The White Diamond

the age-old dream of flying was realized

for the first time in the late 18th

century and like a fever dream of the

ensuing mechanical age engineer's

devised all manner of motorized

contraptions some of them imitated the

flight of birds that did not go anywhere

but bold aviators had more practical

dreams they would fly machines that

today are known as aeroplanes

some of them resembled belts with wings

there were fragile and often things went

wrong

Aviation had its erly disappointments

and groundings but that did not deter

Alice from pursuing the great purpose

but what to do with passengers where

these planes powerful enough to carry

people and if so where to tuck them away

not much later stronger engines allowed

for greater payload in planes were built

like taxis

but that was not enough in order to

carry a significant number of passengers

massive clumsy planes had to be built

which required an array of high-powered

engines

but these behemoths could hardly get off

the ground

the real future of aviation was thought

to be the airship like the highways now

filled with automobiles the skies were

teem with airships

as the crowning achievement the German

engineer Graf Zeppelin built airships of

gigantic proportions they could carry a

multitude of passengers on

intercontinental voyages Zeppelin's

began regular flights from Europe to

India to Brazil to the United States

the cabin was so spacious that during

flight passengers enjoyed luxuries on a

par with a much slower ocean liners

dining rooms grand pianos even a dancing

hall

and then it all ended with a catastrophe

of the Hindenburg

the promise of the Zeppelin was never

completely discarded but it took until

the end of the 20th century for the idea

to be revived today applying non

flammable gases and with different

applications in mind a new breed of

high-tech engineers has emerged

I teach aerospace engineering here Queen

Mary University of London and this is my

laboratory here we've got aircraft and

what we're doing here is we're checking

the safety of the structure we're

bending it with a ton of load check

these panels don't buckle we've got

strain gauges on it and then we'll

measure the deflections in there to

check we don't have any distortions but

the most of the work we do in here is

aerodynamics and this yellow thing is a

big window the flow comes from this the

back of the room here is coming through

here goes around onto the floor and gets

up to about 100 miles per hour in there

so we could test things subsonically

less than the speed of sound and give us

useful information about the forces and

measure the forces on bodies like this

thing this isn't a model of an airship

or an airship body we can measure the

forces on the balance

but also we set up a little test here

with a smoke filament coming over the

top round the nose of the airship you

can see the flow there coming over the

top but come with me come right round

here this is a smoke tunnel this is used

for visualization you can see these comb

of smoke filaments coming down through

the smoke tunnel it's coming around this

model which is a model of the airship

it's round spherical with a code

underneath like a raindrop

the reason it's fat and round like this

is so it can be maneuverable now

Zeppelin's the big German Zeppelin's

were long shapes like cigars and they

could barely maneuver when they turn

they were fast but they could could

barely turn so this airship can turn

quite quickly and that's the little

breakthrough just just reducing the drag

by a factor of two the test here isn't

exactly representative because there's a

thin layer there we call the boundary

layer just a millimeter above the

surface

and that layer of air dictates the

entire flow around the airship but on

the big airship it will be a turbulent

little Eddie's in that boundary layer

and that will make the flow more

turbulent close the body and the

separation region it'll be closer it

should be even lower drag so I'm hopeful

this airship will be maneuvering from

these tests I'm quite confident we'll be

able to maneuver close the trees round

near them and that's the important thing

I want to get done in this test and from

what I've seen today what we've seen

here and the testing I've done the wind

times I'm confident we'll have a good

airship doctor Dori

you won't happen to your left hand gonna

be showy well when I was a small boy I

had an accident I was always interested

in spaceflight wanting to get to orbit

and things like that and I was building

a rocket town it's about 14 years old

and I was holding the rocket in this

hand and very I didn't understand

propellants if the chemistry teacher

just taught me the year before but I was

only 14 and the lesson I need it was a

year later about oxidation reactions and

I had a spontaneous explosion but

holding the rocket but luckily I live it

but at that time it was a 50% chance he

could have gone this way and looking on

alive today

so I recommend any any small children or

teenagers home be careful there you mess

around with rockets because I can't be

an astronaut now

for a long time I've had a dream of just

floating or flying zooming through the

air dreams during the night as well just

flying through cities and through

valleys and under bridges and flying

everywhere just floating above the

surface seeing life

we need something very maneuverable and

a balloon isn't ideal something like

this would be much better if it could be

quiet as well that's the important it's

gonna be really quiet you can see here

what I've got on the back is a small jet

engine just enough to lift my weight we

can realize our dreams this that's the

thing that I've learned in this whole

project is that you start from a concept

you do the design and you can actually

see your ideas being made and you can

realize dreams it's just a simple step

and it just requires a little bit of

determination but you can do it you can

do it whenever you want you just have to

have that dream just and then just zoom

up that's the thing we should let's go

boy let's go fly

carving north of London in these

gigantic hangars most of Great Britain's

glorious airships were built here dr.

doreen who plans to test his new

prototype

so that was the first time it's flown

and I think I think it on the whole I'm

quite confident again prides not quite

the right feeling to be honest with you

throughout this whole project until now

I feel quite a lot of heaviness which is

quite the difference to the levity show

you know I really want to have you know

the airships about levity being light

but I feel a little bit heavy about the

situation still but I'm getting back

some confidence because of what's doing

it fast because the past I mean it's

it's it's for me it's a little bit

difficult getting in an airship again

it's always brings back memories and you

asked me only about safety it brings

back all these memories and it was ten

years ago but I still think about that

constantly and it's nice to get back in

the air you know if you've had an accent

little bicycle anyone knows it it's the

best thing you can do is get back on a

bicycle what darling miss referring to

is a catastrophe which befell him with

an early airship he built