NationStates Jolt Archive

SZ-2 Osel Neba Lighter-Than-Air Transport

Dimensions
Length: 250m
Diameter: 60m
Lifting Gas: Helium

Given the Verdant Archipelago’s hostile environment, sea transport is always risky, and rail is impossible. Given those problems, the Veragrad Transportation Planning Council commissioned the development of an dirigible transport. Despite widespread skepticism on the part of the other city states, especially considering the bad press airships have received after the Hindenburg disaster, the SZ-1 was a tremendous success, and the other nations soon began clamoring for a larger, more powerful version made of metal instead of wood. The new SZ-2 combines the cross country capabilities of aircraft with the range of ocean vessels, and can load and unload cargo anywhere, not just at designated ports and depots. While the military possibilities are staggering (the ability to airlift in two fully assembled MBTs with crews into a warzone in a vehicle 3x as fast as most freighters is not a capability to sneer at, or supply an entire division with three sorties), it was the economic and humanitarian possibilities that drove the research. Now a small fleet of SZ-2s serve the Verdant Archipelago, both in the private and public sectors.

The SZ-2 Osel Neba is a semi-rigid airship, with a light aluminum keel and ribs frame holding 10 ballonets, with the entire assembly covered by tear resistant fabric. Despite the light design, the SZ-2 is remarkably resistant to damage; the ballonets are under a very slight overpressure, so a puncture can take several days to completely deflate the ballonet, and the loss of buoyancy can be counteracted by the release of water ballast.

Systems
Veragrad Aviation Solutions Standard Navigational Suite
Payload: 150 tons
Crew: 7-10

The SZ-2 usually operates with a captain, pilot, co-pilot, engineer, two engineer’s mates, and a number of loadmasters. Because trips take so much longer than with most aircraft, the accommodations are more reminiscent of a freighter than a airplane, with every crewmember receiving their own room. Meals can be prepared in the fully equipped galley, and there is a large, if Spartan, common area and mess.

Fragile cargo can be stored in a large cargo compartment to the rear of the airship, while containers and oversized cargo like turbine casings or MBTs can be slung underneath by harnesses. When the airship comes in to dock, it generally descends to 100 feet and deploys eight 150 foot cables. These cables fed into winches, which pull the airship down to 50 feet. First to be unloaded is the cargo slung under the belly, which is lowered by winches. Once the cargo is on the ground, but before it’s released from the sling, water and fuel is pumped up into the ballast tanks to counter the loss of the weight of the cargo. Then, after the slung cargo is released, the internal cargo is lowered by another winch, with water being pumped up to counteract the reduction of weight.

Propulsion
Eight 2500 kW Veragrad Aviation Solutions turboprops
Cruising speed: 50 knots
Max Speed: 88 knots
Unrefueled Range @ 50 knots with full payload: 4000nm
Unrefueled Range @ 88 knots with full payload: 2000nm
Ceiling: 2000m
Never Exceed Airspeed: 200 knots

The Osel Neba is powered by eight 2500kw turboprop engines manufactured by Veragrad Aviation solutions. The turboprops can rotate through 360 degrees in the vertical axis, allowing precise altitude changes even while not underway. Steering is provided by the inverted Y tail and lateral jets mounted in the nose. The massive size of the vehicle and need for ballast also provides for lots of fuel storage space, giving the zeppelin a standard operational radius of 2000nm. When extremely heavy lifts are in process, the range can be reduced to 500nm, allowing for 50 more tons of cargo to be carried, though this is recommended only in emergencies, as it places undue strain on the gondola.

Cost: $93 million

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[tag; you're going to see a lot of purchases from me since I have no standardized military transport.]

OOC: Excelent! Hehehe =) If you like the concept, there are a lot of modified versions that will be coming out soon. Engineering, firefighting, AEW....

OOC: sorry if I am wrong but do you think it would be a good idea bringing a fairly slow and big zeppelin into a combat situation possibly into enemy teritory full of helium. It would make a big enough target for AA fire to take it down with ease. It would go down in a big ball of flames. That is if you were planing to even take it into combat situations but that is what I gathered from your post. I think you should rethink what you would be using it for and decide wether you want a zeppelin carrying highly flamable helium with a large number of men and cargo onboard.

1. Hydrogen is inflammible, not helium. helium is one of the most inert gasses there is... a noble gas. it doesn't burn. And even if it was filled with hydrogen, the danger would be vanishingly small. Since hydrogen is so much lighter than air, if the ballonet is punctured, the hydrogen will vent upwards and then ignite. The Hindenburg tragedy was largely due to the inflammible coating on the envelope.

