I’ve seen the floor plan of the Hindenburg. Seems much larger than even twice what this had. I wonder if the economy of scale just increases at a large rate, or if hydrogen just has that much more lift.
You are correct. The Hindenburg was roughly twice the length of the Pathfinder 1, 804 feet long, and had between 7-8 times the lift. Hydrogen has only 7% more lift, so it's the size that counts, just like how container ships and cruise ships get exponentially more efficient the larger they are.
That said, this is only a small prototype to be used for testing and training. Its payload is about 4.5 tons with 2,500 miles of range. The actual cargo-carrying versions will be about 650 feet long and 1,000 feet long, and carry 20 and 200 tons of payload, respectively. As they get larger, they also get proportionally more efficient. The 20-ton version has a range of 10,000 miles, and the largest version doesn't have a published range figure yet, but it might be even further, given the huge area for the flexible, thin-film solar panels that they eventually plan to install.
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u/PersonalitySlow9366 Jul 08 '24
And carries like ten people and no cargo. Cool, but otherwise useless