Tag Archives: Aerosmena

Modern Airships – Part 2

Peter Lobner, updated 11 January 2023 (post-Rev. 5)

1. Introduction

Modern Airships is a three-part document that contains an overview of modern airship technology in Part 1 and links in Parts 1, 2 and 3 to more than 240 individual articles on historic and advanced airship designs.  This is Part 2.  Here are the links to the other two parts:

You’ll find a consolidated Table of Contents (as of Rev 5) for all three parts at the following link.  This should help you navigate the large volume of material in the three documents.

Modern Airships – Part 2 begins with a summary graphic table identifying the airships addressed in this part, and concludes by providing links to 100 individual articles on those airships.  A downloadable pdf copy of Part 2 (as of Rev 5) is available here:

Each of the linked articles can be individually downloaded.

If you have any comments or wish to identify errors in these documents, please send me an e-mail to:  [email protected].

I hope you’ll find the Modern Airships series to be informative, useful, and different from any other single document on this subject.

Best regards,

Peter Lobner

11 January 2023

Record of revisions to Part 2

  • Original Modern Airships post, 26 August 2016: addressed 14 airships in a single post.
  • Expanded the Modern Airships post and split it into three parts, 18 August 2019: Part 2 included 25 articles
  • Part 2, Revision 1, 21 December 2020: Added 2 new articles on Walden Aerospace. Part 2 now had 27 articles
  • Part 2, Revision 2, 3 April 2021: Added 35 new articles, split the original variable buoyancy propulsion article into three articles, and updated all of the original articles. Also updated and reformatted the summary graphic table.  Part 2 now had 64 articles.
  • Part 2, Revision 3, 9 September 2021:  Updated 7 articles. Added category for “thermal (hot air) airships” and added pages for them in the summary graphic table. Part 2 still had 64 articles.
  • Part 2, Revision 4, 11 February 2022: Added 26 new articles, expanded the graphic tables and updated 12 existing articles. Part 2 now had 90 articles.
  • Part 2, Revision 5, 10 March 2022: Added 1 new article, split rigid & semi-rigid airships in the graphic tables, and updated 52 existing articles. With this revision, all Part 2 linked articles have been updated in February or March 2022. Part 2 now has 91 articles.

Since Rev. 5 was posted, the following additions and updates have been made in the online version of Part 2.

New articles:

  • Aere Airships (22 July 2022)
  • AirbineTM  Renewable Energy Systems (ARES) – Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT) (11 January 2023)
  • Challenger Aerospace Systems – drone blimps (29 Oct 2022)
  • China – Hybrid airship for airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveying (15 June 2022)
  • China – Cloud One – 5G base station aerostat (19 October 2022)
  • China – Jimu No 1 – high altitude aerostat (19 October 2022)
  • China – Shanghai Jiao Tong University – research airships (19 October 2022)
  • China – Suzhou Ark Aviation Technology Co. Ltd. – drone blimps (19 October 2022)
  • Cloudline – autonomous cargo drone airship (16 October 2022)
  • Strasa.Tech – HAPS platforms (30 May 2022)

Updated articles:

  • Aérial Concept Group & Transoceans (3 September 2022)
  • Aero-Nautic Services & Engineering (A-NSE) (3 September 2022)
  • Atlas LTA Advanced Technology, Ltd. (2 June 2022)
  • Buoyant Aircraft Systems International (BASI) – MB-30T & -100T (9 January 2023)
  • Galaxy Unmanned Systems – blimps (9 January 2023)
  • Strasa Tech – HAPS platforms (4 September 2022)
  • H2 Clipper (11 October 2022)

2. Specific airships in Part 2

The airships reviewed in Modern Airships – Part 2 are summarized in the following set of graphic tables that are organized into the categories listed below: 

  • Conventional rigid airships
  • Conventional semi-rigid airships
  • Conventional non-rigid airships (blimps)
  • Semi-buoyant hybrid airships
  • Semi-buoyant hybrid aircraft
  • Hybrid thermal (Rozier) airships
  • Thermal (hot air) airships
  • Variable buoyancy, fixed volume airships
  • Variable buoyancy, variable volume airships
  • Variable buoyancy propelled airships
  • Stratospheric airships
  • Electro-kinetically (EK) propelled airships
  • LTA drones
  • Unpowered aerostats
  • Tethered LTA wind turbines

Within each category, each page of the table is titled with the name of the category and is numbered (P2.x), where P2 = Modern Airships – Part 2 and x = the sequential number of the page in that category.  For example, “Stratospheric airships (P2.2)” is the page title for the second page in the “Stratospheric airships” category in Part 2.  There also are stratospheric airships addressed in Modern Airships – Part 1.

