The Airship Prize

From lvrj.com: “When you look up into the sky and see the M Resort blimp hovering above, you’re looking at a rarity. You’re watching Terry Dillard, one of just 56 certified blimp pilots in the world, steering one of just three of the planet’s airships with video screens on the side. As Dillard likes to point out, Earth houses more space shuttle pilots than it claims blimp captains. And, for that matter, the United States has as many space shuttles as it has video-screened airships. (more…)

From defensenews.com: “A 240 foot-long surveillance and reconnaissance airship demonstrator will take its maiden flight in August, climbing to 60,000 feet over the U.S. state of Ohio and staying up there for two weeks or more. The Lockheed-Martin High Altitude Long Endurance Demonstrator, or HALE-D, will carry a camera, datalink and communications link. Its maiden flight from Lockheed Martin’s Akron, Ohio, facility will be an important first step toward showing that unmanned airships could provide persistent ISR capability, monitoring areas as large as Florida or Iraq for up to six months at a time.” ISR Airship Demonstrator to Fly in August

From sfgate.com: “There have only been three complaints to speak of since Airship Ventures began its luxury zeppelin service flying passengers around the Bay Area three and a half months ago. The primates at the San Francisco Zoo are said to “freak out” when the world’s largest airship passes overhead, and two people on the ground have complained that passengers aboard the ship are looking at them through telephoto lenses. So Alexandra Hall, the chief executive and co-founder of Airship Ventures with her husband, Brian, has ordered that the 246-foot-long Eureka stay clear of the zoo and, well, she insisted that no spying is permitted.”
(more…)

Over 70 years after the notorious Hindenburg disaster, Zeppelin airships are finally making a comeback. As John Blackstone reports, a whole new design has been created for modern passenger travel.

From sun-sentinel.com: “A tubby, slow-moving airship ascended over South Florida to track tubby, slow-moving marine mammals as state biologists rode the Goodyear blimp to count manatees. The 192-foot Goodyear-Zeppelin Spirit of Innovation lifted off from Pompano Beach on a mission to assess the manatee population of Palm Beach County, taking advantage of the cold weather that drives manatees to a few well-known warm spots.
(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 inventorspot.com: “Russia was not the birthplace of the zeppelin, although it may mark the site of its renaissance in the modern age. It was July of 1900 in Germany, when Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, unveiled the world’s first zeppelin before a crowd of disbelieving locals from the town of Friedrichshafen. Although air ships had been flown for almost 50 years, this was the very first ridged airship. (This zeppelin was the very first to have a skeleton built around bags of lifting gas.)
(more…)

From New Scientist: ” METAL airships are one of the oldest notions in aeronautics. As early as 1670, Italian mathematician Francesco Lana published his Demonstration of the Feasibility of Constructing a Ship With Rudder and Sails, Which Will Sail Through the Air. Lana proposed evacuating the air from a set of copper spheres, which he reasoned would weigh less than the surrounding air and would ascend until the weight of the sphere reached equilibrium with the surrounding atmosphere. He calculated that four vacuum spheres, each with a diameter of 7.5 metres, could lift a boat carrying six passengers. (more…)

From NYTimes.com: “Imagine gliding in a floating hotel over the Serengeti, gazing down at herds of zebra or elephants; or floating over Paris as the sun sets and lights blink on across the city as you pass the Eiffel Tower. Such flights of fancy may one day be possible, if the dream of Jean-Marie Massaud, a French architect, comes true. As the cost of fuel soars and the pressure mounts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, several schemes for a new generation of airship are being considered by governments and private companies. “It’s a romantic project,” said Mr. Massaud, 45, sitting amid furniture designs in his Paris studio, “but then look at Jules Verne.””
(more…)

From NYTimes.com: “A new generation of dirigibles is being considered by governments and private companies as the price of fuel rises and concern for the environment grows. An airship operated by Deutsche Zeppelin- Reederei is shown preparing for a flight.” Follow the link below to the New York Times online presentation A New Age for Dirigibles