Comment by WorldPeas

> not to speculate too much but they sound like they could be an ideal short-run, low-impact, high capacity transit system if done right

Except they are the exact opposite of all of that. The just flat out suck. But its one of those easy traps to fall into.

The German company Cargolifter lost a nice chunk of money. And they aren't the only ones.

The technology hasn't really changed for a long time. And nobody has yet made it useful.

A few reason, they are INSANELY big for a pretty tiny amount of actual payload. That means infrastructure for them is really damn big. That means they hang in the wind like its nothing, you need massive energy just to stabilize them in one place. They are just generally really hard to control.

They are very expensive to design and build. And once you build it, unlike with a 737, you can't transport 100s of people multiple times a day, nonono these things are slow, and picking up cargo is slow, and picking up people is insanely slow. So you can operate this thing for like a day, and maybe do a few cargo lifts. Not exactly a great business. Ah and btw, you also need to design a quasi unique aircraft with lots of fun failure modes and issues that you get to discover and rediscover. They are the opposite of high capacity. And you better hope the weather is good because your not picking up people if it isn't.

And scaling the operation? Your never gone mass produce these things and each one needs its own massive infrastructure. See what the government paid for in Germany, its now a ski resort: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargolifter-Luftschiffhalle

So have fun building a new gigantic building for each new craft.

So lets just do what we know works and has worked for 200 years, trains and ships.