The flight took off from Jingmen and landed at Jingzhou, both in Hubei province of Central China, after a flight of one hour and 46 minutes.  

The AS700, which is the first Chinese thrust-vector-control airship to be certified, can carry 10 people, including crew, in a single capsule. With a maximum takeoff weight of 4,150 kg and a maximum flight range of 700 km, the AS700 can stay aloft for up to 10 hours. 

Its developer, the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), has orders for 18 units of the type and expects the AS700 to enter service commercially before the end of 2024.  

The AS700 airship will first be used in the tourism market, although it is likely that other applications, such as search and rescue missions, will be developed at a later date. 

Airships are also making a commercial aviation comeback in the West, where companies such as United States-based LTA, Britain精东影业 Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) and France精东影业 Flying Whales are all developing new generation airships for passenger and cargo transportation.  

Introducing Flying Whales: the largest cargo aircraft to-be

• Aviation Technology and Innovation
• Paris Air Show

by精东影业 Team

2 minute read

Euro Airship, the startup behind this project, has been working on this project for a decade, and since 2020 it has been defining the industrial aspects of it, together with technology and consulting firm Capgemini. 

The result is 鈥淪olar Airship One鈥�, 151-metre long rigid airship that will be filled with 50,000 m3 of helium. Its propulsion system will get energy from two sources: 4,800 m2 of solar panels will cover the upper half of the aircraft, while, at night it will use hydrogen to power a fuel-cell. 

The journey, which if everything goes according to plan, should kick off in 2026, will cover 40,000 km, flying from west to east and without touching down at any point and at an average height of 6,000 meters.聽The expected journey time is between 20 and 30 days.

鈥淪olar Airship One鈥� will have a crew of three. One of them will be adventurer and sustainable flight pioneer Bertrand Piccard, who has already completed two record-setting circumnavigations of the globe, one, in 1999, on a hot air balloon, the other, in 2016, on the Solar Impulse, an experimental electric aircraft fitted with solar panels. 

Also onboard will be Dorine Bourneton, the first disabled woman to become an aerobatic pilot (Bourneton was severely injured at age 16 in an aircraft accident) and Michel Tognini, a former French Air Force fighter pilot and European Space Agency astronaut (Tognini has been twice to space, in 1992 and 1999). 

They aim to prove that fossil-free flight is feasible over large distances and that airships can be used as a sustainable mode of transportation for a number of commercial applications. 

During their around-the-world flight, the Euro Airship crew plans to broadcast their activities to schools, academia and governments to raise awareness about the possibilities of this technology. A documentary film is also being planned. 

Airship technology has drawn the interest of a number of startups in the last decade. In addition to Euro Airship, other companies that are working on this technology are Flying Whales, which is also based in France, UK-based Hybrid Air Vehicles and American firm Lighter Than Air (LTA), which is funded by Google founder Sergey Brin.聽

There have been ups and downs in the process that some call 鈥榯he airship renaissance鈥�. A few decades ago, dozens of companies 鈥� including giants like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman 鈥� were promising the return of the airship with their own projects to build new, big, highly advanced and incredibly efficient lighter-than-air aircraft. 

On June 15, 2022, HAV announced the launch customer for the Airlander 10: Air Nostrum, a Spanish regional airline which ordered ten Airlander 10s in a passenger configuration. 

Spanish airline Air Nostrum to become launch customer for Airlander 10

• Sustainability

byGabriele Petrauskaite

2022-06-15

鈥�One of the things we have been looking at is true city center to city center passenger experience,鈥� says Durham. 鈥淎nd one of the things we think we offer with Airlander is operating closer to the city center. We don’t need to be at a fixed airfield, which typically is many, many, many miles away from the center. We can operate off water, in many cities that are based on bays or river estuaries.鈥� 

The agreement, which was announced on June 15, 2022, marks the first commercial order for the airships, making the airline group the launch customer.  

According to a statement from , the diesel engine-driven ducted propeller-powered airships are expected to “to diversify and complement Air Nostrum Group精东影业 existing aircraft fleet currently operating on these routes, carrying 100 passengers while producing only around one tenth of the harmful emissions.鈥� 

鈥淭he Airlander 10 will drastically reduce emissions and for that reason, we have made this agreement with HAV,鈥� executive president of Air Nostrum Carlos Bertomeu was quoted as saying in a statement.  

