Cargo Airships Prospective - Faculty of Aerospace Engineering

density (reduces buoyancy lift), changing with altitude. For maintenance, manufacturing and
long term storage, huge hangars are needed; and mooring devices are used in order to anchor
airships to the ground for parking and maintenance. Finally, current most applicative lifting
gas is the inert helium, which is solely found in relatively small quantities in some natural gas
reservoirs, and thus is relatively expensive and scarce.
The good news is that new technologies and designs have good chance to overcome most
of the deficiencies. Modern technologies offer much improved control in various conditions,
weather prediction has improved drastically and hybrid airship design introduce much more
autonomous ground operation flexibility than before, along with better stability in-flight. New
technologies and their anticipated future development, allows us to predict that their
implementation in the airship design will allow cost-effective and reliable service of the air
vehicle in diverse environmental conditions. Reduced infrastructure needs, with higher
autonomy of the hybrid airship, would allow it to operate in areas with no suitable facilities.
Helium forecasted to remain high priced, but with well planned operational use of the airship
and execution of required maintenance schedule, its annual consumption will be negligible.
Figure 8. Typical Wind Profile at Mid-Latitude Areas
VI. Airship Related World Activities
Rising cargo market demand, new applicable technologies, environmental issues
importance increase and military LTA successful applications, make a favorite environment
for new development of cargo airships. Few more or less successful projects appeared in
recent years; both in military and civil sectors of the market. Large corporations, along with
several aerospace "start-ups" have realized the market potential of lighter-than-air
transportation. Few of them are newcomers to this renovated idea, but some have a long
history of dealing with lighter-than-air application; usually with aerostats, as in case of
Lockheed Martin. Now they all race with a common goal – who will be the first to release the
long promised new generation of cargo airship.
Lockheed Martin is one of the main leaders in this area. Lockheed Martin develops the
SkyTug cargo airship, with further increment designs in the future, after flying P791 hybrid
airship demonstrator in 2006. P791 is so far, the first known hybrid airship flown and was
intended for testing and gaining experience for transition to truly operational cargo airship,
the one that SkyTug intends to be. SkyTug intended for the low tier of cargo airship market,
with proposed design point of 20 tons payload and length of 88 m and entry to service as early
as 2013. Aviation Capital Enterprises, a Canadian based investment company has joined