2006-10-15 06:32:51 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Cars & Transportation ➔ Aircraft
because hydrogen is highly explosive
u wouldn't get insurance
2006-10-15 06:33:59 · answer #1 · answered by veggiekayak 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's all a bit political really. It isn't solely because hydrogen is flammable because if that was a major worry for transport then no-one would use planes or cars with their flammable liquid counterparts.
The Hindenburg is the most famous hydrogen filled airship disaster. All most people know is that it was full of hydrogen, which got set on fire and thus it burned but this is not the case. The outer coating of the Hindenburg was woven with aluminium and iron, two cheif components of rocket fuel. Theory is that after travelling through a thunderstorm the craft picked up a huge static charge that caused a spark when the crafts mooring lines contacted the earth. This ignited the explosive coating and then ignited the hydrogen.
Airships mainly went out of fasion as a whole because they were slow, subject to stong winds and rather expenesive. Plus passenger plane technology was becoming more refined. Otherwise we'd just fill them with helium.
2006-10-15 06:43:49 · answer #2 · answered by Chimbles 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Hindenburg was held aloft using hydrogen. However, at the time they didn't realize just how explosive hydrogen is. Helium can do the same thing that Hydrogen can do. You see this with balloons.
There is a lot of talk about airships making a big comeback it will be interesting to see if this actually comes to fruition. Apparently, there are companies out there that have designs for airships that can haul approximately four times as much cargo as a containership and can send one across the ocean for approximately the same amount of money.
I wonder if they took severe weather into consideration???
2006-10-15 13:18:19 · answer #3 · answered by Kelley S 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There was an article on tv last week. They found the fire was caused by spark from the ungrounded fabric skin and the frame of the dirrigible. The fabric was coated with a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum powder. That mixture is a very flamable and burns fast and hot. The flame front traveled 60 fps on the outside from tail to nose. Of course the hydrogen burned after the envelope burned away. The Germans knew about it, but hid the records. We just discovered them.
2006-10-15 06:46:17 · answer #4 · answered by jekin 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hydrogen is an extremely volatile gas. (look up LZ 129 hindenburg on wikipedia)
We now use Helium, like you get in fairground baloons.
2006-10-16 04:25:19 · answer #5 · answered by genghis41f 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is because they had a tendency of catching fire,so they stopped using hydrogen and started to use helium
2006-10-15 06:40:17 · answer #6 · answered by taxed till i die,and then some. 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
hydrogen are too flammable to handle, which makes it very dangerous like in the zeppelin. that's the reason it went in flames.
2006-10-15 20:20:38 · answer #7 · answered by bojinx 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
one word hindenburg, look it up
2006-10-17 13:02:43 · answer #8 · answered by JD417 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because they had a nasty irritating habit of blowing up !!!!!!!!!!!
2006-10-15 13:55:40 · answer #9 · answered by redjonjak 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because it explosive
2006-10-15 06:34:56 · answer #10 · answered by N.O. Stunna 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