This will be entertaining, kind of steam punk like.
I expect that they are really designing for hydrogen lift, the economics become a lot better and pretty much everyone understands what killed the Hindenberg wasn't the hydrogen rather it was the outer skin catching fire. "Teldar"[1] (I think that is a wonderfully stupid name) is much less flammable. If you ask "Why hydrogen?" The reasoning goes like this; The value of an airship is determined by its range and its cargo capacity raising either increases the airships suitability for various tasks. Hydrogen provides 8% greater lift per cubic liter over helium and costs 1/10th what helium does to source and supply. So economically it just makes more sense but we haven't had hydrogen airships because of the public perception of their danger (and thus the lack of investment). Anyway, there are some great applications for dirigibles and "disaster relief" and "heavy lift" are but two. Something about being able to just sit there for hours over a point that is unreachable by land is pretty appealing.
I expect that they are really designing for hydrogen lift, the economics become a lot better and pretty much everyone understands what killed the Hindenberg wasn't the hydrogen rather it was the outer skin catching fire. "Teldar"[1] (I think that is a wonderfully stupid name) is much less flammable. If you ask "Why hydrogen?" The reasoning goes like this; The value of an airship is determined by its range and its cargo capacity raising either increases the airships suitability for various tasks. Hydrogen provides 8% greater lift per cubic liter over helium and costs 1/10th what helium does to source and supply. So economically it just makes more sense but we haven't had hydrogen airships because of the public perception of their danger (and thus the lack of investment). Anyway, there are some great applications for dirigibles and "disaster relief" and "heavy lift" are but two. Something about being able to just sit there for hours over a point that is unreachable by land is pretty appealing.
[1] https://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/amer/us/en/tedlar-...