Zeppelin to Save on Gas?

The Zeppelin is returning to the skies of the United States. Although the video discusses a 12 seater tour application, it is possible that for some routes a rigid airship could provide cheap, fuel efficient transport. Such airships do not need roads and their airfields are simple. They do not need to spend energy to maintain lift, since they use the buoyancy of helium. It might even be possible to cover their ample surface area with solar panels, thus deriving a portion of the energy needed to run their engines, which they use for horizontal thrust.

Aircraft Fuel Efficiency

Many fuel saving technologies have been deployed in the aviation world. In fact, aircraft have done a better job historically in seeking out ways to save on gas.

Airlines Get Better Fuel Economy Full

Airlines use a lot of fuel. But they also carry plenty of people over large distances. To discover how these factors interact we need to decide on a way to combine them. One way to do it is to look at how much fuel is used per mile per person. That is the same as the GPHM (Gallons Per Hundred Miles) rating for a car, but then we break that down by the number of passengers. As a large passenger carrying vehicle, be it airplane, bus or train fills up with passengers its fuel economy per passenger gets better. That is because with few passengers the engines still have to move the weight of the vehicle, which is almost all of it. Then as you add more passengers, the total weight to move goes up, but the portion of it represented by passengers also climbs. The overall result is less fuel spent per person.

For example, this chart on the Tupolev 154 shows the effect. As the load factor climbs to 100% the fuel used per passenger drops.



This is a basic and fundamental way to save on gas. We must look to modify the way we get around such as to keep vehicles running at close to full capacity. Do that and we will all save on gas.

Load Factor (%)	Passengers	Fuel Burned per Passenger-km (kg)
19	32	0.21
51	84	0.08
70	115	0.065
82	135	0.053
100	164	0.051

High Oil Prices and Airlines

Here is a guy who says that even oil prices up to $200 per barrel are not a problem for the survival of the airline industry. What do you think?