Take a ride on board the largest airship in the world, with spectacular views and a very cool pilot. On the other hand, providing you can find a space big enough, there's no need for a hangar or any kind of anchoring system -- the airship lands on a hovercraft-like cushion of air and "sticks" itself to the ground using a vacuum, meaning mooring ropes are a thing of the past.
Of course, the company isn't expecting many of its customers to be private enthusiasts -- the list price of the airship is still under discussion, but is likely to be out of budget range for individuals. The airship's likely buyers are large corporations or leasing companies which need to transport large quantities of cargo to regions with little or no infrastructure -- Lockheed Martin's tagline for the project is "the road not needed.
Rob Binns, CEO of Hybrid Enterprises, says he expects it to appeal to companies in the mining, oil and gas industry, with large projects in remote areas; he says it could also be used in humanitarian relief and disaster recovery.
But those behind the project haven't ruled out the possibility of military customers in future. There are many applications for this type of aircraft other than recreation. With its superior low-speed control, it is perfect for such things as eco-tourism and forest canopy research.
Its smooth ride also makes it well suited for precision low-altitude airborne sensing applications. Diamond prospectors and land mine clearing operations have already had some success using helium blimps for this type of sensing. Because hot air is much cheaper to use than helium Our aircraft cost about one tenth as much to build and operate as a standard helium blimp. Yes, you'll need to be trained as a pilot. We suggest that one should have ratings as both an airplane pilot and as a hot air balloon pilot in order to fly this aircraft.
According to the FAA's regulations, Alberto technically qualifies as an airship. So in general, in order to take passengers, a pilot must have an airship rating. However Alberto flies much more like a hot air balloon than a conventional airship. As a result, the FAA has granted Alberto's two builders special permission to take non-paying passengers for rides.
As our flight experience has grown, we have come to believe that the FAA will need to revise its rules for airships pilots to properly deal with aircraft like Alberto.
We hope to work with the FAA in the future to make the necessary rule changes. You know that old saying about Rome not being built in a day? Well, the same holds true for aircraft. We made a deliberate tactical decision that wherever practical, we would initially use conventional technologies. We faced enough engineering challenges developing the unconventional aspects of the aircraft. Now that we've successfully gotten into the air, we'll begin to replace the noisy components with quieter ones.
We'll be starting with the burners first. The engine, since it's mounted far away on the tail, can barely be heard from the cabin as is. We'd like to know as well, but our crystal ball is a bit foggy here. Some components of the sale price, such as the cost of construction, we understand quite well. However, given the unique nature of our design, it is not entirely clear where it falls within the FAA's regulatory framework. The FAA uses one sets of certification rules for airships and a different set for hot air balloons.
The rules for airships were drawn up with helium-based aircraft in mind. The rules for balloons were drawn up with unpowered aircraft in mind. One challenge of creating a truly new type of aircraft is that it doesn't fit neatly into either regulatory box. The hurdles and thus costs involved with certifying a new aircraft for sale are very different for each set of rules.
The FAA may choose to use one set or the other or some subset of each. It's impossible to determine the cost of the certification process, which will be a significant component of the sale price, until we actually start the process a year or so from now.
If that sounds like a high price you might keep in mind that it's about what it costs to buy a new small airplane or mid-sized 35 foot sailboat these days. There are indeed hot air blimps available from other reputable manufacturers today. However, we're not satisfied with the performance of these other aircraft in a two important ways. The slightest breeze makes the ship move, so once its payload is removed, the ship has to be secured and its buoyancy adjusted. SkyCat could reverse the airflow through its air-cushion system and literally suck itself down while unloading.
In the early s, the SkyCat and Lockheed Martin studies inspired the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to launch a project called Walrus, an immense airship with a ton payload capacity. The U. It apparently was interested in moving high-demand, fashionable goods directly from Asian factories to Western distribution hubs. The project has since gone quiet. Why have so many airships failed? Two themes recur. The other is cockiness. That misapprehension stymied the British attempt at a flight to India, circa , in the then-new R, as surely as it afflicted the U.
Army, which wanted the LEM-V to be flying in Afghanistan mere months after its first successful demonstration. A truly revolutionary idea in airship design would be to aim for modest goals on a realistic schedule.
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