2. AA fire is singularly ineffective against a target this big. SInce the envelope and ballonets are so flimsy, the shells woiuld pass through without exploding, just poking small holes in it. It takes a lot of hits to damage something like this. Admittedly, a high rof cannon could rip it appart given time, but that's unlikely to occur because...

3. It's not a combat vehicle. It's a long range transport. Note the complete absence of weaponry?... it would be easy to mount a machinegun or two on it, but I didn't bother because it's not meant to fight the enemy any more than a freighter or a C-3 is. That doesn't mean that it will never come iunder fire, I agree, but the 8 engines, 10 ballonets, and other redundant design systems should keep it in one peice. And when they do come down, they come down very slowly and gently.

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Message to Chairman, Veragrad Transportation Planning Council.

Sent by General Jan Törn, FOA (Footpads Office of Acquisitions).



The FOA would be interested in leasing, with an option to buy, two SZ-2 dirigible transports.

Cost is negotiable, but an initial fee of 15% of purchase price plus another 10% of purchase price quarterly seem fair. If purchase is decided on the paid leasing fees should count towards total purchase price, if not the dirigbles will be returned on an as is basis.

Estimated evaluation period is one year.

Both parties should have the right to immediately end the contract at any time.

Cost would if acceptable be an 46,5 million initial payment plus a further 18,6 millions quarterly.


The evaluation profile is aimed at investigating the platforms suitability as a long range, low operational cost, runway independent delivery system for a mobile field hospital or aid deliveries, as well as an alternative heavy lift vehicle transporting materiele from offshore transport ships. Both mission profiles are under secure conditions so no further modification of avionics beyond the addition of basic IFF or civil transponder and FAF navigation systems will be necessary.

If feasible FAF is in the future interested in acquiring a larger facsimile of this system, with an internal cargo space capable of containing a full military grade surgical hospital in a single mission. Estimated transport capacity needed is expected to be 450 metric tons, however the equipment is low-density and should not need a reinforced structure beyond that required by upscaling the basic design.



Jan Törn, Office of Acquisitions.

Message to Chairman, Veragrad Transportation Planning Council.

Sent by General Jan Törn, FOA (Footpads Office of Acquisitions).



The FOA would be interested in leasing, with an option to buy, two SZ-2 dirigible transports.

Cost is negotiable, but an initial fee of 15% of purchase price plus another 10% of purchase price quarterly seem fair. If purchase is decided on the paid leasing fees should count towards total purchase price, if not the dirigbles will be returned on an as is basis.

Estimated evaluation period is one year.

Both parties should have the right to immediately end the contract at any time.

Cost would if acceptable be an 46,5 million initial payment plus a further 18,6 millions quarterly.


The evaluation profile is aimed at investigating the platforms suitability as a long range, low operational cost, runway independent delivery system for a mobile field hospital or aid deliveries, as well as an alternative heavy lift vehicle transporting materiele from offshore transport ships. Both mission profiles are under secure conditions so no further modification of avionics beyond the addition of basic IFF or civil transponder and FAF navigation systems will be necessary.

If feasible FAF is in the future interested in acquiring a larger facsimile of this system, with an internal cargo space capable of containing a full military grade surgical hospital in a single mission. Estimated transport capacity needed is expected to be 450 metric tons, however the equipment is low-density and should not need a reinforced structure beyond that required by upscaling the basic design.



Jan Törn, Office of Acquisitions.

General Jan Törn, FOA

Sir,

Your proposal for the lease of two SZ-2 Osel Neba Transports is entirely acceptable, and we hope that you are sufficiently pleased with their performence to purchase them outright. In addition to their lease, however, we are willing to dispatch two demonstraition crews and maintenence training personnel. As large scale dirigibles are something of an oddity, we feel that proper training is essencial for an accurate evaluation, and especially to prevent damage to the units. Adding the demonstration crews, instructors, and training software will increase the initial cost by a mere $5 million; a bargain compared to the costs of repairing a unit that was damaged due to a preventable pilot error.

The SZ-2 is extremely well suited to ferrying cargo to and from offshore vessels and platforms, a mission that Verdant Archipelagan airships find themselves performing frequently; the underbelly sling is designed to accept standard sized containers and the abundance of ballast (the ocean) makes on and off-loading extremely easy.

