A few days ago I suddenly got an idea for an airship, a modern one that is. It started after I received a full set of Airbus A400M props from someone on the ATF forum, and my first idea was to use them in a contra-prop configuration on something. Looking at them they look like something you'd find on the rear of a submarine, then I thought -- what about an airship !!! They both have the same shape.
Since then I've expanded on that and got to thinking how I would do a really modern airship using today's materials (or materials of the not to distant future). A while ago there was an article I read about having an AEW airship which could fly really high and stooge around for a very long time, well I'm thinking along the same lines, but instead of the traditional 'blimp' style you usually see, what about a disc shaped one. Or one that looks like a 'Flying Pancake' but instead of tractor propellers, have pusher props on two sides. My thoughts are a very large shape like this with contra rotating radar dishes in the center, with crew quarters above and the operations deck on the bottom. The dishes would rotate around a central vertical shaft which would have an elevator in it to get from one deck to the other.
I'd have the outer shell made from a multitude of hexagonal tubes made from Nanofibre joined together like a honeycomb only the tubes running more or less horizontal, which would be inflated with helium under pressure to maintain the shape and the radar dish area would also be flooded with helium. The top and bottom decks would have their own livable environment inside the outer shell.
Powering all this would be four of the Europrop TP-400 engines, each driving it's own propeller, but like how the Double Mamba engine powers a Fairey Gannet. As I mentioned above, the props would be on the outside rear corners.
Then there would be a fifth TP-400 to power all the electrical needs.