Links to the individual Part 2 articles on these airships are provided in Section 3.  Some individual articles cover more than one particular airship.

Among the airships described in Part 2, the following advanced airship seems to be the best candidate for achieving type certification in the next five years:

  • Flying Whales (France): The LCA60T rigid airship was significantly redesigned in 2021, which resulted in a schedule delay for completing the first prototype until 2024.  However, the project appears to be well funded from diverse international sources in France, Canada, China and Morocco. Full-scale production facilities are planned in France, China and Canada and commercial airship operating infrastructure is being planned.

The following airship manufacturers in Part 2 have advanced designs and they seem to be ready to manufacture a first prototype if they can arrange funding: 

  • Aerovehicles (USA / Argentina): They claim their AV-10 non-rigid, multi-mission blimp can carry a 10 metric ton payload and be type certified within existing regulations for blimps. This should provide a lower-risk route to market for an airship with an operational capability that does not exist today.
  • Aerosmena (AIDBA, Russia): The firm offers the latest designs for heavy-lift hybrid thermal (Rozier) “aeroplatforms,” which use two lift gases: helium and heated air.  The A20 will be the prototype for the entire family of Aerosmena aeroplatform.
  • Atlas LTA Advanced Technology (Israel): After acquiring the Russian firm Augur RosAeroSystems in 2018, Atlas is continuing to develop the ATLANT variable buoyancy, fixed volume heavy lift airship.  They also are developing a new family of non-rigid Atlas-6 and -11 blimps and unmanned variants.  Their development plans and schedules have not yet been made public.
  • BASI (Canada): The firm has a well-developed rigid airship design in the MB-30T and a fixed-base operating infrastructure design that seems to be well suited for their primary market in the Arctic.
  • Euro Airship (France):  The firm claims that production-ready drawings exist for their Corsair and the larger DGPAtt rigid airships.  
  • Millennium Airship (USA & Canada): The firm has well developed designs for their SF20T and SF50T SkyFreighters, has identified its industrial team for manufacturing, and has a business arrangement with SkyFreighter Canada, Ltd., which would become a future operator of SkyFreighter airships in Canada.  In addition, their development plan defines the work needed to build and certify a prototype and a larger production airship.
  • Varialift (UK):  The factory in France and the ARH-PT prototype are under construction, but the schedule for completing the prototype has slipped, perhaps by three years to 2022, primarily because of tenuous funding. Without a stronger funding stream, the future schedule is unpredictable.

The promising airships in Part 2, listed above, will be competing in the worldwide airship market with candidates identified in Modern Airships – Part 1, which potentially could enter the market in the same time frame. Among the new airships described in Part 1, the following advanced airships seem to be the best candidates for achieving type certification in the next five years:

  • LTA Research and Exploration (USA): Pathfinder 1 rigid airship, which is expected to make its first flight in 2022. The program appears to be well funded. 
  • Lockheed Martin (USA): LMH-1 hybrid airship, which has been in the FAA certification process for several years. However, Lockheed Martin has not reported recently on its certification progress or its updated schedule for flying a first prototype. 

The following airship manufacturers in Part 1 have advanced designs and they seem to be ready to manufacture a first prototype if they can arrange funding: 

  • Aeros (USA): Aeroscraft ML866 / Aeroscraft Gen 2 variable buoyancy / fixed volume airship.
  • Hybrid Air Vehicles (UK): Production prototype of the Airlander 10 hybrid airship.
  • Voliris (France): V932 NATAC & SeaBird semi-buoyant, inflated wing airships.

For decades, there have been many ambitious projects that intended to operate an airship as a pseudo-satellite, carrying a heavy payload while maintaining a geo-stationary position in the stratosphere on a long-duration mission (days, weeks, to a year or more).  None were successful.  This led NASA in 2014 to plan the 20-20-20 airship challenge: 20 km altitude, 20 hour flight, 20 kg payload.  The challenge never occurred, but it highlighted the difficulty of developing an airship as a persistent pseudo-satellite.  The most promising new stratospheric airship manufacturers identified in Part 2 are:

  • Sceye Inc. (USA):  This small firm is developing and, since 2017, has been flight testing mid-size, multi-mission stratospheric airships. The firm also has built a new headquarters and manufacturing facility in New Mexico. Short-duration stratospheric communications system flight tests were conducted in 2021. A long duration test should be coming soon.
  • Thales Alenia Space (France): The firm is developing the multi-mission Stratobus.  Their latest round of funding from France’s defense procurement agency calls for a full-scale, autonomous Stratobus demonstrator airship to fly by the end of 2023, five years later than another demonstrator that was ordered in the original 2016 Stratobus contract, but not built. Time will tell if Thales Alenia Space can meet the new schedule with the available funding.

