China is betting big on airships for freight with a partnership with French company Flying Whales. Better access to remote areas and big cost savings are the reason, but will airships open a path to cleaner air transport?
The Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) has been an elusive ISR goal for the Department of Defense through numerous false starts and half-completed contracts, but on August 7th at 6:49 pm EST a new LEMV hybrid blimp first took to the air at Lakehurst Navel air station in NJ. The vehicle is based upon a design by Hybrid Air Vehicles, LTD, and developed by Northrop Grumman. Many new considerations have come into the design of this airship but there are some old myths to be dispelled as well. […]
“The notion that airships represent the future of air cargo is being revived by a new generation of entrepreneurs some 75 years after a catastrophic fireball brought the industry to a screeching halt.”
That’s the intro to a piece on The Daily Climate on these promising, Super Cool airships of the 21st century. These low-carbon options for air cargo transport are currently being targeted at China, Africa, northern Canada, and other developing markets where there currently isn’t much (or any) transportation infrastructure
A Spanish company called Turtle Airships is working on plans to build a luxurious solar-powered blimp which can take passengers from New York to Paris. Perhaps the only thing cooler than being powered by lightweight photovoltaic cells, this airship is also designed to rest on land or water. The first … [continued]
