Hybrid Air Vehicles

Hybrid Air Vehicles

Hybrid Air Vehicles

Hybrid Air Vehicles

Hybrid Air Vehicles

Hybrid Air Vehicles

Hybrid Air Vehicles

May 11, 2017: On Wednesday evening Airlander 10 completed its first flight since the giant dirigible crash-landed nine months ago. The airship took off at 5:28pm, puttered around for almost three hours, and successfully landed at 8:15pm. This is only the fourth time that Airlander 10 has taken to the skies, following two flights in the UK in 2016 and a single flight in the US in 2012 when the aircraft was originally contending for a spot in the US Army.

The new auxiliary landing system—the giant airbags detailed below—worked perfectly, Hybrid Air Vehicles reports. The main purpose of the flight was to practice take off and landing, and to collect flight performance data.

HAV says that yesterday's successful flight recommences Airlander 10's three-phase flight test programme. For now, Airlander 10 isn't allowed to ascend beyond 4,000 feet or travel more than 15 miles from its hangar in Bedfordshire. As it progresses through the test programme it'll be allowed to travel farther and higher and stay airborne for longer. In theory, Airlander 10 can hang around for a few days.

The gallery below contains photos from 2016's test flights.



JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Conde Nast Traveller - Getty

Wired UK

Wired UK











April 4, 2017: Airlander 10, the world's largest and longest aircraft, which from some angles has been compared to a certain part of the human anatomy, has been outfitted with two giant and undignified airbags. The airbags are placed either side of the cockpit, preventing it (and any human occupants) from being crushed during heavy landings. The airbags are manually deployed by the pilot and are 3 metres long when fully engorged.

Hybrid Air Vehicles, the company behind Airlander 10, also unveiled the Mobile Mooring Mast (MMM), which appears to be a rather cute tracked vehicle that can push and pull the giant airship around. "It has a single pivot interface with the Airlander, so makes a much simpler mechanism than we previously had," says the company.

Some images of the two new systems have been added to the gallery above.

February 10, 2017: After almost six months, Airlander 10 has finally been repaired and will continue its flight test programme. Back in August the giant airship crashed into the ground, crushing the flight deck—but somehow the crew escaped unscathed. The flight deck's instrument panels, overhead console, and associated wiring had to be reinstalled.

There will now be a period of "rigorous" training and testing before the blimp once again takes flight, which will presumably be later this year.

Following an investigation after the crash, Hybrid Air Vehicles said it "fully understands" the root causes of the incident—but it didn't say what those causes were. We've asked the company for more details and will update this story if we hear back.

August 24, 14:05 BST: Airlander 10's second test flight, which took place this morning, ended with the giant airship nosediving into the ground. The cockpit was damaged, but Hybrid Air Vehicles says the crew are "safe and well."

HAV told Ars that the flight lasted for 100 minutes and that it "completed all the planned tasks." HAV said the incident was not an unplanned dealtitudinal craft-terrafirma conflict, but rather "a heavy landing" as the craft returned to Cardington Airfield.

HAV said it will now run through a "robust set of procedures for flight test activities and investigation of issues" to work out what went wrong. We'll update this story when the company releases more info. The BBC has some photos of the incident. Embedded below is a video of the heavy landing, captured by an onlooker.

August 18, 9:20 BST: At approximately 19:45 on Wednesday evening, Airlander 10 successfully took off on its maiden UK flight. The massive airship pottered for a few miles around Cardington Airfield, just south of Bedford, for about 20 minutes at speeds of up to 35 knots before landing safely just as darkness fell.

The craft's creator, Hybrid Air Vehicles, said that everything went perfectly: "All test objectives were met during the flight. These included the safe launch, flight and landing of the Airlander 10 and a series of gentle turns at increasing speed. Some technical tests on its hull pressure were also undertaken."

The next step will be lots more test flights, to make sure all of the craft's various features check out—and, of course, to showcase Airlander 10 to prospective customers. There's a video of the first flight below (turn your sound off), and the gallery above has been updated with some new photos.

Original story (April 29, 2016)

Airlander 10, the world's largest and longest aircraft, is preparing to gently glide out of its gargantuan shed—which is incidentally the largest hangar in the UK—at Cardington Airfield in Bedfordshire.

Earlier this month, Airlander 10, which is being built by Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), was officially named Martha Gwyn by the duke of Kent. HAV is now in the "final stages of testing" before it can exit the hangar, which will be a "matter of weeks" rather than months.

The Martha Gwyn is an odd beast. At its most basic, it's a 92-metre (302ft) blimp filled with 38,000 cubic metres of helium. There are four propellers—two at the back, one on the front left, one on the front right—that provide vectored thrust from four V8 turbo-diesel engines. But in addition to those rather mundane elements, the envelope (the bit that holds all the helium) has an aerofoil silhouette that reportedly increases lift efficiency by 40 percent. Tucked in just below the front of the envelope is a tiny cockpit capsule with space for a pilot and a handful of personnel. The Airlander 10 will theoretically be able to carry payloads of up to 10 tonnes (thus the name), though that has never been tested. HAV has future plans to build an Airlander 50 with five times the capacity. It will be presumably be about the same size as Wales.

That wonderfully bulbous envelope is fashioned out of a composite of Kevlar, Mylar, and Vectran—materials that you might normally associate with battlefield settings, though in this case they certainly don't make the Airlander 10 bullet-proof. If the Airlander 10 is used in military settings, it will mostly fly at altitudes beyond the range of small-arms fire. If the envelope is punctured, it isn't necessarily game over: the helium isn't highly pressurised, so it won't come gushing out. To mitigate against guided weapons, such as surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), I'm told that the Airlander 10 has a radar cross-section that's "in the stealth bomber range," and that the airship "generates next to no heat."

The Airlander 10 (née the Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle) was originally developed by Hybrid Air Vehicles and Northrop Grumman for the US Army. If everything had gone to plan there would've been three LEMVs hovering over Afghanistan, acting as surveillance and communications platforms. The project didn't work out, though; there was a single test flight of the LEMV back in 2012 in New Jersey (embedded above), and it was canned soon after. Hybrid Air Vehicles bought the LEMV back from the US Army for a paltry £200,000 ($293,000) in 2013 and continued its development in the UK.

Now, after a £3.4 million ($5 million) grant from the UK government, £2 million ($2.93 million) from the EU, and a further £2 million in crowdsourced funding—and a few years of work—the Airlander 10 is almost ready for its second flight ever, and its first flight in the UK.

Whether it will actually fly, and land, and then fly again with a 10-tonne payload remains to be seen. Hybrid Air Vehicles maintains that there's strong demand for giant airships from myriad sectors, ranging from communications and surveillance, through to logistics, militaristic settings, and scientific endeavour.

Finally, in case you're wondering, I have repeatedly asked Hybrid Air Vehicles if I can be a passenger on the Airlander's first flight. Sadly, due to EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) regulations, only the test pilot and "key personnel" are allowed to ride the blimp until it completely checks out. Still, I will endeavour to be outside the hangar when it's eventually ready to fly. I would so love to see dorky dirigibles drifting across the British skies, à la the alternate universe in Fringe.

Listing image by Hybrid Air Vehicles