The Airship Prize

A safer generation of airships is trying to usher in a low-carbon future for air cargo. The initial target: Developing markets – China, Africa, northern Canada – where transportation infrastructure is nonexistent.

The notion that airships represent the future of air cargo is being revived by a new generation of entrepreneurs some 75 years after a catastrophic fireball brought the industry to a screeching halt.

We may always carry freight in the bellies of passenger jets. But in a fully mature hybrid market, airships should replace the rest of the fixed-wing cargo fleet.

– Barry Prentice, University of Manitoba

Far safer than the Hindenburg, whose tragic 1937 docking remains an icon of aerospace gone wrong, these modern airships are a hybrid of lighter-than-air and fixed-wing aircraft. They can loft enormous payloads without requiring the acres of tarmac or miles of roadway necessary for conventional air and truck transport. And they do so at a fraction of the fuel and cost of aircraft.

Airships “give you access and much larger payloads at much lower costs,” said Peter DeRobertis, project leader for commercial hybrid air vehicles at Lockheed Martin’s Aeronautics and Skunk Works division in Fort Worth, Texas. “It’s also a green aircraft; you’re not polluting.”

Today’s airships could conceivably be used to transport everything from ripe pineapples to heavy industrial equipment direct to the customer. Shippers, for example, could roll tractors, backhoes, and road graders onto a 50-ton hybrid vehicle at a factory and roll them off at the job site, easing logistics and cost. Link to full post on The Daily Climate

This assessment document from Defence Research and Development Canada which was requested by Canadian Operational Support Command (CANOSCOM) is a scientific analysis by the agency that reinforces our belief in the real need for airships to serve and monitor the Northern Region from a sovereignty perspective.

Abstract:

An airship is a self-propelled lighter-than-air aircraft with directional control surfaces. Unlike an airplane, the lift for an airship is generated aerostatically by the buoyancy of a lifting gas. Airships are being considered by the Canadian Forces (CF) as potential platforms to address deficiencies in logistics transportation to support Northern operations. Airships could provide a cost-effective point-to-point delivery capability and could mitigate several limitations (e.g., infrastructure requirements) associated with other forms of transport.

This paper presents an assessment of the airship capability for logistics heavy lift in support of CF Northern operations. Performance measures were developed to assess the effectiveness and the responsiveness of the airship lift. A Monte Carlo simulation framework was also developed to simulate various logistics lift scenarios. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to address the impact of different operational parameters on the airship lift effectiveness. The study indicates that airships could potentially improve the sustainability of CF Northern operations. Significant potential cost avoidance and response time reduction could be realized on sustainment lift by using airships versus fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Link to full report

Economic development in Northern Canada is constrained by the cost of transportation and logistics.  The limited transportation options available increase the direct costs of shipping and add to the indirect costs of inventories. Concerns about climate change impacts, delays in environmental approvals and uncertainty regarding First Nations land claims further increase investment risk. As a result, the transportation solution offered by airships is gathering increased interest in northern Canada. (more…)

Imagine a flying machine that can cruise in the air for three weeks without landing – and does not need a runway when it finally comes back to earth.

It may sound like science fiction, but the Hybrid Air Vehicle – which looks like a traditional airship – can land anywhere and on any surface.

See the video with details from the BBC

Wake up, northerners! Where is the money to pay for the promised road to Nunavut? Wake up, southerners! The price tag of between $2 billion and $3 billion is money not spent on the crumbling streets and deteriorating roads of Manitoba. No amount of jiggery-pokery can produce a viable business case for this road. This is why we have seen zero interest in this scheme from the government of Canada. A bad idea by smart people is still a bad idea.

At the recent Arctic Gateway Summit, some conference observers may have concluded that the road to Nunavut is a foregone conclusion. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is naive to suggest that if any idea for northern development is put forward, the federal government will collaborate and support it. See full article here

Residents of Caribou, Maine, who happened to glance up at the skies over the former Loring Air Force Base recently got a glimpse of the future—although they might have thought they were looking at something out of the past. Engineers from my company, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), in McLean, Va., have been conducting test flights of a new type of lighter-than-air vehicle. Link to article on IEEE Spectrum

A long time has passed since Americans witnessed the flight of a zeppelin; an airship that uses an inner superstructure for support inside of an ‘envelope’. A rare chance exists in Oregon for enthusiasts to actually ride aboard a zeppelin, in fact it is the largest such craft in the entire world.

Most people have seen the Goodyear Blimp and similar airships, but nobody in the United States has seen a zeppelin since a fiery night in 1937 when the German zeppelin ‘The Hindenburg’ exploded in flames in front of a crowd of horrified people.

Recent research has proven that a flammable coating applied to the outside of the Hindenburg caused it to burst into flames; it wasn’t sabotaged and the actual design of the airship had nothing to do with the disaster. ‘Return of the Zeppelin’ – a Video Essay

From The Economist: “A CURIOUS cabal gathered recently in a converted warehouse in San Francisco for a private conference. Among them were some of the world’s leading experts in fields ranging from astrophysics and nanotechnology to health and energy. Also attending were entrepreneurs and captains of industry, including Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, and Ratan Tata, the head of India’s Tata Group. They were brought together to dream up more challenges for the X Prize Foundation, a charitable group which rewards innovation with cash. On July 29th a new challenge was announced: a $1.4m prize for anyone who can come up with a faster way to clean oil spills from the ocean.” Innovation prizes: And the winner is…

The zero emissions solar powered blimp Nephelios is preparing for a crossing of the English Channel this summer and the two videos in this post are of some initial flights of the blimp Nephelios as it prepares for this epic and important flight. The original flight was scheduled for the Summer of 2009 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Louis Bleriot’s historic crossing of the Channel in an airplane. Solar powered blimp Nephelios prepares for Channel crossing

If the disaster in Haiti happened after cargo airships were again made available for service in humanitarian relief operations literally thousands of lives could have been saved. This is not a theory, wishful thinking or a pipedream as within hours of the earthquake occuring airships with heavy equipment, rescue teams, medical personnel and materiels could have landed where necessary and saved many from death under the rubble. (more…)