Igor Pasternak's idea for a heavy airlift vehicle which uses both buoyant and dynamic lift, and has the ability to vary its buoyancy like a flying submarine, may offer the potential for roadless cargo transport through the sky:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/business/pursuing-a-shipping-revolution-as-big-as-his-airship.html
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2014/11/airship-revival.cfm
2 comments:
Interesting - the presenter mentions "..avoid the IEDs and land mines..". But when you have such giant slow moving objects flying in the sky, they are easy target even for blind enemy.
Obviously for military transport applications, it would require full control over airspace and territory in which it operates.
But if you consider the civilian applications, it could enable "roadless trucking" for places where adequate road infrastructure does not exist. This includes cargo transport to remote areas for resource exploitation industries, etc.
For an infrastructure-poor country like India, it could be quite useful. As you can imagine, for disaster response it could also come in quite handy.
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