Helium dreams
posted by Rob on 19 Jun 2008
Not sure about 'Zeppelin v Pterodactyls' as a movie concept, but Zeppelins on their own strikes me as a sound idea. I keep waiting for airships to make their inevitable and magnificent return. Picture a helium-filled Zeppelin, built using carbon fibre and up-to-the-second cleverness. Its skin would form one giant solar panel; its propulsion would be electric impeller engines. Just like the Zeppelins of old it would operate like a luxury cruise-liner of the skies: quiet, safe, comfortable. I can't quite decide whether to run them at a gentle hundred-mile-an-hour canter, so that the trip from London to New York takes a day and a half. Or slow them right down, and have them cruise four or five thousand feet above the waves at a sedate 35mph. That makes the Atlantic crossing a four day event, but you'd be able to walk around the promenade deck and even watch the dolphins through the telescopes on the rear sun terrace. If you have to fly, why not make it civilised?
Comments: 2

I wonder if I can leave comments yet. If so, I would like my first comment in aaages to be about the brilliance of 'Zeppelin v Pterodactyls.' Why, writer's block is a thing of the past if you've got that to fall back on.
Posted by: Anna | June 20, 2008 01:38 AM
I agree with you fully. I would love for zeppelins to return. I'm not sure they will - too slow for our modern world - but I'll be first in line for a zeppelin trip from New York to LA.
As for the idea of zeppelin v. pterodactyls, it reminds me of an idea of Calvin's (from Calvin & Hobbes): the most terrifying fighting force ever imagined...tyrannosaurs in F-14s.
Calvin: This is so cool!
Hobbes: This is so stupid.
Posted by: KatharineC | June 24, 2008 05:47 PM