high altitude airships now flight testing: Rich Murray 2011.12.29
This technology, now growing exponentially, will in a decade put huge
solar powered airships into one-week spirals into orbit, and then into
orbit around Moon, Mars, and entire solar system, in perfect safety
without polluting, for hundreds of people in luxury at low costs.
http://airshipstothearctic.com/itinerary.html
Airships to the Arctic VI [ conference ]: A Game-Changer
December 5-6, 2011, Seattle Wa.
The sixth Airships to the Arctic conference explores the forward and
backward linkages of the emerging airship industry. The introduction
of transport airships will require new locations for transshipment and
generate economic opportunities that do not exist today. Just as
these other modes of transport spawned an array of input suppliers,
this conference examines the supply base of the airship industry.
Construction of large transport airships will create the need for
materials, engines, pilots, avionics and many other large and small
input suppliers.
http://airshipstothearctic.com/presenations.html
Lockheed has an airship in the works dubbed SkyTug that should be
commercially available by late 2013 with a range of 1,000 nautical
miles and a 20-ton payload. The 50-ton Skyfreighter is expected to
follow in late 2014.
Lockheed Martin's P-791 prototype airship sits on the tarmac following
its initial flight in 2006. Lockheed and several other aerospace
companies see modern airships as a low-carbon future for the cargo
industry. Photo courtesy Lockheed Martin.
May 3, 2011
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.
By Bruce Dorminey
For The Daily Climate
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.
A handful of companies have prototypes under development. Lockheed
has an airship in the works dubbed SkyTug that should be commercially
available by late 2013 with a range of 1,000 nautical miles and a
20-ton payload. The 50-ton Skyfreighter is expected to follow in late
2014.
The industry's future is initially aimed at leapfrogging the
conventional cargo transport infrastructure, freighting goods where
highways and airports don't exist -- Canada's frozen north; China's
western frontier; remote parts of Africa, Asia, and South America. No
airships are commercially available for cargo transport there yet. But
once established on the frontiers, experts say their versatility, cost
and fuel advantages should allow airships to penetrate mature freight
markets like the United States
http://www.blimpinfo.com/uncategorized/argus-one-scheduled-for-flight-testing/
Argus One Scheduled for Flight Testing
Posted on November 19, 2011 by LighterThanAirSociety
Source: UPI.com
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla., Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The mid-altitude Argus
One unmanned airship will undergo free-flight testing in December at
the U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Test Site.
World Surveillance Group, maker of the unmanned aerial vehicle, said
the tests and demonstrations are sponsored by the U.S. Department of
Defense and were rescheduled from a proving ground facility in Yuma,
Ariz.
Pentagon sponsors will provide pre-flight, frequency and free flight
coordination testing and access to facilities, while flight
preparation and testing will be conducted by WSGI’s technical partner,
Eastcor Engineering.
The Argus One (Credit: World Surveillance Group, Inc.)
WSGI says its Argus One is equipped with a “newly developed
stabilization system that autonomously controls the level of
