Soviet and Russian Airships

Here is list of soviet airships from 1920 to 1945 with beatiful photos: http://englishrussia.com/2012/02/06/about-soviet-airships/ Exist any post 1945 airships of soviet/russian design?

Actually The Russians are building new airships now as we speak... they even sold some to China and specialise in tethered airships for use in mountainous areas for communication relay and AWACS use.

Try this website:

http://rosaerosystems.com/company/about/

GarryB wrote:Actually The Russians are building new airships now as we speak... they even sold some to China and specialise in tethered airships for use in mountainous areas for communication relay and AWACS use.

Try this website:

http://rosaerosystems.com/company/about/

Thanks. And existed any Cold War Airships?

Actually most of the balloon work was western balloons that were floated across the Soviet Union for spying purposes.

The Soviets invested a lot of money on interceptors like the M-17/M-55 that originally had a 23mm cannon equipped with ammo with very sensitive fuses designed to shoot down balloons.

The fuses were so sensitive they would detonate if they hit rain, but most of the targets were operating above the weather.

Cyberspec wrote:The tethered aerostat complex "Peresvet", which is planned to put a new generation of repeater
created in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry, is entering a stage of state tests.
Source: http://vpk-news.ru/news/24972

An update on the airship program "Atlant"....sounds like a heavy cargo carrying type

Russia to Complete Construction of Airship ‘Atlant’ for Army by 2018
http://sputniknews.com/military/20150628/1023962970.html#ixzz3ePhq6g4e

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More detailed overview here: http://rosaerosystems.com/news/news808

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Russia to Complete Construction of Airship ‘Atlant’ for Army by 2018

'Augur RosAeroSystems' is a leading Russian lighter-than-air manufacturer. The company builds big airships and aerostats equipped with high-precision computer equipment and technology. The recent announcement by the company tells of airship 'Atlant' to be ready for the Russian Army by 2018.

The ‘Augur-RosAeroSystems’ Holding is set to build the airship ‘Atlant’ by the end of 2018. It will have the capacity of carrying over 16 tons of weight.

RosAeroSystems is a leading Russian lighter-than-air manufacturer. The company builds big airships and aerostats. It is the only Russian enterprise, and one of the few in the world with own and powerful aerostatic envelope production division, able to produce and test envelopes up to 50 000 cub m volume. The envelope production line is equipped by high-precision computerized cutting equipment and RF welding machines.

The airship ‘Atlant’ will possibly be used by the Defense Ministry.

According to the Vice President of the Holding, Mikhail Talesnikov, the development work of the first phase will be completed in December of this year. It will be examined, displaying the innovation system balancing. By 2018, ‘Atlant’ is scheduled to begin flight testing with the first prototype carrying weight capacity of 16 tons and volume of 30 thousand cubic meters.

The vice president stressed that this innovation cannot be made by anyone else in the world in such a short time span.

“During the unloading of the weight at the point of arrival, the airship will be able to get heavier via controls without needing ballast, in that way it will not get weightless after unload and will not soar into the stratosphere. This system is unique, nowhere abroad do they have that,” elaborated Talesnikov, media reports.

It was earlier reported that the modification of the airships towards more militarized concept is being carried out on airship ‘Atlant-30’- carrying capacity of 16 tons and airship ‘Atlant-100’- carrying capacity of 60 tons.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/military/20150628/1023962970.html#ixzz3eQrV5keh

Airships are the future.
Aerostats would be perfect for detection of cruise missiles, border guarding, in guerilla wars for region monitoring and as electronic warfare platforms...
But this thing: http://rosaerosystems.com/projects/obj687 is a class in and of itself...
a true HALE platform... ancher one near the outer border of US maritime border of LA and you would have all the important places right below your nose for observation... Vandenberg AFB, White Sands MR, Groom lake, Nellis AFB... a true ultimate spy tool.

But the Atlant transport version would be ideal for getting to remote Siberian locations and out of there as well. Airships are the future. With airship you can land anywhere... even in the middle of ocean.
This is the future....

