The Whale in the Sky?
I like people who dream aloud.
French designer Jean-Marie Massaud is one of them. This project is called “Manned cloud”. It’s a whale in the Sky.
His objective : “reconcile our desires and our human responsibility”.
“Manned Cloud” is not only about transportation. It’s a “cruise airship”, an eco- hotel, from which you will contemplate earth without hurting it.
Holy flying whale…
January 7th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Hello,I am Cherry,an editor of Xiao Ge Bai Ni ?China’s science magzine for kids).
Do you have any big images about the “Holy flying whale” that designed by Jean-Marie Massaud? I want to write an article about this.
Best wishes
Cherry
June 11th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
best airship design ever seen… LOL
July 6th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Stunningly beautiful design concept, but the helium envelope will need to be substantially bigger to carry the required payload for a flying hotel.
Both the fins / winglets are adding to the weight. Nevertheless such a design could work if they were to generate extra lift in flight, in which case we’d be talking about a ‘hybrid airship design’. This however implies a requirement for extra propulsion power, which in turn may translate into more noise, a lesser ‘coasting ability’, extra weight reducing the payload and more fuel spent in flight.
A very large helium envelope should however draw huge benefits from having these whale like streamlined features, because of the enormous surface areas. In that respect Jean-Marie Massaud definitely is onto something and that makes this design look more realistic. His 100% totally awesome concept art is showing, more than anything else, that the airship dream is alive and that we just need the inspriration (and very very clever engineers + funding!) to make projects like this take off in the future.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
May you be right, Joost !
Thanks for the insight.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:40 am
Joost:
you are missing something crucial:
this concept, on which MANY different companies are currently doing research, is absolutely NOOOTTTT a lighter than air vehicle.
the aerostatic component supports approximately 2/3 of the vehicle’s weight, while the remainder is supported by convential lift.
these crafts are capable of ~100 mph flight which is plenty fast enough to generate sufficient lift ‘
the idea is sound. there has been at least 200 million spent on this concept by DARPA for use in heavy lifting applications.
commercial applications also include use as a “stepping platform” for cheap orbital payload delivery.
it is all relatively recen (most of the real work has been since 2002).
most involved parties (Lockheed among many) have prototypes planned for 2010-2012 period
September 1st, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Yep, I’m very much aware that a lot has been published lately in the last couple of years about ‘neutral buoyancy’ and also ‘buoyancy assisted hybrid craft’. A good example is the Aeroscraft concept, which measures 65 m. a great deal smaller than Manned Cloud would be.
The hybrid concept is not really that newfangled. One of the first writers that explored the hybrid concept in fiction was John McPhee in a book called “The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed” (1973).
I do not believe though that Manned Cloud is meant as a hybrid concept. Especially when you look at its specs. It is meant to be a cruise ship with an open deck at the top for guests. This won’t work very well at 170 Km/h.
Manned Cloud is also supposed to have an ability to ‘coast when the engines are switched off’. You can not do these things with a relatively heavy hybrid, but could do it with a ‘positive’ or ’somewhat neutral buoyancy’ craft.
When you look up Massaud’s design concept at Massoud.com (click ‘Design’ | ‘Transport’ and then click on the image of ‘Manned Cloud’) you can see that the lenght is a whopping 210 meters and that it has a volume of 520,000 m³ helium. When compared to the 245 meter envelope of LZ 129 Hindenburg, the biggest airship that ever was in commercial service, which had a volume of 200,000 m³ , it would be only a little bit shorter than Hindenburg and significantly wider. It would be looking absolutely massive (roughly 2/3rd the length of the Eiffel tower) and the ship’s structure will have gigantic surface areas.
With this amount of volume and with efficient modern engineering design it is very plausible though that it could be built with a great ability to float…
But how much I still love the visual appeal of this design; with three relatively modest propellors for its propusion it certainly won’t be possible to propel this thing to the advertised 170 Km/h and I therefore think that the winglets would not be very functional.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Err, it is Massaud.com - sorry for the typo(s)..