Airships

​Last October, British aerospace firm Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) announced that it was developing a luxury-tourism-oriented version of its otherwise-industrial Airlander 10 airship. This Wednesday, the company revealed what the interior of that aircraft's cabin will look like.

​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.

​What do you get when you cross a plane with a blimp? A Plimp. That's not a joke, it's what the thing is actually called. The unmanned aircraft has a helium-filled envelope allowing for blimp-like buoyancy, while its winged rigid body allows it to travel quick-ish like a conventional drone.​

Last August, the flight deck of the Airlander 10 airship was damaged during a "heavy landing" at the end of its second test flight. Now, protective airbags have been installed to keep that deck from smacking into the ground.

​When it comes to delivery-by-drone, one of the main limiting factors is battery life. Well, a recently-unearthed patent filed by Amazon addresses that issue. It proposes using airships as "airborne fulfillment centers" that would drop cargo-carrying drones toward the buildings below.

The world's largest aircraft, Airlander 10, crashed today during its second test flight. No-one was hurt in the incident, but the airship, from Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), sustained damage to its flight deck, which is positioned underneath the hull.

The world's largest aircraft has taken to the skies for the first time in its new guise as the Airlander 10. On Wednesday afternoon local time, the airship from Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) made its short maiden voyage at a UK airfield, after a technical issue grounded a previous attempt on Sunday.

The world's largest aircraft made its first public outing this week when Hybrid Air Vehicles​' helium-buoyant Airlander 10 airship was guided out of its hangar at RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire, UK,​ ahead of a short series of ground tests in anticipation of its first flight in Britain.

Lockheed Martin's Hybrid Airship is one beast of a heavy hauler. Naturally, maintaining a vehicle almost as long as a football field takes a lot of man hours, but the technology company has a new little helper on deck.

NASA has submitted a request for information in order to gauge the interest regarding a potential airship design challenge. The agency hopes that the “20-20-20 Airship Challenge” would incentivize the development of innovative airships for scientific and commercial purposes.

The Air HES concept claims to yield both clean water and electricity by using a high-flying airship to harvest and condense water vapor which it then uses to spin up an electric turbine generator to create power.

Last July, we first heard about Goodyear’s plans to replace its current fleet of blimps with newer, more advanced models. The first of those airships, which was unnamed at the time, made its maiden flight this March. Now called Wingfoot One, it officially began active service last Friday.