Dilbert: Hindenberg 2.0

An oxyacetylene mix has a very low activation energy. Looking at it wrong can set it off (almost). **Way** more sensitive than pure hydrogen.

Oxy-Acetalyne , from what I know, is designed to burn, easily.

Hydrogen?... no so.
It just "Does" burn, its not part of any design that it does, its just part of what it is....

Otherwise, it would be oxy-hydrogen mix that is used for burning things?....

But asides from that, the chance of a stray static charge from a wool sweater setting off a well contained Hydrogen balloon...

How many times have you seen a Balloon burst from just Static alone?...
In fact, we know that Static can be used in an entertaining way to make balloons stick to things...
Walls, kids hair, dogs, google you-tube and its full of them.

So if the Hydrogen is contained within the balloon, how do you get it to combustion from an outside source if you know that the outside source is not in its self capable of puncturing the balloon?....

Will static ignite Hydrogen therefore then becomes invalid until you get past will Static puncture a balloon....

Thermit is quite difficult to ignite even when it is properly mixed. Expecting a static spark to ignite
'thermit-style doping' is an extreme stretch.

However, a hydrogen gas leak could have mixed with atmospheric oxygen. That mixture would be ignitable with a small spark just as a acetylene/oxygen mixture could be.

www.amazingrust.com/Experiments/how_to/Thermite.html

I think I would take this in the direction of "replicate the results." Remember that this is Elbonian manufacture, so you can make as many mistakes as you want, including having the thing essentially be a lighter-than-air capacitor.

remember also that with the remote control system, camera, and transmitter, you have more options for damage to the envelope and ignition sources. add in the fact that it can be made extra flimsy to save weight.

Just saw a great documentary on WWI Zeppelins over Europe (England). The thing is, even after inventing a tracer round, the bullets still passed all the way through the hydrogen-filled gas bags without so much as igniting the hydrogen. Also, even alternating that with small explosive-tipped rounds failed to burn the airship since the bullets spread out along a long line. The gas bags continued to be just hydrogen with no oxygen to speak of inside. It took concentrating alternating rounds of explosive and tracer rounds all into one spot, as best the pilot could do, to bring down the first WWI Zeppelin. Quite a big deal at the time. Up to then, England had suffered about 5 waves of seemingly unstoppable Zeppelin assaults.

Anyone who knows this in greater detail, please help me with the facts, if you could!

This makes the story that a snapped tether line inside the Hindenburg first tore a sizable hole into one of the rear gas bags. Then, with air mixing in from the catwalk areas, the gas bag was ready for ignition... whatever that ignition turned out to be.

Remote Control Model balloons in the style of a Zeppelin.... erm, wouldnt they come already with Helium?....

In order.

It seems that the British did have .303 High Explosive and High Explosive Incendiary rounds available towards the end of WW1. Pure Incendiary rounds were available somewhat earlier and tracer rounds seem to have been in service before the war. The use of HE and HEI rounds for the .303 stopped by 1933, as the small rounds couldn't hold much explosive - and there was also a move towards metal skinned aircraft. These types of round were replaced with the Armour Piercing Incendiary round, which had also been used in WW1.

The references I've been able to find indicate that the HE rounds were kept for home defence units, partly out of concern that their use was illegal under international laws but mostly because the original rounds were based on nitroglycerine explosives and therefore somewhat unstable.

Tracer rounds seem to have been used as an aid to targeting, as many of the fighters being used to tackle Zeppelin's used guns that were mounted on the upper wing so the muzzle flash wouldn't blind the pilot when used at night. (Although the pilots probably also thought that it was a good idea because if the HE ammunition cooked off when firing they wouldn't have their face next to the gun). Tracers probably were not all that useful in air combat for bringing aircraft down even though the craft they were firing at were covered in canvas and in the case of the aircraft had a wooden frame. Unless a tracer round got stuck in the frame I'd expect the effects to be roughly the same as for normal ball ammunition. And even if a round did get stuck I'd suspect that the tracer would burn out before it had a chance to set fire to anything.


As far as the Hindenburg goes, I don't think you need a ruptured gas bag - not least because she didn't use a small number of large bags but a huge number of smaller ones. Hydrogen gas would leak out of the bags naturally, and the gas could have collected inside the envelope where it would have mixed with air. This would have added fuel to any fire that started in the balloon. Once a fire took hold the smaller gas bags would have ruptured from the heat as the fire spread. As this occurred at the rear of the craft the result would have been inevitable, the loss of the bags would have meant loss of lift so the rear of the craft would have dropped. This in turn would mean that the fire and heat would not have spread out of the top of the balloon but along it - rupturing more gas bags as it went. The convection currents would have allowed the hydrogen gas to mix with air, but not enough to create an explosive mixture, just enough to feed the fire.
This is in keeping with the footage of the Hindenberg, and with the test results MB got from their testing.

In regards the airship in the strip, its size would probably make the use of small individual bags impractical. So it would either be a single large gas bag, or two to three hydrogen filled balloons contained inside the external envelope. Neither would be particularly safe if the bag(s) ruptured.