Airlander 10, the world's largest and longest aircraft, is preparing to gently glide out of its gargantuan shed—which is incidentally the largest hangar in the UK—at Cardington Airfield in Bedfordshire.
Earlier this month, Airlander 10, which is being built by Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), was officially named Martha Gwyn by the duke of Kent. HAV is now in the "final stages of testing" before it can exit the hangar, which will be a "matter of weeks" rather than months.
The Martha Gwyn is an odd beast. At its most basic, it's a 92-metre (302ft) blimp filled with 38,000 cubic metres of helium. There are four propellers—two at the back, one on the front left, one on the front right—that provide vectored thrust from four V8 turbo-diesel engines. But in addition to those rather mundane elements, the envelope (the bit that holds all the helium) has an aerofoil silhouette that reportedly increases lift efficiency by 40 percent. Tucked in just below the front of the envelope is a tiny cockpit capsule with space for a pilot and a handful of personnel. The Airlander 10 will theoretically be able to carry payloads of up to 10 tonnes (thus the name), though that has never been tested. HAV has future plans to build an Airlander 50 with five times the capacity. It will be presumably be about the same size as Wales.
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Whether it will actually fly, and land, and then fly again with a 10-tonne payload remains to be seen. Hybrid Air Vehicles maintains that there's strong demand for giant airships from myriad sectors, ranging from communications and surveillance, through to logistics, militaristic settings, and scientific endeavour.
"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," here we come!
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Airships may indeed be well-suited to tasks like cargo transport, surveying and surveillance, but what really captures peoples' imaginations is the thought of travelling aboard one as a tourist. Well, according to Britain's Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), such a scenario could soon be a reality.
HAV is the developer of the Airlander 10, which is currently the world's largest aircraft. It's powered by four 325-hp (242-kW) turbocharged diesel engines and uses aerodynamic lift like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft to take off, with helium keeping it aloft once it's in the air. Additionally, it can carry payloads of up to 10,000 kg (22,050 lb), stay in the air for five days at a time with a crew, and doesn't require a purpose-built runway.
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the company revealed that next year, UK-based Henry Cookson Adventures (HCA) will become the first private excursion company to trial the Airlander 10. HCA will be taking the aircraft on its first international flight – an "expeditionary journey" – with an eye towards ultimately using a type-certified version of it for transporting paying customers to remote and exotic locations around the world.
Fancy a sight-seeing flight to Kamchatka?
Previously:
World's Largest Aircraft Repaired and Ready to Fly Again
World's Largest Aircraft Takes Off for the First Time
Airlander 10 - Test Flight Delayed
World's Largest Aircraft "Weeks" Away From First UK Test Flight
Hybrid Air Vehicles Seeking Investors for Airlander 10 Hybrid Airship
World's Longest Aircraft
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 02 2016, @09:30PM
That will go over like a lead Zeppelin!
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @11:22PM
Oh please, I'm sure this will soar like the Hindenberg!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:37AM
"Oh, the humanity" of that very poor joke.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @09:49PM
Kawaii, desu! [imgur.com]
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:00AM
Rule 34: no exceptions.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:44AM
It reminds me of the film Total Recall.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday May 02 2016, @10:52PM
in 2012.
And has already cost up to $500 million.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_HAV_304_Airlander_10 [wikipedia.org]
HAV bought it back from the military, and have "re-purposed" it as a civilian craft.
Not a suprise, the military specs were... optimistic...
Requirements included the capability to operate at 6 km (20,000 feet) above mean sea level, a 3000 km (2,000 mile) radius of action, and a 21-day on-station availability, provide up to 16 kilowatts of electrical power for payload, be runway independent and carry several different sensors at the same time.[2] According to the U.S. Army, the LEMV was to have been a recoverable and reusable multi-mission platform. It could be forward located to support extended geostationary operations from austere locations and capable of beyond-line-of-sight command and control.[2]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by Osamabobama on Monday May 02 2016, @11:22PM
This is terribly old news; the world's largest aircraft made its first flight during my childhood. I also skimmed the article, and I'm pretty sure the photo is the wrong aircraft. I have a pretty good memory of it being a more conventionally shaped jet.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Tuesday May 03 2016, @09:21AM
There has always been a World's largest aircraft, even in the Wrights' day. So this is old news.
(Score: 2) by Anne Nonymous on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:35AM
Martha Gwyn is kind of a blimp, but she does go down.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:34AM
Being able to maneuver into a cityscape's airspace to deliver things like roofborne air conditioner units and other heavy components look like an ideal use for something like this...
I am discovering what a problem it can be just to find parking space for a big diesel van. I can only extrapolate that to setting up a crane to replace a big rooftop refrigeration condenser coil on top of a skyscraper. Trying to maintain a stationary platform a skyscraper to lift from is a real pain to set up. Helicopters sure stir up a lot of dust with their big rotors, and I would imagine aerodynamic fluidics make for interesting control strategy when flying at such low altitude on top of a cityscape.
Side note... cover the top with flexible solar panels [aliexpress.com].... use the energy derived from them to operate the thrusters needed to hold the craft motionless. That way the city is not treated to the endless droning of diesel engines and exhaust. ( These are what I am putting on my "new" van to run the "hotel load" so I don't have to run the engine to keep the batteries charged ).
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @04:49AM
Antelopes.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @06:34PM
That's what the Cargolifter guys tried to sell investors on a decade ago - their huge airship construction hangar is now a fancy tropical spa in the boons of east Germany.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday May 04 2016, @02:43AM
Thanks for the post. Did not know of this prior attempt at what appears to me to be exactly the same thing.
Even with its history, the concept still looks viable to me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:36AM
Really? An airplane the size of Wales [wikipedia.org] sounds awfully large.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:06PM
That's Jimmy Wales.
Not that he's pleased to be compared to a balloon full of gas, again.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by subs on Tuesday May 03 2016, @10:44AM
I guess somebody forgot about that cute little airship named Hindenburg [wikipedia.org].