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This article was published 14/10/2015 (1805 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

People in northern Manitoba have called it a sky whale — a fitting moniker since Dale George’s airship floats through air like a whale in water.

And this airship is about to make a big splash.

ASHLEY PREST / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Dale George’s airship will lift off for its first flight — a short tour of the St. Andrews Airport area — sometime in the next couple of weeks.

George said the single-seat, 24-metre airship, the only one Canada, will lift off for its first flight — a short tour of the St. Andrews Airport area — sometime in the next couple of weeks.

"It will be the very first airship ever built in Canada, this one was built here in Manitoba. I’ll fly it and it will set the tone for this type of technology," said George, a pilot, airship enthusiast and an industrial designer who invented, among other things, the plastic playground slide more then 25 years ago.

Two weeks ago, George was able to purchase $10,000 worth of the hard-to-get helium gas that creates the airship’s buoyancy, and Wednesday night, he met with a local group of volunteers who will train to be his ground crew. George and the airship will be airborne once the ground crew is up and running.

George is the only airship pilot in Canada — he holds an aircraft pilot’s licence but, in accordance with Transport Canada requirements, he had to get an air balloon pilot’s licence as well as an ultralight licence.

George moved to Winnipeg from Ontario about four years ago to join University of Manitoba professor Barry Prentice, a logistics and transportation expert, in forming Buoyant Aircraft Systems International (BASI). The company, which is self-funded and gets no government assistance, plans to design and fly airships large enough to impact infrastructure issues in Manitoba’s northern communities.

The idea is that massive airships could haul tonnes of cargo up north at very low cost with little environmental impact. If it caught on as a transportation mode, it would be a game-changer for Canada’s North where communities don’t have roads and costs are sky-high for aircraft transport.

"When I take the sandbags off, it floats so the lift is free (of cost)," George said, noting airships have no emissions. "One that is 500 feet long could fly in a storm. It’s a lighter-than-air technology airship. It can lift things without any power... I don’t need a runway."

The airship is housed at BASI’s shop inside a solar-powered Quonset at the end of an unused runway at St. Andrew’s Airport. George said the prototype, worth about $250,000, will be donated to Winnipeg’s Western Aviation Museum when he’s done with it.

"This one is 80 feet, this can lift me. But at 800 feet, 10 times this size, it lifts probably 150 tonnes," he said.

George said among the challenges he and Prentice face going forward with this form of transport is the high cost of developing larger versions of Manitoba’s 24-metre prototype and establishing a basic infrastructure to maintain them.

Numerous federal and provincial politicians as well as Transport Canada inspectors have visited BASI’s shop and examined the airship, George said.

He and Prentice hope the first flight will attract public support and funding to help build the larger airships.

"Transport Canada has really taken a serious look, respects this technology, understands it and is supportive of it," George said. "People in Manitoba need to know that. We may have the first cargo airship in the world, right here in Manitoba. You could talk about this as an entire transport system."

Another hurdle to cross would be getting government approval to use hydrogen — highly flammable and prohibited for use in airships since the late 1930s after a number of accidents in the airships — for fuel for the engines and to replace helium.

— with files from Martin Cash

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca