Refuelling between ships at sea or between planes in flight is not new.
Now that there are plans to built ultra-fast seagoing vessels and airships for stately global transport, another possibility opens up.
Today’s invention is a way to refuel one’s transoceanic airship from a fast-moving tanker ship.
These ships could slowly patrol underneath known flightpaths. Airships would carry only limited amounts of fuel at take-off in order to minimise manoeuvring fuel usage. When en route they could call on a tanker to accelerate and rendez-vous. Then they’d descend a little to allow a reinforced hose to be dropped to the ship.
A massive pump on board would deliver the fuel upwards, allowing much longer journeys than would otherwise be possible and providing a source of extra support in any emergency over the sea.
It’s left as an exercise for the reader to calculate the optimal combination of airship and tanker numbers in order to maximise the mass transported per unit of fuel.