Return Of The Zeppelins ???

Here is a cool report in The New York Times about a Ukrainian (?) who wants to build airships:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/business/pursuing-a-shipping-revolution-as-big-as-his-airship.html

I wish him success. I had similar boyhood dreams.

Note well that the chief problem with airships has not been fires, explosions, or buoyancy control ... but aerodynamic control. Downdrafts can send the sail-like hull of an airship speeding toward the ground much faster than control surfaces or Mr. Pasternak's buoyancy control system could possibly respond to them.

If he can solve the "crashing problem", then he's got a financial success story. If not, he's got a heap of scrap on the ground.

Whatever the case, I'd like to ride one of these sometime. The Graf Zeppelin made 590 flights covering over 1 million miles. The Germans really knew how to fly these things. Hopefully Mr. Pasternak will figure out how to do it, too.

By the way, the Maybach luxury cars were manufactured by the same company that made engines for the Graf Zeppelin. Like the zeppelins, however, they also are no longer in production.

What a pity.