NEARLY a century after zeppelins were largely abandoned, a handful of start-ups are trying to revive the airship for both cargo and passenger flights.
Blimps were the biggest to ever take to the skies.
But the tragic in 1937, which claimed the lives of 35 people when the blimp exploded into flames, had brought the airship industry to its knees.
New zeppelins would be much safer, according to the companies wanting to rebuild the company.
Pathfinder 1
Billionaire co-founder, Sergey Brin, is just one of the people trying to bring back the airship.
Brin’s company LTA Research has created a 400ft “lighter than air”;; blimp-like vehicle – dubbed– which
It has been green lit to fly no higher than 1,500ft.
The blimp reached another milestone in October last year – it’s first untethered outdoor flight.
Brin wants to turn these into fuel-efficient cargo vessels.
The Pathfinder 1 will use only non-flammable helium, as opposed to explosive hydrogen, making it cheaper to fly than planes fuel wise.
These airships could one day carry up to 200 tons of cargo each, LTA CEO Alan Weston previously told Bloomberg.
That is nearly ten times the amount acan carry.
Airships don’t need a runway, enabling Brin to make his Pathfinder 1 something of a humanitarian project too.
The airship aims to be incredibly light but with a lot of space for cargo, making it an efficient means of delivering large amounts of aid and relief workers to difficult-to-access disaster zones.
‘The flying bum’
The 320ft Airlander 10, from UK-based Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), is part airship, part aeroplane.
Dubbed ‘the flying bum’ due to its unique shape, the Airlander 10 is expected to fly roughly 1,000 feet over cities.
From 2030, the company behind the project hopes to buildtwo dozen airships per year from its factory in Doncaster, South .
HAV is hoping to revolutionise regional air travel with its airship.
For short plane journeys run by regional airlines, the costs of operation using an Airlander “are at or below the cost of what they’re operating today”;; with smaller passenger planes, HAV boss Tom Grundy has said previously.
Like Pathfinder 1, the Airlander will not need miles of tarmac runway far from city centres.
“It doesn’t have to be stuck to going between today’s airports,”;; according to Grundy.
“It can go into different places. And yet it’s faster than moving around the world over the surface.
“It’s faster than those ferry journeys. It can often be faster than a train journey, very often faster than a car journey. So providing this middle option.”;;
Airlander 10 has already seen commercial interest.
European regional airline Air Nostrum has said it will buy 20 Airlanders tocarry passengers between Mediterraneanislands.
Luxury tour company Grands Espaces also wants the aircraft to take ferry passengers over the Arctic.
With airships, weight is the key concern rather than volume – unlike planes.
Although this should mean there are more spacious seats for passengers, while luxury high-flyers could even each have double bedrooms.
Flying Whales
-based firm Flying Whales, backed by the French government, is working on a separate 656ft-long rigid airship known as the LCA60T.
Designed for heavy load transport, the LCA60T will have a carrying capacity of 60 tons.
Flying Whales raised €122million (£103million) to fund the project in 2022.
It will bound through skies on helium, in combination with hydrogen fuel cells to cut