The SZ-2 is also well suited for the rapid deployment of mobile field hospitals and aid shipments. The Verdant Achipelago Trading Consortium is currently investigating the possibility of a dedicated hospital airship in conjunction with our engineers. A new airframe almost certainly will need to be developed because the SZ-2 is not designed to land, and lifting paitents up by sling is far too risky an evolution. Our designers are currently toying with the concept of a slightly heavier than air vehicle with a skirt very much like a hovercraft's; when the vessel lands, fans reduce the pressure in the skirt, causing the vessel to stick to the ground. Although heavier than air, the envelope will act as an airfoil, and the engines will be more than powerful enough to hover the vehicle at a constant altitude.

Please give us your feedback on our proposed design, and suggest any alterations your engineers think would improve patent comfort and general effectiveness.

Alexi Molokov, Veragrad Transportation Planning Council, Chairman.

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Chairman Alexi Molokov, Veragrad TPC.


The offer demonstration crews and maintenace personell will greatly speed up type evaluation and is appreciated and accepted. However, we have no real need to actually purchase training equipment unless a final decision to acquire the type is made.

Therefore the FOA suggest the following procedure;

FOA leases 2 SZ-2 dirigbles from VA Veragrad TPC with crew and maintenance personell as per earlier outlaid plan. The personell transfers to a FAF (Footpads Air Force) base, as designated by FOA, to prepare it for operational handling of the type 2-3 weeks before actual vehicle transfer. When operational dirigbles arrive to the base basic evaluation will be started (airfield ops, unloaded maneuver, reliability tests under operational conditions specific to Footpads needs, flight characteristics evaluation and so on).

If the type proves suitable for extending evaluation, ie if we detect no direct operational difficulties that need remedeing, the evaluation programme will extend into its second face, including endurance tests, handling in difficult weather (within safety limits as set out by manufacturer of course), and general payload loading and handling while loaded. During these tests the first vehicle will be evaluated by the Army while the second vehicle will be allocated to the Navy for shipborne and amphibious interface operations.

When the type has passed the first set of tests FAF will send two crews and maintenance teams to VA for interim type training and doctrinal evaluation as held by you for your own crews.

Cost for evaluation crews and maintenace will be acceptable if falling within 10 million per annum (this includes FAF costs and things like living quarters for VA personell). Fuel, basing and additional maintenace costs will be borne by FOA/FAF.


If the decision is made to go ahead with a full-scale procurement programme, so far we see a potential need for 8-16 examples (one or two transport wings of 8), VA will assist FAF to set up an indigenous training programme, including flight and maintenance simulators as well as FAF-interfacing air control software if needed.

Estimated cost of the assistance programme is estimated at 5% of total cost of a maximum number acquisition (16 units), or just below 75 million total.

Cost plan for the evaluation programme as of now is as follows;

Initial lease fee
=46.5 million $

Annual personnell/maintenance fund, 50% attributable directly to VA expenditures.
=10 million $

Monthly lease fee
=18.6 million $

Projected costs for training programme assistance
=74.4 million $

FOA will certainly provide information regarding the evaluation of the type to Veragrad TPC, as well as share any modification specs of a non-classified nature if found to be needed.



General Jan Törn, CO Footpads Office of Acquisitions.




[OOC]Sorry for the delay...

I intended to RP the evaluation/modification process if you want to, but the pace may be a little slow since the world seemingly crashed over my head yesterday... busy busy busy.

Damn this thing called "Real Life". ;)

OOC: Sure, we can RP it out if you wish. Could be fiun =) And don't worry about intermittent posting... I have exams.

IC

General Törn, CO Footpads Office of Acquisitions,

Your proposal for the lease of two SZ-2 Osel Neba transports and the accomidation of the demonstration crews and maintenence personnel is acceptable. The airships, serial numbers 042602-4010031 and 042602-4030040 are currently having peripherals installed, and the demonstration crews, under the command of Colonel Tatiana Zatulovskaya. They can be ready to depart in two days, and estimated flight time will be 10 days.

We look forward to recieving your evaluation of the airship, and to further co-operation in the future.

Alexi Molokov, Veragrad TPC

Yea.... now what if i shoot a proxy detonating Air to Air missile at the blimp? What if I shoot 10-20?

You would shred the envelope, perforate the gasbags, smash the engines, and the thing would drift slowly down to the ground, possibly taking an entire day to do so. Ballast would be dumped, the cargo would be releaced at a low altitude, and the crew and passengers would grab parachutes and bail out.. Now. What would happen if you shot the same number of missiles at a C-3? It would blow up. If you shot SSMs at a freighter? It would sink.

