exactly what we want.

two points though i must mention.

firstly, hydrogen in the same envelope would lift about 5% more i believe, hot air would need about 3.5 times the volume i think, but with the added advantage of both being they are cheaper to fill and do not need to be stored inflated!!

secondly, this was made over 20 years ago. this is important as technology has advanced a great deal.

with all the info i have read through over the last few days on this (wonderful, amazing, thoroughly enjoyable) site, i am once again amazed these things are not zipping around above me even now!

Yep we have seen this. Unfortunately it's bag was ruptured and it is no longer flying. IIRC, it cost about $40 K in the 1980s, so we still need to cut that way down. I have seen some great videos of this ship from the pilot's perspective. Looks like great fun to fly.  

well how much of it is usable, the tech and engineering i mean.

I think the entire concept must be different to achieve our goals. 99% of our problem is the cost. All potential designs must focus on cost first. 

The most obvious problem with the white dwarf is its choice of lift gas, helium. It is very expensive and necessitates expensive materials to contain. It was also peddle powered. That makes it pretty impractical since it can only fly in very light winds (due to very little propulsive power).

I don't mean to knock the ship. It was better than anything I have. It just doesn't offer much in the way of reaching our goal.  

  I always was impressed by the White Dwarf, it was a successful flyer for a long time. I think it could be built for a lot less than what was mentioned. Costs are adjusted for profit. A person home-building the frame is not going to cost anything near what you would have to pay a machine shop, much less an aircraft frame builder.
  You know how it goes, once you have an aircraft builders license, what costs twenty dollars an hour down the street in a welding shop suddenly costs two hundred dollars an hour, because your welds are 'flight approved'.
  I'll tell you, I worked for years in a machine shop making less than ten dollars an hour welding for NASA, Dow, and anything that came through the door. When an aircraft inspector was making a homebuilt WACO stunt plane, he had me do the motor mounts, because they were so important.
   I learned on the job, when the boss bought the machine, I had never seen tig welding. It's very easy. In a week anybody with minimal skills can learn it. All you really need is good eyesight. I use glasses now, am not as good as I used to be.
   What I'm saying is do-it-yourself is a lot cheaper than paying professionals, probably by a factor of ten. When someone goes into the airship building business, he has to pay for the buildings, equipment, employees, vehicles, insurance, licenses, inventory, patents, accountants, and lawyers.  A home builder only needs a proper building, equipment, and materials.
  Build small below the government regulated sizes, stay pilot only, and engineer the lift factor to be something you can afford.

I think you need to think about the fact that most of that cost was probably helium that design is uber simple you could weld up that frame no problem in a day with a welder. but I think that was mikeks point 

yep, i think the idea is sound, but we have to tweek it to our purpose.

helium needs to be replaced with hydrogen, as we are pretty much all thinking about that now.
and being self built can reduce the cost a lot.

the shape is very out dated too, im enjoying seeing navs advances. some great ideas and shapes appearing there

Here is some superb information on the White Dwarf as well as flying a small blimp....

http://www.aerialcanoe.com/interview-with-bryan-allen-on-airships/

Hope all projects are progressing forward!

-Paul

I think it would be helpful to have a white paper on what is the current project status, otherwise a person stepping into it would be lost as to what is going on (like me since I've been out for awhile).  So maybe somewhere up on top a 1-3 page paper that is updated once in awhile with current standing/dimensions/drawing, ect???  Just a thought.

Example:  It looks like a mutual goal is now in place (but I wasn't able to see any pics/diagrams) with any specifics that have been put down.

Ps: Paper/email could be sent out to airship lists/contacts to get some more helping hands to fly.

Ok, I posted a short announcement in the sidebar. We don't really have any great pictures yet, but I think we will soon.