I wonder how commercial airships will (or already do) deal with icing?
(Prompted by Airlander having received EASA approval to commence commercial production).
Not sure about Airships but commercial balloons tend to operate in extreme weather and do not rely on “airfoil generated lift”, they fly based on lighter-than-air principal rather than aerodynamic lift, so changes of shape on constant volume/weight should not matter at all?
Getting 1000kg of ice on a 2.5T balloon/airship is a different story but I am expecting them to descend very slowly to warm air 
I wonder whether the “hull” can effectively be thought off as a giant boot – but maybe that would entail moving some of the gas around, and maybe it isnt that flexible?
Yes probably,
But for Balloons, if you keep hot, they inflates as they go higher until they blow-up, your best defense against snow/ice
Also, if the air is hot so you get a bit of “air TKS” circulating inside…
Ibra – I guess I was thinking about the new generation of helium air ships, which, if they are to provide commercial transport will presumably have to be certified as all weather capable.
Joe-fbs – I do understand. Out of interest can you say what height they will be expected to cruise at and what will be the cabin pressure differential? Interested to hear anything you can say on the icing aspect.
Joe-fbs wrote:
it is clear from history that cylindrical airships do not have a significant problem with icing
Ice was reported as the cause that brought Umberto Nobile’s airship down on the ice North of Spitsbergen on his return from the North Pole in 1926…are you familiar with that and are you saying that was not the cause of such an iconic accident? What was it then?
Joe-fbs wrote:
it is clear from history that cylindrical airships do not have a significant problem with icing
Because they seldom flew in icing conditions ?
Antonio wrote:
Ice was reported as the cause that brought Umberto Nobile’s airship down on the ice North of Spitsbergen on his return from the North Pole in 1926…are you familiar with that and are you saying that was not the cause of such an iconic accident? What was it then?
I don’t know what is right or wrong here, but what is clear to me is that Joe-fbs did not say anything like what you suggest.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I don’t know what is right or wrong here, but what is clear to me is that Joe-fbs did not say anything like what you suggest
Can you elaborate?
BTW it was 1928 (not’26)
Joe-fbs – out of interest are there any projected details of Airlander that are already in the public domain you can share. I mentioned earlier – will the cabin be pressurised, what is its expected operational cruising altitude and what will its range be? Presumably the aim is for it to have full approval to operate in class A?
