Could a blimp be sailed like a boat? I don’t think so, it’s a different physics problem. A sailboat is both hydrodynamic and aerodynamic, it’s touching water and air, a blimp is only touching air. A sailboat can sail into a quartering headwind by turning the yards so they form an airfoil creating lift like an airplane wing in a mostrly forward direction, and it keeps from sliding sideways by the mass of the water interacting with the hull. A blimp with masts wouldn’t do that, the wind will act on the envelope to just push it downwind, the sails might be able to drive it slightly forward so it goes slightly off to the side of downwind?
Also, to keep it from being blown over you’d have to hang the masts below the airship rather than above like a boat. Bouyancy is much more precious on an airship than a boat because air is a much bigger pain in the ass to be lighter than, so a deep keel full of lead like a sailboat ain’t gonna cut it. Putting the masts on top would be too easy to blow over, if you hung them from below crosswinds might cause a rolling moment but it wouldn’t roll all the way over.
Damn I wish they were still making Mythbusters. “Could an airship with sails sail into a quartering headwind? Or in any direction but downwind?”
I mean, the whole problem with airships is that they’re just big inflatable sails, and to be barely economical they have just enough propulsive power to move about in normal weather conditions. Once they hit bad weather they’re fucked, which is why nearly every airship built before WWII ended up crashing in a storm. They’re only marginally viable today because of weather prediction that grounds them before they hit the shit. Adding sails isn’t going to help anything.
That’s not true I likewise “invented” a blimp. With sails so it can really catch the wind.
Shit you may have nerd sniped me.
Could a blimp be sailed like a boat? I don’t think so, it’s a different physics problem. A sailboat is both hydrodynamic and aerodynamic, it’s touching water and air, a blimp is only touching air. A sailboat can sail into a quartering headwind by turning the yards so they form an airfoil creating lift like an airplane wing in a mostrly forward direction, and it keeps from sliding sideways by the mass of the water interacting with the hull. A blimp with masts wouldn’t do that, the wind will act on the envelope to just push it downwind, the sails might be able to drive it slightly forward so it goes slightly off to the side of downwind?
Also, to keep it from being blown over you’d have to hang the masts below the airship rather than above like a boat. Bouyancy is much more precious on an airship than a boat because air is a much bigger pain in the ass to be lighter than, so a deep keel full of lead like a sailboat ain’t gonna cut it. Putting the masts on top would be too easy to blow over, if you hung them from below crosswinds might cause a rolling moment but it wouldn’t roll all the way over.
Damn I wish they were still making Mythbusters. “Could an airship with sails sail into a quartering headwind? Or in any direction but downwind?”
I mean, the whole problem with airships is that they’re just big inflatable sails, and to be barely economical they have just enough propulsive power to move about in normal weather conditions. Once they hit bad weather they’re fucked, which is why nearly every airship built before WWII ended up crashing in a storm. They’re only marginally viable today because of weather prediction that grounds them before they hit the shit. Adding sails isn’t going to help anything.