Saturday, October 11, 2008

7th International Airship Convention - Blog Readers Questions

I recieved a very nice comment in my last blog post about the convention. The reader asked the following 2 questions and I will try to answer them from my point of view, others who have been at the convention or have their own opinion about this topic are very welcome to chime in in the comments section of this post.

Question 1: Is there any talk or whispers about the impact this global recession or depression will have on the Airship industry?
Of course everybody is aware of the problems and the global recession that is currently happening. Finding investors in these times might become even more difficult than it already is, but the possibilities for airships to do surveillance more efficient than helicopters or the option to transport cargo by airship without the need for road infrastructures might actually be a competitive advantage and might lead to opening of markets for airships because the price difference compared to traditional solutions might tip in favor for airships. Of course this is just speculation but the general tone at the conference to me was very optimistic. There is a new Research Framework Programme by the European Comission called FP7 that might bring new funding opportunities to the Airship Industry. I will be talking about this in the followup posts to the conference.

Question 2: Any room in this convention for the individual airship enthusiast. The home builder?
There is a lot of room for the individual, if you are building an airship a conference is a perfect place to talk about what you did and what your design considerations were. In fact there were a lot of students who presented their work and models, individuals who are just starting their own company, smaller companies that are just developing a small new airship, researchers who use airships for scientific exploration, historians, vision papers given by members from organizations like the Airship Association, ISO Polar, even the United Nations World Food Program presented a paper. And of course larger companies presenting their new developments like RosAeroSystems and others. The full coverage of all sessions will follow in the comming weeks.

So now I open up the comments for you the readers what do you think, please leave your thoughts in the comments.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

101 years ago, money problems almost sunk the airship industry, much like the financial markets of 2008.

TO AID COUNT ZEPPELIN; Prussian Lottery to provide Funds for the Airship Builder.

February 10, 1907, Sunday
Page 4, 220 words

EXCERPT: BERLIN, Feb. 9. -- The Prussian Government has authorize the organization of a lottery for the benefit of Gen. Count (Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf von) Zeppelins' further experiments in airship building. Other German States are likely to join in the movement.

Representatives of the Balloon Division of the army who examined Count Zeppelins' plans and theories and saw his most recent experiments reported that his inventions were worthy of a further trial...

SOURCE: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C05E2D6153EE033A25753C1A9649C946697D6CF

Anonymous said...

Concerning question 2, I was there as an individual airship enthusiast. From my own experience I can tell that even though the scale of the airship projects in terms of resources and challenges were quite different, all the topics discussed were of interest to any airship enthusiast and many were useful information which could be transposed at the level of an individual project. I would therefore recommend you to attend the next convention. At this occasion it would have been nice to meet other airship enthusiast working on small-scale projects. The Airship Association might consider setting up a forum for this group of users.

Anonymous said...

Hi, im interested in buy the R/C FIN FISH, u know.. right?

I need u send it to mc allen texas and please tell me the cost :P

10xs

saim said...

This is very interesting, You are a very skilled blogger. I will be sure to bookmark your blog and definitely will come back.



nutricionista Barcelona