So basically russia is reinstating its aerostat ballons back like they did earlier and sold it to chinese . Now after seeing american JLENS programme which they'll be using to fend off any russian cruise missile attack . russia is doing the same by making new aerostats . am I right ?

They have their own issues with weather, but if you have to deliver a 50 ton turbine to a remote area with no roads or rivers and no airfields, then it is cheaper to fly it in via airship than to have to build roads and airports...

Lots of places benefit from such infrastructure, but with a one off... say a hydro electric dam in the middle of nowhere, where you wont need lots of roads or airports then an airship is ideal... it can pick the turbine up from where it is made and carry it to where it is needed... no truck transfers and awkward drives up narrow winding roads.


In addition to carrying heavy or large awkward loads they can be tethered and operate in one location for several months... for border patrol or communications relay or other combined duties they are excellent.

The advancements in fuel cell technology and new composite materials that are light and strong and not combustible the age of the airship is coming... when speed is not critical it would be an ideal way to move things.

Detailed article about extensive work on Russian military Zeppelins ... and intesersting approach.

Aplication: - all over but Artic is where they can show their efficiency while doing, EW, air defense, transport of supplies and army, telecommunications etc

https://ria.ru/defense_safety/20170506/1493770784.html

If the operating altitude is to be over 10,000m then I think a return to hydrogen makes sense.

It is more efficient than helium and vastly cheaper.

If it is an unmanned vessel to operate at very high altitude then purge the insides with nitrogen so there is no air at all inside. Inside the gas bags fill with hydrogen for max lift.

In the ballast tanks you can have pure water and a hydrogen fuel cell will enable the converting of hydrogen to water and back again... above the 10,000m zone where there is not so much oxygen rather than converting the hydrogen into water using the fuel cell you could simply use a compressor to compress it down to take away its ability to lift the aircraft... once it is down low enough for atmospheric O2 then decompress the H2 and use the fuel cell to convert it into water which is an excellent ballast material.

To climb decompress the H2 to gain max floatation and use the fuel cell to convert some water into H2 as well (venting the O2 for safety).

Solar panels and batteries can provide the necessary energy.

Redesign of the shape of these air ships could improve performance... for instance a large flying wing shape should reduce drag to minimise energy requirements to maintain station in high altitude slipstreams, while a semi rigid hull with wheels or even hovercraft bottoms could allow a rolling takeoff on almost any surface... on land or at sea.

The enormous flat area would also allow a lot more solar panel coverage too.

Every few years, whether its the Russian, European or N American media there will be an article on how airships are the next "big thing". Whether its modest sized ones, or giant mile long ones, we're told they're going to "revolutionise" transport....

But they never do. To an outsider like me... they make a lot of sense. Especially to somewhere like Russia. Russia has massive distances between cities. Infrastructure doesn't always connect up. And there is a need for the movement of resources and people to areas that might not even be on rail or road lines. I know from people in the N and East of Russia, that transportation of goods can be slow and expensive.

So my question is, why hasn't Russia revolutionised airship transport of both people and resources?
Unlike road or rail, you can even transport to a location without any environmental upheaval or even work needed. Russia also has very lucrative airspace. It could transport between Europe and China etc at very low cost. At 80 mph, an airship would be massively faster than sea freight. And with mega airships its actually even cheaper. Smaller airships are 1/6th the cost of freight of helicopters so would be ideal too.

Ofcourse Russia has storms but it doesn't tend to have the massive gales and typhoons etc of other places. So its really strange that Russia hasn't become world leader in this.

Airships even have huge advantages in military transport - a potential shortcoming of the current Russian Airforce and Navy. They could also be built as airborne cruise liners - ideal to explore pristine wilderness areas in Russia and elsewhere without disturbing the habitat even a little.
Airships, is an area of engineering business I'd actually be fascinated at getting involved in.

But still, hardly any airships have been developed. Even Ekranoplans seem to have more coverage in the media. Does anyone have any ideas why this is so? Or even, what are the challenges.

