Deltoid Pumpkin Seed
by John McPhee · first published 1963
11mentions
5recommended by
9HN commenters
2014–2025first – last mentioned
56% recommend33% neutral11% critical
Why HN recommends it
Narrative account of a startup trying to commercialize a hybrid airship/airfoil craft; praised for its detail on airship history and for an early look at computer-based optimization of a real design problem.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
John McPhee wrote a fine book on the effort to commercialize lighter than air heavy transport: The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed. I was watching a BBC episode on Africa's geography and its lack of navigable rivers or good harbors, and how that has held back economic development. These airships came to mind as a cheap way to access…
on “The giant hangar poised for an aviation revolution” ↗…Science, Religion by Malinowski Meditiations by Marcus Aurelius Oranges by John McPhee The Dream of the Enlightement, Anthony Gottlieb Nonexistant Knight/Cloven Viscount, two novellas by Calvino Italo Deltoid Pumpkin Seed by John McPhee Infrastructure by Brian Haynes I'd recommend almost all of them, but especially the first two, and Autobiography of Red(poetry).
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…the Xerox machine. I think I lent my copy to a co-worker who I'm fairly certain never read it. They also never gave it back. Oh well. For anyone looking for a book in a similar vein I recommend "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" by John McPhee.
on “A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)” ↗…can see a lot of advantage from a comfort perspective, even if it does take more time than a plane. If you are interested in the history of airship travel, and its rise and fall, I highly recommend The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed by John McPhee. It's a short book about an unlikely union of ex Navy airshipmen and evangelical Christians chasing the impossible dream of brining airship travel back in an era where the world had moved…
on “Bring back hydrogen lifting gas” ↗You're probably familiar with the AEREON 26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEREON_26 But if you haven't read John McPhee's excellent book The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, I'd highly recommend doing so.
on “Launch HN: Buoyant (YC S21) – Blimp drones for air freight” ↗One of my favorites, which I read as a teenager in the 70s, was "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed", about a startup that tried to commercialize a hybrid airship/airfoil craft. It provided the first description I'd read of using a computer approximation to solve a real-world optimization problem (in…
on “Using the wrong dictionary” ↗Everything old is new again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEREON_26 (see also, The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, by John McPhee)
on “World's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley” ↗I believe it was Sam Clemens who said that if history doesn't repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. John McPhee wrote about a similar flight mechanism in the Deltoid Pumpkin Seed back in '71. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEREON_26
on “Engineers Combined a Plane and a Blimp to Make a Plimp Airship” ↗I think it's been proposed, and a book on one such proposal is John McPhee's _The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed_.
on “A quick note on airships (2020)” ↗…AEREON 7 had. While the AEREON 7 never materialized, a scaled down test aircraft known as the AEREON 26 flew, and demonstrated the possibility of building a hybrid airship/airplane. The book "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" describes the efforts of the AEREON corporation's attempt and failure to bring airships back into the mainstream of aviation. History seems to be repeating itself here. I would love to see airships…
on “Airships Rise Again (2021)” ↗It's the "too much information" style of writing. The subject has to be worth it. I've read his "Basin and Range" (geology), "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" (aircraft design), and "The Curve of Binding Energy" (nuclear weapons). Only the last is worth reading. He went off on a years-long geology tangent, interesting only if you're really into geology. William…
on “The McPhee method for writing deeply reported nonfiction” ↗