It's also not a blimp. It has an inernal framework.

Yea.... now what if i shoot a proxy detonating Air to Air missile at the blimp? What if I shoot 10-20?

Yea.... now what if i shoot a proxy detonating Air to Air missile at the C130? What if I shoot 10-20?

;)

This ain't a CAS aircraft dude. :)

Just to add to VA's comments and give my evaluation of the subject;

I will assume a direct hit with a (1) heavy SAM (lets assume a ~75 kg fragmentation warhead). I use SAM's since they generally carry more powerful warheads than AAM's.

I'd say you could count on serious damage to the balonets. The one struck would be totally shredded due to the pressure wave and become a complete loss, those next to it severely damaged by shrapnel but not enough to immediately deflate them. The ones further away would not be affected much by the pressure wave. Shrapnel density decreases diametrically with the distance from the detonation, but with only ten big balonets all are almost guaranteed to be punctured several times.

I'd only assume catastrophic deflation of a total of 1-3 balonets, however the rest will most likely leak seriously depending on the number of punctures. Most likely result would be some sort of acontrolled crash. That is unless structural integrity is also compromised (wich it may well be since it uses a keel). If the keel is broken a somewhat less controlled crash of some sort is probable.

A medium SAM (~25kg fragmentation warhead) would cause less damage (naturally) and will only cause catastrophic deflation of 2 balonets maximum (if striking exactly at a seem between balonets). More likely damage would be one catastrophic deflation (if a balonet is struck), serious leakage of adjoining balonets and small leakage from the rest. Assuming structural integrity remanis a controlled crash is assured.

Both these missiles will cause serious fatalities if striking the crew gondola, the heavy almost assuring complete crew loss, and the medium not far behind. You can assume crew casualties in both cases since the lightweight material the gondola is made of most likely will not stop fragments.

A small SAM (MANPADS, ~2kg warhead).

A direct hit will cause a serious leak on the struck balonet/balonets, but not deflation. Adjoining balonets will probably only get leaks or only negligible leaks like the rest.

If you fire 10 heavy or medium SAM's you will probably catastrophically deflate most if not all the balonets, break the keel in several places causing structural failure and kill the entire crew even if you don't hit their gondola directly. Rags, crumpled frame and bloody remains coming crashing down to the earth.

If you fire 10 light SAM you will probably cause enough leakage to force a controlled landing within the hour or so. Barring crew casualties or a direct strike on the keel (wich may well resist this level of strike) the dirigble will remain operational and controllable all the way down, and may well make it to a close airfield.

If the cargo is struck a lot depends of what is carried naturally.

Overall the survivability is greater than that of a comparable cargo aircraft.

OOC: Sure, we can RP it out if you wish. Could be fiun =) And don't worry about intermittent posting... I have exams.


Ok, its on then. :)

But you've been warned, I may not post every day. ;)

It isn't even as serious as that! The ballonets are not balloons... they don't pop. And they are very large, made of fairly tear resistant fabric. Of course a large SAM will rip it up pretty badly, but because of the shear size of the envelope, critical damage is far from assured. The entire envelope isn't taken up by ballonets, there are large void spaces, used for storing fuel and cargo. It may interest you to know that almost half of the total weight of the vehicle is fuel and payload (about 49%). 10% of the total mass is fuel, or thereabouts, meaning that by simply dumping fuel, the complete loss of a ballonet can be compensated. Assuming the airship is operating at half cargo capacity, an additional two ballonets can be lost, and balanced off simply by dumping water balast. At this point, of course, the airship has almost certainly lost engines and suffered signifigant damage to the gondola, and is no longer really airworthy, but it's still in the air, and can be brought down safely.

as for a single hit almost certianly killing everyone in the gondola... it's possible, but not nessisarily true. Remember, the gondola is aproximately 60m long... That's a lot of volume to nail with a single missile.

It isn't even as serious as that! The ballonets are not balloons... they don't pop. And they are very large, made of fairly tear resistant fabric. Of course a large SAM will rip it up pretty badly, but because of the shear size of the envelope, critical damage is far from assured. The entire envelope isn't taken up by ballonets, there are large void spaces. It may interest you to know that almost half of the total weight of the vehicle is fuel and payload (about 49%). 10% of the total mass is fuel, or thereabouts, meaning that by simply dumping fuel, the complete loss of a ballonet can be compensated. Assuming the airship is operating at half cargo capacity, an additional two ballonets can be lost, and balanced off simply by dumping water balast. At this point, of course, the airship has almost certainly lost engines and suffered signifigant damage to the gondola, and is no longer really airworthy, but it's still in the air, and can be brought down safely.

