Airships in Films/Books/Games

[Kostmayer]

I'm probably alone in my love of airships, so I don't expect many if anyresponses to this but, these are my fave airships. If anyone can think of anymore..

1. The Soviet Airships in C&C Red Alert 2. I just love the cutscene where the ships are attacking America in the beginning
2. That thing out of Final Fantasy 7 - Haven't played any of the other FF games but I'm told airships feature prominantly in them, so maybe I should.
3. The Blimp out of Black Sunday. Not condoning it of course, but sticking a bomb in a Blimp to attack a Superbowl game is awfully clever IMO. But I'm *not* condoning it!

 

[gully_foyle]

One very cool short story by Arthur C Clarke called Meeting With Medusa features an airship, and a variant on a balloon.

 

[Pyan]

I'm probably alone in my love of airships, so I don't expect many if any responses to this

Never assume anything about this place, KM!

How about the one in " Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"?
Shows the size and luxury of the big passenger airships, compared to the pre-war airliner.

 

[Kostmayer]

Aye, not sure they'll ever be as popular again for passenger transport. Although I have seen new ones that have been designed for Cargo transports.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I managed to fnd a good excuse to include airships in Scales. A parallel Earth, with an advanced, high-tech civilisation but a small and dispersed population, making other forms of long-distance transportation uneconomic. So the airships lower lifts to drop off and collect passengers anywhere on the planet, and only need a few bases for maintenance/refuelling.

Even the need for refuelling is eliminated by one class of airships - they use power beamed at them by satellites. I was a bit concerned about the passengers being cooked so these are "tandem" airships, with a remotely controlled drone ship following some distance behind, connected by a power cable. The drone has a huge internal aerial to collect the beamed power and convert it to power the motors of both ships.

 

[chrispenycate]

Even the need for refuelling is eliminated by one class of airships - they use power beamed at them by satellites. I was a bit concerned about the passengers being cooked so these are "tandem" airships, with a remotely controlled drone ship following some distance behind, connected by a power cable. The drone has a huge internal aerial to collect the beamed power and convert it to power the motors of both ships.

Oh, what a waste. you could make the top of the airship transparent to microwaves, and make the bottom reflective, and a near perfect parabola that focusses the waves onto the receiving antenna, with a laser beam aimed back to the satellite so the maser beam is always tracking the ship (interesting in a storm) with your main restriction (not as easy as it sounds) that the airship doesn't fly over inhabited regions; aerostatoports outside the cities and weather forcasting a precision science (there's a lot of surface area on a big airship, and the onboard motors can't compete with a strong wind, so you have to find the wind that's going your way…


Oh, yes. Two short stories; one, I believe, in Algis Burdry's "Blood and Burning" with biplanes and the like taking off and landing on a lighter than air dirigeable airstrip, so they never need to approach the ground, and a supersonic Zeppelin in - ¿Maxwells demons? from Ben Bova.
And in "Orion shall rise" by Poul Anderson, aren't they policing the planet from lighter than air craft at the beginning, before Orion does?

 

[Pyan]

Does the Jerle Shannara count, in the Terry Brooks series?

And , of course, one of the great-grandaddies of SF authors, Rudyard Kipling,: With the Night Mail and As Easy as A.B.C. (1905 and 1912, respectively)


http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff1/abc.htm

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

And there is Moorcock's The Warlord of the Air,one of the Oswald Bastable books.

 

[j d worthington]

And there is Moorcock's The Warlord of the Air,one of the Oswald Bastable books.

Actually, Moorcock makes use of airships in quite a few of his stories, even from his earliest work (Sojan); they crop up in the Cornelius books, in The City in the Autumn Stars, the Bastable books... quite a few places.

And there's the Aeromunde, from the Doc Savage story The Lost Oasis:

The Lost Oasis

... as well as numerous other airships from that series, such as the one in The Motion Menace:

The Motion Menace

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Oh, what a waste. you could make the top of the airship transparent to microwaves, and make the bottom reflective, and a near perfect parabola that focusses the waves onto the receiving antenna, with a laser beam aimed back to the satellite so the maser beam is always tracking the ship (interesting in a storm) with your main restriction (not as easy as it sounds) that the airship doesn't fly over inhabited regions; aerostatoports outside the cities and weather forcasting a precision science (there's a lot of surface area on a big airship, and the onboard motors can't compete with a strong wind, so you have to find the wind that's going your way…

A neat idea that - but the non-human race who devised the airships are very cautious people and don't want those microwaves anywhere near them, thanks . They actually have a measure of weather control, which removes one of the main hazards to airship operations. And I had built in a feedback system which instantly shut off the satellite beam if it began to stray from the centre of the drone's collecting aerial.

 

[Rosemary]

I thought the Windships in 'The Ill Made Mute' by Cecilia Dart-Thornton were great!
They had 'wheels& sails' like a ship, aileron levers like a plane. A dragonheaded three masted clipper, with 4 wooden wings on each side of the hull.

 

[Kostmayer]

Heh, love this board

Just been looking on Wikipedia, theres some very exciting airship projects in the works. Basically low level satellites, above the jetstream. They'd act as phone masts or GPS transmitters - being low level reduces lag. There's also talk of using them for carrying payloads to Low Earth Orbit.

 

[Tim R. Mortiss]

The rail-guided airships that travel betwen the cantons in Durdane, by Jack Vance:

 

[cljohnston108]

There was a cool airship design I first saw in Jane's All the World's Aircraft about 25 years ago, called the Magnus...

That design didn't take off, so to speak, but the company has a bunch of other cool projects in the works...
Magenn Power Inc.

Another company is going the spherical route, though...
21st Century Airships

 

[Quokka]

Did you check out the Airships in Culture page, Kostmayer? Looks like a lot of anime use them as well.

I gotta say i'm a fan of them myself, I remember they played a part in the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (I think they were the only practicle option initially because of the conditions) and I'm sure I used to play a game where one of the forms of travel was by airships run by goblins but I can't remember what it was and it's not the warcraft series mentioned on the Wiki page.

 

[Somni]

I seem to remember a scifi/action novel based in the antarctic, where there is a "secret" permanent population of eco- and wilderness lovers. They used airships to travel around I think so that they would leave no tracks. Was an interesting book anyway, if only I could remember it.

1. The Soviet Airships in C&C Red Alert 2. I just love the cutscene where the ships are attacking America in the beginning

Hooray for Kirovs! Virtually unstoppable when promoted.

 

[iansales]

Airships are used throughout Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) for transport about the Red Planet. I seem to recall they also make an appearance in his Antarctica.

One of the (many) narrative threads in Hal Duncan's Vellum is set in an alternate pulp sf/action adventure world with huge airships.

 

[Somni]

Thanks, iansales. Kim Stanley Robinson's "Antarctica" was the one I was thinking of.

 

[that old guy]

Been a looongg time since I've read any of the books in the series, but at least one book Farmer's Riverworld series makes heavy use of dirigibles.

 

[that old guy]

I managed to fnd a good excuse to include airships in Scales. A parallel Earth, with an advanced, high-tech civilisation but a small and dispersed population, making other forms of long-distance transportation uneconomic. So the airships lower lifts to drop off and collect passengers anywhere on the planet, and only need a few bases for maintenance/refuelling.

Sounds vaguely like Wild Jack by John Christopher, which had a similar setup, down to the dirigibles. Though that was set in the ever popular in the 1970s post nuclear war world, not a parallel Earth. It was also aimed at a YA audience, IIRC.

Edit: Hmm, maybe it wasn't exactly a "post-nuclear" world, but it was definitely post-something. Since I last read this going on 25 years ago I'm surprised I remember it at all.