Could They Ever Return?

[Falcon01]

I lived in Florida just down the street from the Goodyear hangers there and I used to love watching the Goodyear Blimps come and go.

Oh! By the way, I do some 3d designs using a program called Milkshape3d and would like to do a rendering of the R505 using the picture from the home page as my guide and I was wondering how many prop blades are on each nacelle?

[PaulGazis]

Oh! By the way, I do some 3d designs using a program called Milkshape3d and would like to do a rendering of the R505 using the picture from the home page as my guide and I was wondering how many prop blades are on each nacelle?

That sounds like a great idea! I'd love to see how it comes out. The ship has big fat four-blade reversible props, similar to a P-47 or a WW-II bomber. This is a bit more advanced than 1920's ships in our world, which generally had fixed-pitch 2-bladed props, but I figure Captain Everett's world is a bit ahead of ours in this regard. This was also essential to give the ship that final 3-5 knots of speed.

There's a good closeup of the Number One engine car in the graphic for Episode 11. I also included partial plan views of the ship in the About section. Three key things for making the R-100/R-505 hull shape look right seem to be:

1) The highly-streamlined shape, with no straight segments, and that long tapered tail.

2) The shape and locations of the fins, set significantly forward of the tail.

3) The small number of longitudinal girders -- 16, as opposed to the 20-30 on most contemporary ships -- which would make the ship look like a 16-gon viewed from the bow or stern.

BTW - There are some good 3-view plans of our world's R-100 on the web. Two interesting links are http://www.currell.net/models/r100.htm, which prints out a neat paper model, and http://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/r100/images/r100plnl.jpg. The biggest external differences between the R-505 and R-100 are its smaller size, shorter engine cars with only a pusher prop rather than the 2-engined 2-prop layout on the R-100, and the location of the control car, which is set farther forward. There are plenty of internal differences, but I haven't posted the relevant plans yet.

[Falcon01]

Hello again, I have A rough draft mesh finished, I am looking for any suggestions or recommendations on it. Enjoy!
http://falcon01.deviantart.com/art/R505 ... -161701876
http://falcon01.deviantart.com/art/R505 ... -161702142
http://falcon01.deviantart.com/art/R505 ... -161702351

also a youtube video spin around at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L6T6qZvXKQ

[jaasak]

I wouldn't mind seein' them zeppelins out there. Kinda fun, if'n ya ask me.
IF the cost weren't too unbearable, I'd be inclined to take trips in them. Sorta the equivalent of the ocean liners: slower but more elegant and relaxed overall.

The caveat remains concerning hydrogen: I keep seeing Lakehurst over and over again-"oh the humanity"-rolling around in my mind. That would be a real dampener to that, I'd think.

You?

As to solar powered engines: Heck, yes!!! Why not???



But back to our rollicking, randy story, boys & girls!!!

[Kona]

Nice work on the rendering, Falcon01. The video is a little scary; looks like the R505 is tumbling out of the sky! In another lifetime, I would love to make a career out of CG work. As a draftsman in the pencil-and-paper days, my favorite assignments were 3D drawings; isometrics, perspectives, exploded views, etc.

I devised a set of formulas that enabled me to plot two-axis perspective points from three-axis plans on a programmable calculator. Just about the time Autocad came on the scene with 3D capability and made all my work moot.

[PaulGazis]

Hello again, I have A rough draft mesh finished, I am looking for any suggestions or recommendations on it. Enjoy!

Those look awesome! It looks like you got the hull shape exactly right, which is hard to do. And I really like the way those engine cars came out -- they're much better than most of mine! I just extracted the outline of your first image and pasted it into one of my plans for comparison. I've inserted this below.

FlyingCloud_R505_Comparison.jpg (22.51 KiB) Viewed 902 times

When I crunch the numbers, It looks like your model may have ended up 10% thicker than my sketch, with the control car 1.5 lengths closer to the bow, but otherwise it's spot on. Great job! I want one!

P.S. How hard would it be to make the cross section of the ship a 16-gon rather than a circle? If the effort is prohibitive, the alternative would be to draw the lines of the 16 longitudinal girders on the hull -- that's pretty much what I've been doing except for a few closeups.

[Falcon01]

Hello again, I have A rough draft mesh finished, I am looking for any suggestions or recommendations on it. Enjoy!

Those look awesome! It looks like you got the hull shape exactly right, which is hard to do. And I really like the way those engine cars came out -- they're much better than most of mine! I just extracted the outline of your first image and pasted it into one of my plans for comparison. I've inserted this below.

FlyingCloud_R505_Comparison.jpg

When I crunch the numbers, It looks like your model may have ended up 10% thicker than my sketch, with the control car 1.5 lengths closer to the bow, but otherwise it's spot on. Great job! I want one!

P.S. How hard would it be to make the cross section of the ship a 16-gon rather than a circle? If the effort is prohibitive, the alternative would be to draw the lines of the 16 longitudinal girders on the hull -- that's pretty much what I've been doing except for a few closeups.

Thanks for the feedback! Sadly I haven't had a lot of time to do more work on it, I can work out a 16-gon cross section fairly easy and will correct the diffrences, which i'm supprised were so minor. I am also going to try my hands at a simple animation, maybe an overflight, for the next video

[rreis]

For those who wish to up to date with the Airship world I recommend a trip to

http://airshipworld.blogspot.com/

cheerio!

[Logan Marchman]

Thanks rreis

[Falcon01]

I've finally reworked my R505 mesh, heres a link to the ortho view, let me know what you think.
http://falcon01.deviantart.com/art/Flyi ... -172132282
I'll be making some flyover type renders asap!