I totally agree, as you might have noticed I am a serious supporter of the idea of airships.

The main stigma is regarding old airships like the Hindenberg, but such airships were made of materials that were highly flammable... the chemicals and materials used to make their outer skin are also used in smokeless powder for fire arms, and of course their light aluminium structure and bags of hydrogen with normal air between each bag is an enormous fire risk.

Hydrogen on its own wont even burn... it needs air or oxygen to burn, and when you coat the outside of the airship with fire accellerant... fuel... then any spark or problem is going to rapidly get out of hand and become a serious problem.

Modern airships however can be made of modern non flammable materials like fibreglass and nomex and kevlar and carbon fibre that are both light and strong and don't burn well if at all.

More importantly with modern technology like solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells and powerful electric motors it actually starts to become a no brainer.

One of the serious problems with an old airship was the problem of ballast and lift... very simply to fly it needs to be lighter than air so you start off with an airship able to carry 100 tons so when empty you need 100 tons of extra ballast otherwise you can't land to pick up the payload. So with a 100 ton payload you land at the place where... say a 90 ton complete gas turbine engine for a hydro electric dam has been built... so you land by releasing some lifting gas and attach the 90 ton turbine... complete in one piece. The trip of perhaps 2,000km out into the middle of Mongolia where there are no roads might require a few hundred tons of diesel fuel so you drop the 90 tons of ballast and you take on how ever much fuel you need and also drop the equivalent of ballast to match that so you are flying, so you start flying to the destination.

Now as you fly the diesel engines generate heat which is good for lift, but you also burn diesel fuel so you get lighter as well so at the destination you are going to have to dump some more lifting gas otherwise you can't deliver the load to the ground... the advantage is that you can carry it to the precise location you need it and drop it into place.

Today it would be much much easier because you can have batteries on board as well as solar panels and water and hydrogen.

The materials the airship is made of will be largely fire proof, and to further improve safety you could purge the air between the hydrogen bags with nitrogen... it is cheap and plentiful... 70% of the atmosphere... and will prevent the hydrogen from burning if there is a spark or extreme heat source.

When the Airship arrives to pick up cargo instead of dumping tons and tons of water to increase lift it can convert water into lifting hydrogen... you could even plug it in to a ground based power supply to conserve the energy in the batteries to create the hydrogen to increase lift... take on the payload.

An airship that can carry a 100 ton payload will have to be 400-500m long which means lots of solar panel space... and even when there is no sun all that hydrogen can be processed through the hydrogen fuel cells to create electricity too... the byproduct is water... well actually steam... heat and water... heat can be used to heat the inside of the airship making the hydrogen a more efficient lifting gas... the water could be dumped or stored depending on your ballast situation.

Dehumidifiers can be used to generate water ballast from thin air too if needed.

You could put diesel engines if you want to or gas turbines are more compact and efficient for generating electricity and that also can run on hydrogen...

If these nuclear batteries work out you could carry one of those for emergency power no matter what.

More than that a tethered airship could be stationed in mountainous areas as a communications repeating station, or to watch for smuggling on the ground or in the air... Russia sold China some systems that can operate for up to 3 months at a time unmanned... the potential is huge.

Some think they are too vulnerable for war, but actually if you make the skins of kevlar and carbon fibre and the gas bags can be made of tough material too, by eliminating the risk of fire an airship 500m long and say 40-50m across... most AAMs would have trouble bursting enough hydrogen bags to make it crash like a plane... even with a direct hit the internal bags damaged might reduce lift by 20-30% which means it would start to descend... but the first thing they would do is run their hydrogen fuel cells in reverse and fill up all onboard undamaged hydrogen bags and then dump any remaining water ballast... odds are it will eventually come to rest on the ground or water.

Which AWACS aircraft would come off better than that?

Even the new A-100 couldn't take an AMRAAM hit, so why would you expect an airship based AWACS to survive.

More importantly an airship AWACS platform could be designed to operate above 30km altitude where it would be rather safe from most in service AAMs and SAMs, and the size of it, it could be fitted with all sorts of missiles and ECM systems itself.

