Blue Sky Thinking

Jon Lawson

Airships have been on the sidelines of the transport industry for decades. Are environmental credentials about to make these interesting craft finally go mainstream? Jon Lawson reports

This marvellous machine can trace its origins back to a 2001 patent called the SkyCat. Several iterations later and the manufacturer, Hybrid Air Vehicles, is embarking on an exciting period of development. Rebecca Zeitlin, head of communications and external affairs, says, “We are currently preparing to launch the production programme for Airlander 10. We now have our Production and Design Organisation Approvals in place and have been working with the Civil Aviation Authority on Airlander 10’s type certification basis, all of which prepares us from a regulatory perspective. We have also been preparing our organisation for the rapid growth that we believe will come with launch and are in the process of securing the location for the facility.”

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. In 2017, after six successful test flights, bad luck struck when the prototype Airlander broke free from its mooring mast at Cardington Airfield. This caused the in-built hull deflation mechanism to deploy (think air bags for air ships). Zeitlin notes, “Prototype flight testing is an important part of developing a new technology. Following the ground incident in 2017,  we conducted a thorough investigation and have since incorporated changes based on those findings.”

Who will be the customers and in which markets? Zeitlin continues, “We currently have aircraft reserved for customers in the travel and leisure space. We are also in advanced discussions with airline customers. Overall, our primary markets are passenger mobility, communications and surveillance, and logistics. We have active discussions of varying levels across all of these customer markets.

“The next decade will bring significant growth for the business. We will have launched our production capability for Airlander 10 and many, many aircraft will be in service with customers all over the world. In addition to Airlander 10, our forward plan also includes the launch of Airlander 50, a larger aircraft utilising the same underlying technology.”

Providing The Power

One environmental issue common to flying machines is the enormous power needed to take off. With airships, some of this heavy lifting is avoided as buoyancy is provided by the helium. This is more abundant than one might think incidentally, and the company quotes the US Geological Survey, saying there are at least 50 years of known helium reserves based on current consumption. So, some 600 Airlanders would account for just 1% of annual helium consumption.

The plans for propulsion are interesting. Zeitlin explains, “The aircraft will initially be fitted with four combustion engines, however we are currently working with Collins Aerospace and the University of Nottingham to create new electric motors. Looking forward, we are going to introduce a hybrid-electric variant (two electric motors, two combustion engines) in 2025/26 and an all-electric variant before 2030. To power the motors, we are currently working on identifying the right fuel cell and storage providers. We intend to use hydrogen fuel cells rather than batteries. Battery technology isn’t currently capable of delivering the required power output without adding significant weight.”

The company expects to enter flight testing for full type certification in 2023, with certified aircraft entering service with customers from 2025.