China remains an outlier after the 2015 flight of the Yuanmeng stratospheric airship developed by  Beijing Aerospace Technology Co. & BeiHang.  The current status of the Chinese stratospheric airship development program is not described in public documents.

Among the many smaller airships identified in Part 2, the following manufacturers could have their airships flying by the mid 2020s if adequate funding becomes available.

  • Dirisolar (France): The firm has a well-developed design for their five passenger DS 1500, which is intended initially for local air tourism, but can be configured for other missions.  When funding becomes available, it seems that they’re ready to go.
  • A-NSE (France):  The firm offers a range of aerostat and small airships, several with a novel tri-lobe, variable volume hull design.  Such aerostats are operational now, and a manned tri-lobe airship could be flying later in the 2020s.
  • Egan Airships (USA):  The PLIMP Model J drone has already flown. When funding becomes available, their Model J plane / blimp hybrid seems ready to go.
  • Solar Ship (Canada): The firm’s Caracal prototype semi-buoyant, inflated wing airship has already flown successfully but the production version, the 24-meter Caracal, has not yet received CAA or FAA certification.  That basic inflated wing design did not scale up successfully for the Wolverine. Hence, the larger Wolverine has been redesigned as a significantly different semi-buoyant aircraft.  Solar Ship has not published their current development and certification schedules.

There seems to be a proliferation of small LTA drone blimps and other small LTA drone vehicles.  Some were developed initially for military surveillance applications, but all are configurable and could be deployed in a range of interesting applications. Some enterprising LTA drone developers also are developing value-adding applications and are offering information services, rather than simply selling a drone to be operated by a customer.

The 2020s will be an exciting time for the airship industry.  We’ll finally get to see if the availability of several different heavy-lift airships with commercial type certificates will be enough to open a new era in airship transportation. Aviation regulatory agencies need to help reduce investment risk by reducing regulatory uncertainty and putting in place an adequate regulatory framework for the wide variety of advanced airships being developed.  Customers with business cases for airship applications need to step up, place firm orders, and then begin the pioneering task of employing their airships and building a worldwide airship transportation network with associated ground infrastructure.  This will require consistent investment over the next decade or more before a basic worldwide airship transportation network is in place to support the significant use of commercial airships in cargo and passenger transportation and other applications. Perhaps then we’ll start seeing the benefits of airships as a lower environmental impact mode of transportation and a realistic alternative to fixed-wing aircraft, seaborne cargo vessels and heavy, long-haul trucks.

3. Links to the individual articles

The following links will take you to 91 individual articles that address all of the airships identified in the preceding graphic table.

Note that a few of these articles address more than one airship design from the same manufacturer / designer and they may be in different categories (i.e., Augur RosAeroSystems, Atlas LTA Advanced Technology). These designs are listed separately in the above graphic tables and in the following index. The links listed below will take you to the same article.

Conventional rigid airships:

Conventional semi-rigid airships:

Conventional non-rigid airships (blimps):

Semi-buoyant hybrid airships:

Semi-buoyant plane / airship hybrids:

Variable buoyancy, fixed volume airships:

Variable buoyancy, variable volume airships:

Variable buoyancy propulsion airships:

Hybrid thermal (Rozier) airships:

Thermal (hot air) airships:

Helicopter / airship hybrids:

Stratospheric airships:

Electro-kinetically (EK) propelled airships:

Personal airships:

LTA drones:

Unpowered aerostats:

Tethered LTA wind turbines:

  • Aeerstatica: Coming soon
  • AirbineTM  Renewable Energy Systems (ARES) – Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT): https://lynceans.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Airbine-AWT.pdf
  • Altaeros Energies – Buoyant Airborne Turbine (BAT): Coming soon
  • LTA Windpower Inc. – PowerShip: Coming soon
  • Magenn Air Rotor System – MARS: Coming soon