An AESA radar half a kilometre long should have rather good resolution and performance, in an enormous range of frequencies from Ku band to ULF.

(It could hang a 3km long cable vertically that would allow it to communicate with deeply submerged submarines.)

Yeah its really puzzling. Taking the civil only aspect for now.
The latest designs I saw involve the helium being bumped into compression tank, then air being taken onboard, to make it heavier if the lift is too much after cargo has been delivered.

I can see how making massive airships ie competitive with sea freight is difficult to do from a "standing start". Perhaps also, Russia doesn't have enough really remote areas that can't be serviced via chopper, road, rail or river shipping. Maybe the Establishment is all about sea, rail and pipelines so no one wants to take the perceived development risk of airships.

I can think of loads of projects for airships big and small. They could even replace gas pipelines from gas fields. Far more flexible especially for smaller fields. And if you fall out with a customer, you haven't got a giant pipeline going to waste. MAYBE tho Russia feels the tech could be used against it eg bypassing Russia from gas supply. But then... why haven't the USA produced airships for gas and oil then?

An airship Silk Road China to Europe would be good - as Russia is probably the best transit route. Also, Russia to India via Iran would really kickstart trade between two big natural allies.
There's also mineral exploration in Northern Russia/the Arctic.

Maybe big airships have a concern over maintenance. Its fine having one ship down in a fleet of 30, but not so good if its one ship down in a fleet of 4. But surely maintaining an airship is little different to a sea ship. I don't think one little leak would send the thing crashing to the ground!

Also I've read about concerns over Russia's weather and airships. ie claims there are strong winds. Personally I think Russia has less very strong winds than most countries. So to me, that claim doesn't make much sense.

Maybe its all because many countries major areas are on seaports, or major rivers. Russia has places like the Volga. But Russia doesn't have a huge East West river network.
All in all tho, its very s trange that Russia hasn't accelerated airship design further by now.

Well another advantage of airships is that they can pretty much pick up any shaped load if it carries it as a slung load, but I suspect a problem is the low flight speed and issues with storage or docking.

I would think with modern electric motors placed in rotatable pods should allow pretty impressive manouver performance... and a wing shaped design could use winds at different altitudes to improve flight speeds in some directions... but I think the ability to carry fairly big loads, and particularly a wing shaped design would have an enormous top surface which would be absolutely ideal for solar panels, and of course improvements in battery performance and technology involving electric drives which will needs capacitors and battery storage improvements... they are only looking better all the time... you could have a bottom surface shaped like a double hulled boat that could be used when landing on water or snow or ice, and sets of retractable wheels for harder surfaces like a runway or just open flat ground that will allow it to be moved around a bit on hard ground if needed. Sort of like a combination of helicopter skids and wheeled undercarriage with steering wheels up front.

Most loads would be slung loads, but the underside could be concave so smaller loads could be raised up into the airship and therefore not be able to be dragged along the ground. Inside it could be held by attached cables that would allow it to be lowered if needed like a flying crane, but with more endurance and lower operating costs than a helicopter... in fact with enough solar panels you might get away with not needing to use a backup diesel engine at all.

I would think a gas turbine engine that runs on hydrogen would be ideal as a backup power supply... you could use the fuel cell to generate electricity and heat too of course...

Some sort of enormous hangar to hold them wont be cheap, but with a flying wing shape it wont need to be enormously tall... just rather wide... which would be a useful shape for other big aircraft they have like Bears and White Swans and soon PAK DAs and of course Il-96s.

With the enormous flat wing shape there could be problems with snow, but electrical deicing could be part of the solution, and of course it would be a useful way of gathering water ballast most of the time anyway... it will likely need electrical heating to prevent freezing too... but then being an airship warm hydrogen lifts better than cold hydrogen anyway so heating the interior would be a useful feature. Storage will need to be soft storage so if a water ballast tank freezes it doesn't rupture the tank and spray water everywhere, and the same with all the plumbing... so some form of rubberised material that still stretches even at very low temperatures... at 10km altitude it is normally about minus 60 degrees even in the summer... perhaps that might be the big drawback?