What? For a heavy lift dirigble wouldn't you need to use the volume somewhat more effectively than that? Empty space wouldn't make up more than a small fraction of total volume surely (unless counting the empty storage area).

It wasn't the inherent balonet pressure that would cause the deflation I refer to, but the blast and pressurewave of the explosives themselves. 75kg is a lot of explosive! With a "direct strike" I refer to a missile detonating inside the vehicle/balonet, the blastwave would be contained by the balonet and that would shred it completely even if originally at ambient pressure level.

If detonating outside a hole the size of a barn door is more likely (this is what I meant would happen to adjoining balonets since I assumed they were either adjoined or at least very close).

10 strikes of 75 kg warheads would shread and break even a 200 meter long dirigble I'm afraid.

But granted, I shoould perhaps have mentioned that there is an actual possibility thats not too bad of surviving a single or a pair of strikes even from a heavy SAM, if trim is recovered in time (wich is probable unless the trim tanks themselves are struck).


as for a single hit almost certianly killing everyone in the gondola... it's possible, but not nessisarily true. Remember, the gondola is aproximately 60m long... That's a lot of volume to nail with a single missile.

Ah, missed that. But the "cockpit" (bridge?) and living area are would be fairly concentrated (in their relative areas), right? You'd need narrow beds otherwise. ;)

So, ALL the crew will most likely NOT be lost in a single strike. Everyone is in the shrapnel dangerzone, however the chance of everyone being struck is infitesimaly small. Point taken.

I'd assue that the heavy warhead would almost assuredly kill everything within 25 meters and have a shrapnel "dangerzone" (ie some chance of injury up to and including death) of several hundreds of meters (chances of getting hit gets really, really low at the longer ranges, I'm using "peacetime" danger area here).

Volume isn't so muich at a premium as mass. While, admitedly, void spaces in the envelope are largely filled with fuel and ballast, there are some spaces reserved for cargo, not to mention access passageways that allow access to large portions of the ballonets, allowing patching while underway and maintenence of the nose thrusters. Such passageways and void spaces are lagely on the bottom of the envelope, attached to the keel. Not coincidentally, they tend to occupy the space that is most likely to absorb a hit from a missile. There are plans to militerize the zeppelin into a combination transport and land-convoy command vehicle with sniper and MANPAAD observation decks, though this is still very preliminary. Other additions would include improved compartmentalization of the ballonets and uparmouring the gondola. even this modified version wouldn't be able to sustain heavy combat, but may disuade geurrillas who aren't armed with heavy SAMs from attacking.

Yes, the bridge, galley, and sleeping compartments are all fairly close together, however, they make the most of the 60m... the airship isn't really designed to carry much internal cargo, rather than crates in underbelly slings.

Perhaps I should add that in all but one example where I used "crash" I mean a slow, controlled and safe but inevitable landing (due to leakage and boyancy loss).

"Crash" is used since airships are very sensitive about where they land, and this one like most are more intended to be moored in the open or in a dedicated hangar more than actually land.


Btw, it wouldn't be a good thing if the fuel caught on, are those turboprops running on standard avgas?


Anyway, I don't intend to take these into harms way, but that stuff I'll save for IC posts (Less OOC, more IC Mr Footpads).

Anyway, I at least got a little inspiration about requests regarding design modifications here. ;)

I'll post that IC tomorrow.

Yes, they do run on standard av-gas, but have quick dump valves... they can double as ballast tanks

And yes, this one never touches down, though I'm working on a roll-on roll-off design too. Because of the internal framework and the relatively thick skin, it doesn't need to be moored in a hanger unless really bad weather is expected... lashing them to dedicated bouys in a harbor usually suffices.

You may want to make a new thread for the IC work, since this is basically a sale/OOC discussion thread.

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Hmm...

I may have underestimated the amount of business I was getting into here... perhaps I'll set something up during the weekend, otherwise I'll just keep to the IC "procurement documents" like the ones produced so far...

I hope you'll be ok with those in the thread, since they'd be "on subject" rather directly...

Sorry for blathering, see this post as another "bump" from an outside source...

Oh, that's fine. Just any serious character based RP deserves a thread of it's own.

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