Airships: a second age
05-Aug-10
via telegraph.co.uk
“Whatever you want to call it, the new technology has just won the company (or rather, their US defence contractor ally Northrop Grumman) a contract with the United States Department of Defence to the tune of half a billion dollars. In just 12 months the team at Cardington must build a 300ft-long surveillance vehicle capable of staying airborne for 21 days at a time. It will be known as the LEMV (Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle).
The LEMV will hover above Afghanistan at 20,000ft, equipped with the sort of super-powerful cameras that can read a signature on a letter from four miles away. It will be, Taylor says, ‘an unblinking eye’, recording every move made on the ground. In theory, no one will be able to plant a roadside bomb – a device which has claimed the lives of so many British soldiers – without the cameras seeing who did it and, more importantly, where they came from. And, if the LEMV is a success, it could prove to be a tipping point, ushering in a new age of airships. “
Posted via email from crasch’s posterous
Festo Air Jelly
22-Apr-08
More about it at Airshipworld
The Ron Paul Blimp project is now taking donations. So far, they’ve raised $89,000. If they can get to $200,000 by Friday, they can get the balloon in the air in time for the Boston Tea Party on December 16th.
Zeppelin Airships Return to the US
07-Sep-07
Airship Ventures is a company created to run and operate an airship tour business in the San Francisco Bay Area. They plan to start selling tickets sometime in 2008.
A recent press release:
Festo Air Ray
26-Aug-07
http://www.festo.com/INetDomino/coorp_sites/en/c79c5d07d5805095c12572b9006f04f5.htm
“Air_ray, modelled on the manta ray, is a remote-controlled hybrid construction consisting of a helium-filled ballonet and a beating wing drive. Its light design makes it possible for it to “swim” in the sea of air, boosted by helium, in a similar way to the manta ray in water.
Propulsion is achieved by a beating wing drive. The servo drive-controlled wing, which can move up and down, utilises the Fin Ray Effect® and is based on alternate pulling and pushing flanks connected via frames. When pressure is exerted on one flank, the geometrical structure curves automatically against the direction of the influencing force. A servo drive pulls the two flanks alternately in the longitudinal direction, thus moving the wing up and down.”
Going up?
02-Aug-07
“I started thinking, what can carry more weight and needs less power?” he said. “The answer is a blimp.”
Nachbar’s solution could be seen soaring high above a field on a cloudless morning last month: a 102-foot blimp designed with co inventor Michael Kuehlmuss to resemble a bee. It’s nickname is Alberto.
Blimps may not be new, but even the smallest blimps available today carry sky-high price tags that start at $2 million. Nachbar and Kuehlmuss hope to market Alberto as an agile and nearly silent aircraft that will sell for between $100,000 and $200,000 — the flight enthusiast’s version of a day sailor’s yacht.
21st Century Airship videos
15-May-07
SA-60 Airship taking off and landing (9 MB WMV file).
A video from a news story.
