Longer than a football pitch and filled with the inert gas helium, at 302 feet long, the Airlander 10 will be the world's biggest aircraft frame. Part blimp, part plane, part helicopter, it was originally conceptualized by the British design company Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) to be used for military surveillance purposes for the U.S. Army.
But budget cuts deflated [pun unintended] the project and HAV bought the airship back across the Atlantic, where it seemed set to remain on solid ground, as an aviation footnote.
But that was until the company received a £3.4 million ($5.1 million) grant from the British government. Thanks to this recent injection of financing, designers and engineers are now readying the craft for first flight tests scheduled for the later half of 2015.
The concept of the airship has been around for nearly a century. But they fell out of fashion following the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, when the German passenger craft erupted into flames while trying to dock, killing 36. Fat chance of that happening with Airlander 10 - the 10 being the ten ton lifting capacity - as this airship is filled with Helium instead of the combustible Hydrogen as in Hindenburg.
Inset shows why I read the #Airlander10 as Arselander ;-)
Read more at the link http://j.mp/1EW3Bnz
But budget cuts deflated [pun unintended] the project and HAV bought the airship back across the Atlantic, where it seemed set to remain on solid ground, as an aviation footnote.
But that was until the company received a £3.4 million ($5.1 million) grant from the British government. Thanks to this recent injection of financing, designers and engineers are now readying the craft for first flight tests scheduled for the later half of 2015.
The concept of the airship has been around for nearly a century. But they fell out of fashion following the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, when the German passenger craft erupted into flames while trying to dock, killing 36. Fat chance of that happening with Airlander 10 - the 10 being the ten ton lifting capacity - as this airship is filled with Helium instead of the combustible Hydrogen as in Hindenburg.
Inset shows why I read the #Airlander10 as Arselander ;-)
Read more at the link http://j.mp/1EW3Bnz
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