The Airship Prize

The Northwest Corridor Development Corporation’s 2009 Conference and Annual General Meeting (AGM) is being held in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. This year’s event will be staged from the evening of Monday, October 5 through the morning of Wednesday, October 7, 2009. All Conference proceedings and related events will take place at the Prince George Civic Centre, 808 Civic Plaza, Prince George, BC. Airship Prize to Present at NCDC “One Mind, One Heart, One Corridor”

Arctic logistics has historically been a case of doing the best we can with what we have. Consistent delivery success has limitations and transportation costs in the Arctic are extremely expensive. Requirement to store large quantities of goods for a whole season also requires larger warehouses and bigger fuel storage tanks. Opportunities for resource development languish due to the costs of access and exploitation. A new generation of cargo airships would have a revolutionary impact on northern transportation and logistics. View the details and agenda for this year’s event Oct. 7th to 9th and register!

Airship Ventures Zeppelin Eureka — which at 246 feet in length is the world’s largest airship — will return to Long Beach Airport on Sept. 2 for a week of commercial sightseeing flights, and we’re giving away a pair of free tickets. The tickets will go to the person who best answers the following question: “If you could fly over anything you wanted to in the world in Eureka, what would it be?” (more…)

From DefenseNews: “The U.S. Defense Department’s ISR Task Force will huddle early next month with industry officials about forming a consortium to speed development of high-flying, long-duration unmanned airships to gather battlefield intelligence.” (more…)

From The Torontoist: ” At daybreak on the morning of August 10, 1930, His Majesty’s Airship R-100—the British airship that had arrived in Montreal from England on August 1—made a surprise visit over Toronto. She hadn’t been expected until 9 a.m., but just before dawn the faint droning of motors announced her presence over the harbour. Milkmen stopped their carts mid-route, diners and staff emptied from restaurants, and night-watchmen all gazed skyward to marvel at the ghostly sight of the airship against the moonlit sky. Ship whistles greeted the airship and woke its passengers. Across the city, people in pyjamas rushed outdoors to witness the history-making event. (more…)

From RT.com: ” Exactly a century ago, in 1908, the first Russian airship blasted off in the then capital St Petersburg. Today, after successfully building scaled-down zeppelins, the Russian company RosAeroSistemy is planing to realize the ideas of the rocket scientist – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The Russian pioneer of space theory predicted that airships with hard shells could be highly reliable and maneuverable once the right technology was developed.
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From cnet news: “NASA celebrated the 75th anniversary of this iconic airfield and research center on Friday by dedicating a brand-new zeppelin from a private company called Airship Ventures. The zeppelin NT (“new technology”), which is one of just three currently functioning zeppelins that exist in the world, and the biggest, at 246 feet, was named “Eureka,” a name that relates to the fact that the ship is based in California, as well as the fact that it is “rooted in scientific principles,” said Brian Bell, a co-founder of Airship Ventures, the ship’s owner, minutes before he revealed the new name.

At an event here to celebrate the two milestones, Alexandra Bell, also a co-founder of Airship Ventures, spoke of the experience of getting the zeppelin program off the ground. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), as well as Pete Worden, director of the NASA Ames Research Center, attended the event.
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In order to develop a fair and robust criteria for the qualification for and ultimate award of the Airship Prize requires significant deliberations and input from the industry.

With this in mind, the Airship Prize will shortly be organizing and announcing an Airship Prize Criteria Development Workshop to gather input from many sources to ensure an effective and quality criteria for the award of the Airship Prize.