So if you select this link and press the control key and the C key to copy, or highlight it and right click and choose copy from the menu...

https://yandex.ru/turbo?text=https%3A%2F%2Fnaked-science.ru%2Farticle%2Fhi-tech%2Fpredlozhena-globalnaya&promo=navbar&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

And the click on this link to open the Yandex translator page:

https://translate.yandex.com/translate

and then in the text box at the top centre of the screen right click and choose paste and click the translate button it should open in the tab below the original and the translated version of this page about airships.

The tabs say original and translation, so you can click on the translation tab and choose the language of your choice to translate it into.

Make sure the left tab says original: Russian... as the original page is in Russian... if it says anything else click on it and change it to Russian... it is normally pretty good at auto detecting the language though.

Basically it talks about using huge airships with the powerful trade winds to effectively transport heavy items and cargo easily and cheaply using airships.

It does make the erroneous mention of the fire danger with airships... with modern materials and safety standards I think a modern airship would be safer than a modern airliner or cargo plane. All that hydrogen could be made safe if the space between the lifting bags it is in is purged of oxygen... just fill it with nitrogen... will prevent any fires.... in fact you could put a burning road flare inside it and it would eventually just burn out without igniting the hydrogen or the nitrogen because for the hydrogen to burn it needs oxygen. If the structure is kevlar and carbon fibre and fibreglass the structure wouldn't burn either, whereas the Hindenburg was made of material used in smokeless powder... that readily burned. Hydrogen actually burns invisibly so the fire you saw in the film of the Hindenburg was actually the exterior skin burning and not the hydrogen... which obviously helped the fire spread so rapidly by heating everything up as it burned invisibly...

"Airships of Yakutia" will carry people and goods in the Arctic
https://regnum.ru/news/economy/2790499.html

https://news.ykt.ru/article/94193

https://tayga.info/142745 https://trans.ru/news/vmesto-stroitelstva-mosta-cherez-lenu-v-yakutii-zapustyat-dirizhabli

https://vrns.ru/analytics/1643

Airships have enormous potential... modern materials should make them much safer, and modern fuel cell technology and even solar panels and electric motors and even modern efficient gas turbine engines designed to run on hydrogen gas should make it rather efficient and cheap to operate even polar regions.

An added advantage is that it can go anywhere and does not need road or rail connections or large expensive airfields.

They can be made from lightweight durable modern materials with a light but strong structure and take products or payloads from where they are made directly to where they are needed with no transfers required. You could have them transfer payloads across any sort of terrain from frozen solid to liquid to deep sticky mud or deep snow or any combination... it will leave roads and rails free for other purposes and wont be effected by weather as much as roads would be.

Rivers destroying bridges wont be a problem... in fact delivering equipment to repair or replace damaged bridges could be something an airship would be good at.

Rather than a simple cylinder, they should look at wing or lifting shapes that cope with wind currents better and offer higher speed potential while maximising the surface area of the top of the airship for solar power generation too...

The potential for round the world cruise flights with zero greenhouse gas emissions should appeal to PC liberal westerners... so perhaps a diesel or petrol generator as backup... hell... maybe a coal fired furnace there to get a good smoke screen going to heat the hydrogen and make it an even more efficient lifting gas.

Note the entire interior inside the airship structure could be purged with nitrogen to eliminate the risk of fire so only cheap hydrogen needs to be used instead of the very expensive and less abundant helium can be eliminated from the design.

They should design variants that cruise above the cloud deck. They will avoid the turbulence and also be able to use solar paneling.
The 1930s air ships were mid-troposphere concepts conforming to the whole aircraft industry. It was only after the jet age started
that flying above the clouds became the norm.

