What I plan to propose next turn
Use unfinished airship aircraft carrier design and re-purpose it as flying headquaters
Fit radar in it. Fit powerful radio room. Add room for HQ stuff. Add machnegun turrets for it's protection. (but it should be protected by fighters, always), add equipment to allow it to dock helicopters. ( to supply airship midair, mostly) Have gilders attached to it as the emergency escape option for the staff, abandon aircraft carrier role because that's not viable for heavier aircrafts
Our very own low tech AWACS
While I approve the idea of an AWAC airships, you really need to adjust the idea.
1. No helicopters: Why would you use a short range, low altitude tech to resupply a long range, high altitude vessel? Besides, a helicopter has a very low cargo capacity, meaning many, expensive rides. I doubt it'll even work as resupply. After all, in order to allow the helicopters to dock, the ship needs to drop to a lower altitude. This interferes with radar and intelligence operations, and wastes hydrogen gas and ballast(when going back up again). Both can't be refilled in adequate capacities midflight(meaning you might shorten operations, rather than lengthen them). The lower altitudes also put the ship at risk (hydrogen burns easier, scenery collision).
Where are you going to put the helipads anyway. You can't put them below the airship. That would result in a very dangerous and complicated docking procedure (heli has to fly inbetween the pad and the capsule above it, while avoiding the structural parts attaching both). Additionally, it would interfere with radar operation and would weight a bloody lot. You can't have them jut out from the sides, as that would destabilize the craft when helicopters land, and again, weights way too much.
The only remaining option is putting the pads on top. This is a bad idea, because that's where the hydrogen vents are located. It's a very bad idea to fly a combustion powered engine in a very volatile mixture of hydrogen/oxygen. Meaning that the airship will need to stay low far longer, in order to allow the hydrogen to dissipate.
Then there's the problem of actually docking them. Unlike helicopters, airships can't do stationkeeping. They just float around, and are on the mercy of the wind. This makes docking very dangerous, as the helicopter could fall of the pad before being secured, or just be blown into the airship. Also, helicopters need to cut pitch during landing, meaning that if they miss, they will very often hit the balloon.
I don't need to tell you what spinning helicopter blades do to a balloon, do I.
Gliders are bad Evacuation shipsAirships tend to crash for 3 reasons.
1. Scenery collision (Not much point in evacuation ships here)
2. Bad weather (There's only one thing worse than flying an airship in a storm, and that's flying a glider in a storm)
3. Balloon fire/ other dramatic loss of floatation capacity. (Gliders are useless here because they have more lift than the airship itself. Ie, if they're below the capsule, they will smash into it when they're made loose, if they're on top of the balloon, they're on fire now.)
Suggestions to fix these problems:
-Use planes to resupply the ship, or just don't resupply it at all.
-Advantage of using planes is that it still retains it carrier role. (Useless for larger ships, I know, but you just can't cut it out.)
-Just use parachutes and rubber boats for evac.
The supply issues shouldn't be much more serious than any airship supply issues. The issue with the fighters is figuring out a docking system. We can create very light, relatively low-speed fighters for the task. Building an actual runway would likely be impractical, although if it was only catering to light aircraft then it might be possible using light materials. One could try some sort of bag, hook, or net if the aircraft we specifically designed to use it, or even some sort of railing that the aircraft uses as a runway but threads through a device on top of the aeroplane. Once you had such a device, then you could try to incorporate it into resupply efforts so that the airships would only have to dock to collect crew.
Most airships can reach speed up to 70 km/h or more. The most commonly used method (read only method) was to attach a hook to the plane, and then have the plane hook into a specially designed trapeze. The plane is then pulled up, in order to allow the pilot to leave his vehicle. Advantage is that it can handle fairly heavy planes, and most importantly, is very light itself.
Don't land stuff on top of the volatile balloon. The slightest spark can be enough to ignite the entire thing, especially considering we don't have truly airtight fabrics yet. There's always a bit of hydrogen leaking, and I'm not comfortable with combustion engines being near it.
Comparison:
Missed Landing below the capsule: Try again, there's nothing below you to collide with.
Missed Landing on top of the airship: Significant chance to collide in balloon
HQ doesn't have to hold generals, but it should have some officers to coordinate air war, mostly defensive air war. I'd prefer to have few of that airships and keep them deep in own territory where only long range fighters can pose a threat (and those should be intercepted before they reach the airship)
Problem is that conventional escort may not work, because Airships are damn large targets and enemy may easily opt to arm it's fighters with long range inaccurate stuff like rockets or high caliber guns... Main form of protection for those airships aren't close escorts, but interceptions of whatever that tries to come near to it
What's the point in making your radar mobile when you're keeping it with you? The entire point of a mobile radar is the ability to take it with you. I vote we do so, keeping it away from the front, but still, having it fly over enemy terretory.
Altitude should be the airships primary defense. Besides, it's got a radar for something, doesn't it.
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Topic: The revolutionary design bureau (OOC) (Read 43575 times)