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Originally Posted by chrispenycate  Oh, what a waste. you could make the top of the airship transparent to microwaves, and make the bottom reflective, and a near perfect parabola that focusses the waves onto the receiving antenna, with a laser beam aimed back to the satellite so the maser beam is always tracking the ship (interesting in a storm) with your main restriction (not as easy as it sounds) that the airship doesn't fly over inhabited regions; aerostatoports outside the cities and weather forcasting a precision science (there's a lot of surface area on a big airship, and the onboard motors can't compete with a strong wind, so you have to find the wind that's going your way… |
A neat idea that - but the non-human race who devised the airships are very cautious people and don't want those microwaves anywhere near them, thanks
. They actually have a measure of weather control, which removes one of the main hazards to airship operations. And I had built in a feedback system which instantly shut off the satellite beam if it began to stray from the centre of the drone's collecting aerial.