what about short-haul flights? Routes such as Berlin-Copenhagen seem to make sense, as in: Not as fast as a plane but faster than a train and possibly cheaper than both (using hydrogen airships). I don’t know much about airships but that is what came to my mind (besides obviously the freight side of things that is being researched).
I doubt it would be faster than a train though. The Hindenburg had a maximum speed of 135 km/h, and even if we were generous and assumed that a hypothetical modern airship would go twice that speed, 270 km/h is still not as fast as high speed trains, many of which can run at 400 km/h, with 300-350 km/h being the most common in Europe. There’s also the same issue of takeoff and landing as with planes. While trains can just pull into a station, open its many doors to exchange passengers, and pull right out of the station, all types of aircraft have complex takeoff and landing procedures that take a significant amount of time. On short flights, the takeoff and landing time accounts for a big portion of the total flight time, so it’s an even bigger issue.
Again, I’m not flat out saying that airships will never see a revival, but these are the problems that need to be overcome for that to happen.
fair point, though using high speed rail speeds as a comparison is kind of unfair as high speed rail still is pretty rare in europe (excluding france and spain I guess), in germany for example a train journey that only makes use of high speed tracks is basically non-existent and expanding high speed rail infrastructure takes a long time. It makes a lot more sense imo to use 160 km/h as a speed for comparison.
Your point probably still holds, as although it takes an insane amount of time to build hsr infrastructure it is happening and will continue to happen.
what about short-haul flights? Routes such as Berlin-Copenhagen seem to make sense, as in: Not as fast as a plane but faster than a train and possibly cheaper than both (using hydrogen airships). I don’t know much about airships but that is what came to my mind (besides obviously the freight side of things that is being researched).
I doubt it would be faster than a train though. The Hindenburg had a maximum speed of 135 km/h, and even if we were generous and assumed that a hypothetical modern airship would go twice that speed, 270 km/h is still not as fast as high speed trains, many of which can run at 400 km/h, with 300-350 km/h being the most common in Europe. There’s also the same issue of takeoff and landing as with planes. While trains can just pull into a station, open its many doors to exchange passengers, and pull right out of the station, all types of aircraft have complex takeoff and landing procedures that take a significant amount of time. On short flights, the takeoff and landing time accounts for a big portion of the total flight time, so it’s an even bigger issue.
Again, I’m not flat out saying that airships will never see a revival, but these are the problems that need to be overcome for that to happen.
fair point, though using high speed rail speeds as a comparison is kind of unfair as high speed rail still is pretty rare in europe (excluding france and spain I guess), in germany for example a train journey that only makes use of high speed tracks is basically non-existent and expanding high speed rail infrastructure takes a long time. It makes a lot more sense imo to use 160 km/h as a speed for comparison.
Your point probably still holds, as although it takes an insane amount of time to build hsr infrastructure it is happening and will continue to happen.