He continued: 鈥淪ustainability, which is good news for everyone, is already a non-negotiable fact in the daily operations of commercial aviation. Agreements such as these are a very effective way to reach the de-carbonization targets.鈥� 

Tom Grundy, CEO of HAV said that the manufacturer will start production for Air Nostrum精东影业 order in 2022. The manufacturing process will take place at the company精东影业 site in South Yorkshire and will create up to 1,800 new job opportunities. 

鈥淎irlander is designed to deliver a better future for sustainable aviation services, enable new transport networks and provide rapid growth options for our customers. Our partnership with Air Nostrum, as the launch Airline for Airlander 10, leads the way towards that future,鈥� Grundy said. 

鈥淎s countries like France, Denmark, Norway, Spain, and the UK begin to put in place ambitious mandates for the decarbonization of domestic and short-haul flight, Hybrid Air Vehicles and Air Nostrum Group are demonstrating how we can get there 鈥� and get there soon,鈥� he continued.  

The hybrid airship Airlander 10, which the company has been developing since 2012, is equipped with a set of pneumatic skids designed to let the airship land and take off from a wide variety of terrain, as well as from water. Powered by four Thielert Centurion diesel engines, the air vehicle could be used for both passenger and cargo flights as it can carry up to 14,000 kilograms (30,000 lbs) of freight for a flight range of 3,900 kilometers (2,400 mi), according to the .  

All 10 airships will serve regional Air Nostrum routes across Spain with the first hybrid air vehicle expected to be delivered to the carrier in 2026. 

So, it would require a lot of effort to pitch them to the public as something modern and desirable. Yet many enthusiasts have tried to do exactly that. In recent years, scores of companies have spent time and money developing a new generation of airships, racing to build blimps that could be used for everything from joyrides and cargo transportation to surveillance.

For the proponents of this resurgence, the main selling point of airships was efficiency. Unlike airplanes or helicopters, lighter-than-air aircraft do not have to run powerful engines to stay airborne. They consume much less fuel, and thus 鈥� in theory 鈥� could be much cheaper to operate, on top of being more environmentally friendly.

But, for one reason or another, the wave of excitement around the resurrection of airships waned. Most ventures dissolved without even constructing a prototype; militaries and large aerospace companies stopped investing in the field, and even the Zeppelin company, which brought back its airship-producing arm after half a century, was content to make just a dozen airships.

What happened to airship renaissance?

• Civil Aviation

byValius Venckunas

2021-03-13

The technology entered what is sometimes referred to as 鈥榯he chasm鈥� 鈥� the period when the rose-tinted glasses fall off, enthusiasm dies, and reality starts weighing hard on ideas that seemed within reach just a short time ago. Not all new and exciting technologies survive this period. Could airships fall victim to this?

Well, some airship companies are still in the market. They continue to talk of lighter-than-air as the transport of the future, and try to attract attention and capital with regular updates.

Convenience and comfort

Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) is one of these companies. A few years ago it was the poster child of the airship renaissance; nowadays it is the only company that stays in the zeitgeist by regularly churning out well-tailored press releases about its ships鈥� design upgrades.

Its main product is the Airlander 10, a helium-filled non-rigid airship with three options for engines 鈥� diesel, hybrid or fully electric. It was conceived as a military platform back when the world精东影业 air forces intended to use airships for surveillance. After the idea was dropped, HAV reoriented itself towards the civilian market, adapting the already-constructed prototype.

The company has been on the same track ever since. It asserts that airships are the perfect vehicle for a whole range of missions that require efficiency and versatility rather than speed: an ability to take off and land vertically makes it as useful as any helicopter, but at a fraction of service cost. Delivering supplies to remote locations with unprepared landing areas would be bread and butter to the airship, and it could very well become an important part of disaster relief efforts worldwide.

Recently, HAV has also tried putting an emphasis on premium travel. After revealing the first renders of its spacious passenger cabin in early June 2021, George Land, Commercial Business Development Director, said something that modern airlines (especially the ones like Emirates and Qatar) could perceive as an insult: 鈥淔or many decades flying from A to B has meant sitting in a metal tube with tiny windows 鈥� a necessity but not always a pleasure. On Airlander, the whole experience is pleasant, even enjoyable.鈥�

Joyrides always were a part of airships鈥� repertoire, and with ceiling-to-floor windows, as well as an ability to safely cruise at low altitude, the Airlander is well suited for that. Yet 鈥� as Zeppelin精东影业 example shows 鈥� the market is not particularly large, and it would seem overly optimistic to expect multi-billion dollar investments in HAV to pay off through tourism market alone.  

