HAV receives UK funding to bring airship back to flight
From Flightglobal.com: Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) has received additional funding from the UK government to further develop its Airlander hybrid airship, as it moves towards an anticipated return to flight.
Under the government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF), some £297 million ($455 million) was awarded to 63 projects, including HAV’s Airlander development.
“The RGF funding will enable a truly groundbreaking, entirely new type of aircraft to return to flight,” HAV says.
The premise behind the RGF is that government investment in small and medium programmes in the UK will stimulate further investment by private financiers.
“The government backing immediately unlocks equity investment from private individuals and will ultimately lead to commercial agreements with customers, who will continue the funding of the business through a series of trials and demonstrations taking place during 2016,” the company says, suggesting also that this will subsequently lead to future orders.
Beth Stevenson/Flightglobal
This is the second large government grant that HAV has received, it says, following an Innovate UK grant award in 2014 that funded engine and windtunnel work currently under way. See full article here.