High altitude air ships require more engineering. Making the shell withstand air pressure due to less internal gas pressure makes them
heavier and harder to handle at low altitudes. So a variable volume containment is a better idea. There should be a right hull
but the top could involve a hatch structure that opens at high altitudes to release a balloon extension. As the air ship descends
it this balloon will naturally collapse and can be re-stored inside the hard shell behind the hatch.

But then we have to worry about the force necessary to descend. That brings up the possibility of submarine type approach.
The rigid shell can have compartments fitted with air pumps that pump out normal air on ascent and pump in air on descent. The
core low density gas compartment is not altered.

They could design one with a roof mounted observation deck and hire it out to star gazers wanting the best views of astronomical events... the low flight speed wont be an issue...

Rostec announced the development of modular "airship transformers"



Rostec began developing modular airships with variable load capacities. According to the press service of the state corporation, demonstration samples will be presented in 2021.

As explained in Rostec, the promising airship is made in the form of a semi-rigid structure, the load capacity of which can be adjusted by lengthening the shell by adding modules located between the bow and tail compartments. Adding one module allows you to increase the carrying capacity by 4 tons. The use of the modular design of the airship in comparison with the traditional scheme allows you to increase profitability and reduce the cost of maintaining the fleet.

It is stated that these versatile airships can be used to deliver any cargo, including heavy and oversized, to any areas inaccessible to ground vehicles. It does not require the creation of complex ground-based infrastructure. Cargo transportation carried out with the help of modular airships is especially relevant for remote regions with insufficiently developed road infrastructure.

The airships were developed at the Dolgoprudnensky Design Automation Bureau (DKBA), which is part of the Russian Electronics State Corporation Rostec.

Demo models of modular airship transport systems of both types will be developed in 2021.

- said the general director of the DKBA

https://topwar.ru/170377-rosteh-zajavil-o-razrabotke-modulnyh-dirizhablej-transformerov.html

Should be a safer alternative to helicopters in many scenarios including human rescue. I'd also like to see the development of massive air-defense airships with a significant radar, electro-optical suite, with a pack of 50 R-77-1's and 20 R-37M's on each side!

A brand new large airship could have a lift capacity of 50 metric tons, that means 40 R-37M's (20 on each side) at 600kg at peace translates to 24 metric tons, and 100 R-77-1's (50 on each side) at 190kg a piece translates to 19 metric tons, the missiles total metric weight would be 43 metric tons, leaving 7 metric tons for a combined radar/EO suite.

I think that is a great idea. Armed and sensor-laden airships with max altitudes in the lower stratosphere would produce real
benefits.

Actually... just remembered the jet stream... a layer of the atmosphere where wind speed is huge and fairly constant that could be used by airships to make rather long trips fairly rapidly... the Japanese used it to launch paper balloons to deliver incendiary bombs to the US during WWII, but obviously a much more sophisticated design without the criminal intent and solar panels and electric motors could be a much more capable and useful thing...

Fuel cells can convert hydrogen from lifting gas to water ballast and back as you need, and modern light structure materials should enable very high altitude flight because you don't need to worry about combustion... in fact combustion would be a bad thing...

Solar panels, batteries, solar cells, electric motors and perhaps as a backup a gas turbine generator that runs on hydrogen perhaps?

Using hydrogen is a good idea. The phobia of this gas stems for the Hindenburg disaster which had nothing to do with hydrogen
and everything to do with the silver paint used on canvass skin. This paint used iron oxide mixed with aluminum powder which
is rocket fuel! A lightning strike triggered ignition and the air ship skin burned as fast as gun powder. For some imbecilic reason
hydrogen was invoked as the cause even though all the witnesses saw the red-orange flame of the rocket fuel driven burn up
of the skin. There was a hydrogen fire, but it was invisible and ignited by the fire resulting from the real cause of the disaster.

But some sort of evaluation is needed to see if a chemical solution is better than a mechanical solution. This sector of technology
has been ignored for 90 years (advertising blimps are not really new designs) so new research is needed.

The tragic fate of the USSR’s biggest airship (PHOTOS)

https://www.rbth.com/history/334187-soviet-biggest-airship