However, according to the company, the airship is also well suited for regular transportation on regional routes. The logic is sound: with barely any noise and emission footprints, as well as an ability to land anywhere, it could compete not only with aircraft but land-based transportation too, by connecting city centers directly. The airship may have a comparatively slow speed, but it can fly directly above traffic, and not be confined to airports.

This idea was tried in the 1930s, but proved difficult due to the immense danger it posed 鈥� any gust of wind could send the descending airship into nearby buildings. And while modern navigation and control methods could mitigate the problem, it would require a lot of work, time and investment to prove that it is safe.

Size problems

There are other problems, too. At 91 meters (almost 300 feet), the Airlander 10 prototype was arguably the world精东影业 largest aircraft before it crashed in 2017, overshadowing the length of Antonov An-225 Mriya (84 meters / 276 feet). Despite that, its cabin was comparable in size to a regional jet, and the cargo capacity reached just 10 tons 鈥� on par with the Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter. In January 2020, the company announced that the production version is going to be 5% longer, which does not really add up to that much.

The company claims that the Airlander 10 will still be able to transport up to 100 people, which seems to follow a formula of 鈥�100 kilograms per passenger鈥� which is employed by many aviation start-ups. The formula may work well as an approximation, but there are questions to be answered. It does not consider features that are paramount for a successful service 鈥� conditioning systems, safety equipment, toilets, and much more. Another estimate, which puts the airship精东影业 passenger count at 50, seems much more realistic.

All this means that, despite being the largest object in the skies, Airlander 10 is very small. It would have to grow substantially larger in order to function as a viable transport option 鈥� the most sought-after and lucrative market of mainline jets starts at approximately 150 passengers, three times more than the Airlander could carry. It is fair to say that the airship service would probably not function the same way modern passenger aviation does, but it would most likely be expected to do that, at least in its initial stages.

The mass economy would also be at play. Inter-city air travel, despite limitations imposed by airports, is a seat-hungry affair. Many airlines employ the largest wide-body aircraft to ferry people on short but popular distances; if airships want to make at least a dent in that market, they have to get bigger.

Which brings us to HAV精东影业 promises. Despite not yet having a stable production facility, the company expects to introduce the first serially-made Airlander 10 in 2025. The Airlander 50 would come no earlier than 2033.

There is a large gap between them. It is highly unlikely the Airlander 10 would be popular as either a passenger or cargo transport, which means that it has little chance to be commercially successful for HAV. Until the introduction of the Airlander 50 the company would likely remain in the so-called technology 鈥榲alley of death鈥� 鈥� a nastier and more dangerous version of the chasm that applies to companies that were able to attract capital to start small-scale production, but have not made it big yet, and have not started generating profit.

HAV is going to have difficulties climbing out of that valley. It carries a double burden: not only proving that the company can be profitable, but that the idea of 21^st century airships is sound.

Nevertheless, if all goes well, the Airlander 50 will kick-start the renaissance. But its sibling is an important step in that process, even if we have to curb our expectations of what it can do.

This article was first published on June 20, 2021.

That happened twice, actually. In the 1920s and 30s for the first time, then once again, between the 1990s and 2010s.

The story of the first golden age of airships is well known. They appeared at the very end of the 19th century, were popular, well liked, and seemed to be the perfect transport, offering flight distances and payload capacities not available to contemporary airplanes, while soundly beating almost any land- and sea-based mode of transport with their speed.

But in the 1930s, thanks in part to the wide media coverage of the Hindenburg disaster, they quickly fell out of favor 鈥� just in time for the new generations or large airplanes to take the lead in air travel and air cargo.

Those early airships were bulky, difficult to control, and tremendously unsafe. But all of their limitations could be easily negated with new materials, technologies and safety standards. Airships are perfect for many tasks contemporary aviation is not particularly good at: loitering for a long time at one place, efficiently transporting heavy and oversized cargo, and in general, not consuming obscene amounts of fuel. On top of that, airships are much quieter and much cleaner than airplanes, something extremely important in our day and age. So, isn鈥檛 it the perfect time to start building them?

That is the story told time and time again in thousands of sales pitches on the verge of the 21st century, when numerous startups vowed to resurrect the airship and make it flyable, profitable and safe again.

High hopes

Most people probably heard such a pitch with Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) Airlander 10, which held the title of world精东影业 largest aircraft between 2012 and 2017, and was probably the most publicized of the lot. It was intended as a military surveillance platform, before being rejected by the US Army and repurposed for civilian use.

