Hugo with R101 and ZeppNT

This somewhat large image is my recent measuring of Hugo, my new concept ship, against an existing Zeppelin NT, and the historical British R101 for size comparison.

Most helium heads are familiar with the R101 being 777feet long or 236 meters long, and the Zeppelin NT07-100 and newer 101 types are generally 246 feet, or 75 meters in length.

Here Hugo is shown with an overall length, which includes mooring nose cone, and swiveling tail engines, at just shy of 460 feet, or 140 meters long, whilst Hugo is roughly 135 feet - 41 meters wide, not including width of wing engines and propeller arcs, and is roughly 89 feet - 27 meters tall. He shares a carbon fiber skeleton similar to the NT, but Hugo differs in that whilst the NT is a semi-rigid, relying upon gas pressure to help maintain the hull shape, Hugo is a true rigid luftschiff, with a complete internal skeleton of carbon fiber spars and tubing that alone holds the shape of the hull. This gives Hugo a much stronger load bearing capacity being a true rigid, and as such, the gas cells do not need as much over-pressure to keep the shape, and thus can be made more buoyant and able to loft more load still. Whist again sharing similar traits with the real life NT, Hugo uses heavy air ballonets, but the difference is that Hugo uses the ballonets for ballast control rather than maintaining envelope shape. This means Hugo needs to vent lifting gas far less often during wide changes in altitude as well as lessen the need to carry ballast weight for buoyancy trim, making my concept ship a bit easier on the helium budget as well as easier to control and fly.

Hugo is a triple hybrid ship, meaning he is powered by conventional Benzen combustion engines, Lycoming IO360, same as the Zeppelin NT, however the other part of the triad of power comes in the form of Polymer Lithium batteries and Hydrogen Fuel Cells. The literal forest of silicon cells on the upper portion of each hull can generate more power than Hugo's eleven AC motors can use, even on cloudy conditions, so the extra power feeds a bank of Lithium batteries along the keel of the hull, as well as electrolyzing captured moisture scavenged off the aft section of each hull by suction pumps, feeding the filtered water to a bank of platinum plate electrolyze-rs that would break down the water into gaseous H and O for compressed storage and later use.

The bulk of available electrical power for use after sundown comes from the bank of lithium batteries, however for boost power to fight headwinds, the compressed hydrogen comes into play, feeding a bank of fuel cells for that extra sustainable kick need to fight the winds and keep a schedule. The Lycoming engines are there for take off power, and yet again, more boost when headwinds become more than an annoyance, and the available electrical power begins to taper off when the lithium cells begins to flatten, and the fuel cells can no longer hold the load alone.

Over time however, and with the progression of technology, it's possible that Hugo could become powered only by Lithium and Fuel cells. But only time will tell if that's true. This is just a concept after all. A reflection of our times.

So there we have it, a bit of info on my concept ship, Hugo Eckener named in honor of the man whom championed furthering of airship technology even in the face of Nazi insanity and oppression, and a wildly changing times. I'll post another beauty shot of Hugo later when I can find the time, but for now I hope my fellow enthusiasts of LTA would enjoy my concept ship and the subsequent naming of Hugo in honor of the man with the big brass ballast that could not keep him on the ground.. at least not with Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg and proposed Graf Zeppelin II under his feet!

R101 is to the best of my knowledge, public domain.
Zeppelin NT is Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH, Friedrichshafen Germany.
Hugo Eckener is my concept luftschiff created in SketchUp