Along with it, many ventures were created in the hopes that airships, with their long endurance, are the future of surveillance. French A-NSE and British Airship Industries are amongst the most prominent of them. Blackwater, the infamous private military company, jumped on the trend with their Polar 400 Airship. It was followed by aeronautical giants 鈥� Lockheed Martin with the P-791 and Northrop Grumman with the LEMV. The last of them got awarded a $150 million contract by DARPA.

The P-791 project was later repurposed for civilian use, just like Airlander 10. Boeing精东影业 SkyHook was civilian from the start. German CargoLifter, Italian Nimbus EosXi and several others looked into providing cargo or passenger services with unmatched efficiency; even the Zeppelin company, barely active since the WWII, has resurrected their aeronautical arm as Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and promised to resume manufacturing of airships.

Some of these projects planned to use non-flammable helium, others 鈥� improve the reputation of hydrogen. Some tried to return to the rigid frame of pre-war airships, while others constructed semi-rigid or fully collapsible airframes. Some used helicopter rotors for additional lift, others made their airships with various kinds of additional lifting surfaces. The most ambitious ones 鈥� notably, Walrus HULA project by DARPA and some others 鈥� proposed ships tens of times larger than Hindenburg, that would lift hundreds of tons of cargo and carry it almost without consuming fuel, drifting along in air currents, using atmospheric ion propulsion, or some other exotic technology.

All of these proposals were born between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s, the time when the idea of the 鈥渞enaissance of airships鈥� floated in the air.聽

There were several proposals that predate that: companies like Piasecki, AeroLift, Aereon and Aeros were some of the forerunners, offering to provide the US army with patrol, cargo or other kind of airship already in the 80s, and pitching the same story 鈥� that now is the perfect time to resurrect the undeservedly-forgotten concept, update it with latest advances, and fly straight into the lighter-than-air future. Some of them constructed a prototype or two before going bust.

What happened?

As of the early 2021, of the whole slew of airship startups, only several remain. Large corporations 鈥� such as Boeing and Northrop Grumman 鈥� forgot their proposals completely. Lockheed Martin has been delaying the first flight of the commercial variant of the P-791 since 2017, and hasn鈥檛 spoken about it for the last year. The US Army精东影业 plan to have a fleet of surveillance airships collapsed already in 2012, taking many projects with it, and while some blimps saw action in Afghanistan 鈥� including Blackwater精东影业 鈥� they were completely superseded by new, relatively cheap and available long-endurance heavier-than-air drones.聽

Dedicated cargo airships did not fare better. The Airlander 10 prototype crashed in 2017, HAV decided not to restore the aircraft, and focus on the development of the version for mass production. It has been receiving significant backing both through crowdfunding and state grants ever since, and issuing progress updates regularly. It promises entry into service in 2025.

Ironically, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin 鈥� the company which pioneered the airship and was in the center of industry精东影业 first collapse 鈥� may have been the biggest beneficiary of its rebirth. Only a fraction of its revenue is generated by manufacturing and sales of actual airships, but since the resumption of this line of work in 2001, half a dozen of their N07-101s were sold, mostly for advertising purposes and for performing joyrides. In fact, company精东影业 ships remain the only option for an enthusiast to experience a flight on an airship today.聽

That half a dozen is quite definitely not a success story though. And it, along with all the other failures, puts the new era of airships into a place which it could not avoid. The chasm.

What now?

Geoffrey A. Moore精东影业 curve of new technology adoption rides somewhere between a clich茅 and a ubiquitously accepted fact. It proposes that every new technological achievement goes through several phases, being adopted at first by risk-taking pioneers, before finding its way into the mainstream audience. Between those states, there is the chasm: the part where the wide public gets disillusioned with the technology, its shortcomings become apparent, and there is a risk that the development will stop.

New generation of airships, quite clearly, have entered the chasm now. Will they find a way out of it? On one hand, the COVID-19 crisis and the near-collapse of the aviation industry as a whole may have been the final nail in their coffin, which has already been sealed half-a-decade before.聽

On the other hand, the same circumstances brought the rise of the cargo sector, and an unparalleled appetite for efficiency. At the same time, the maritime transport industry was in turmoil in 2020, showing the weakening already in 2019. Some experts are talking of the collapse of global supply chains, and while the wholesale shipping apocalypse may seem far-fetched, there is no denying that things are bound to change.

The resumption of airships鈥� renaissance rests on the question whether HAV and some other less dormant companies will be able to use this situation to their advantage. Airships sit in a gap between aircraft and ships, and for the cargo industry, offer some advantages of both. As both the air and maritime transport is posed to have the rise in demand, a new niche may have opened, providing at least a narrow possibility for us to see the giants floating in the skies once again.