Poll results from Airshiplist

There was a poll on the yahoo airshiplist group which just closed and I would like to present the results here. The question was:

Should the airship internet groups be united into one group or not? Is unity strength.

Here follow the choices and results:

- yes, 11 votes, 50.00%
- i dont know, 2 votes, 9.09%
- maybe , 2 votes, 9.09%
- no, 3 votes, 13.64%
- lets start a completely new list, 1 votes, 4.55%
- lets join forces with an existing airshipgroup, 3 votes, 13.64%

So there was a total of 22 Votes and it turned out 50% want the groups to become one. What do you think, please post your opinions in the comments or email us. How can the Airship community get stronger and act with more unity?
For more information about the yahoo airshiplist group, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AirshipList

Zeppelin Experience Tours

John and Ute Christopher from Airshipinitiatives launched a new Webiste just about a day ago, check out their new site called Zeppelin Experience Tours at http://www.zeppelintours.com/. They got some great pictures of the Zeppelin and in the photo gallery some with the new artwork with which the Zeppelin is flying right now in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

LA County Sheriffs to levy and seize Globetel's Stratellite Airship

This Pressrelease reached us just today via Arnold Nayler from the Colorado airship-list

Press release from: SANDS DIGITAL MEDIA, INC.
Published date: 04-24-2007 06:35 PM - CET - IT, New Media & Software PR agency: SANDS DIGITAL MEDIA, INC.

(openPR) - Los Angeles, Ca. - Sands Digital Media, Inc., a well respected Los Angeles Public Relations firm won a civil lawsuit on, March 21, 2007, against Globetel Communications Corporation (OTC: GTEM) www.Globetel.net and Sanswire Networks, LLC., www.Sanswire.com a subsidiary of Globetel for non payment of a PR retainer fee and fraud.

The LASC case number is: 07-S00278 and was heard by Judge Norman Tarle, who awarded the $5,050.00 TO Sands Digital Media, Inc.

The "Los Angeles County Sheriffs" - www.lasd.org will levy on behalf of Sands Digital Media on the assets of Globetel Communications and Sanswire Networks "Stratellite 2A" and other equipment to satisfy the $5,050.00 judgment immediately.

Michael Sands says, "The Los Angeles County Sheriffs will now seize any assets of Globetel Communications and Sanswire Networks anywhere in the State of California."

According to Sands, "I would watch out for Globetel's COB Przemyslaw L. Kostro of
Poland, Aussie CEO Peter Khoury who resides in London and Jonathan Leinwand,Corporate Counsel, who resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida."

Of note: Oddly enough, the registered agent for INV is GlobeTel's director and corporate counsel, Jonathan D. Leinwand. They appear to be tangled up in at least one other. In August, 1997, Midland, one of the companies former Globetel President Steven King was pumping -- according to that SEC complaint -- announced an acquisition of once-billboarded Jet View Holdings. Jet View was used to be King's company, according to filings as well as this PR. By 2004, it had a different officer/director, but the registered agent was Leinwand. Leinwand was one of two directors and officers listed for, Gemini Integrated Financial Services, which appears as the source of IR for a few companies, including Value Holdings -- now trading for $0.0005 per share. What's not clear from those press releases is that Leinwand's Gemini was actually holding stock in some of these companies, such as Value holdings, as well as handling the public relations. In fact, it was, for a time, the majority shareholder (As of ITAC's last 10K on 3/15/2002, Gemini still held 32% of the company, and there's no specific information thereafter)in a company called Innovative Technology Acquisition Corporation, which flopped badly in its plan to sell libido enhancement supplements among other products. Its last quarterly filing with the SEC admits that it had produced "no revenues," which didn't stop the company from making some hefty promises even into 2003. To make things even more interesting, ITAC bought its LIBIDO stuff from Value Holdings, and Leinwand's Gemini co-officer -- until November, 2001 -- was ITAC's president.

Perhaps the most curious company connected to the Jonathan D. Leinwand name is PGS Pharmaceuticals Group, which lists him as the only officer/director. This (apparently) one-time billboard stock, actually appears as an cautionary example in an Australian government pamphlet called "The Little Black Book of Scams." Articles in the Australian business press describe PGS as having its shares sold via an Amsterdam front. A 1998 article in the Financial Times said, of PGS 'David Crate, the Amsterdam office administrator, said: "PGS is selling its own shares.' But [PGS President Arnold] Prashker said PGS had hired an independent marketing company, PGS Group, to sell its shares. The contract note faxed, and later sent by courier, to the UK man has both companies' names in its letterhead."

Mr. Robert Bleckman, the Director of Investor relations was involved in the GenesisIntermedia SEC and FBI case which was another company in trouble with the law. Mr. Bleckman has a track record.

"Globetel Communications received $750,000. this past week but did not satisfy the court awarded judgment to Sands Digital Media, Inc. They promise you the world with their "Pie in the Sky" press releases.

"This is a buyer beware for the public and shareholders as this company refuses to honor a court judgment, in light of a criminal SEC and an FBI investigation along with a Class Action lawsuit," says Michael Sands.

I call on all former employees, contractors, vendors, landlord and creditors to take the appropriate legal action like Sands Digital Media, Inc., has taken thus far.
Sands Digital Media, Inc., believes that foreign citizens who are corporate executives should not be allowed to do business in America unless they satisfy their debts.

Sands Digital Media, Inc. will be notifying all appropriate governmental agencies about this matter.

Michael Sands is available for all financial media and mainstream media to comment on the inner workings of Globetel Communication and Sanswire Networks. Michael Sands will blow the lid off of this corporation and paint you a picture in real time and capture for your viewers the real essence of Globetel.

Please email: sandsmedia@aol.com for a copy of the judgment and Writ of Execution.

Visit the Website: www.SandsDigitalMedia.com

For more information: Michael Sands

An Approved Department of Defense Contractor

"Combining industry savvy and a "Midas Touch",Michael Sands has transformed public relations of the 80's into MEDIA CONSULTING for the 21st Century.

Today, he not only negotiates media appearances for his clients, but also profitable business deals, distinguishing himself among the best of a new breed of Hollywood starmakers.

Sands' boutique of satisfied clients reads like a Who's-Who of modern-day overachievers from the vast worlds of entertainment, law, literature, medicine, politics, national and international corporations."

- PEOPLE Magazine


After much success as an actor, model, and entrepreneur, (C'est Cheesecake TM ) Michael Sands now lives and works in Beverly Hills, California, and shares the benefits of his experience and insight with a very select clientèle.
And with the emergence of SANDS DIGITAL MEDIA, Mr. Sands is taking his clients one giant step further by creating a "WEB PRESENCE" for every given client's special set of circumstances.
His knowledge of the industry and his very unique means for exposing a client's website address sets the stage for the most sought after sites on the Internet today. His ability to provide Multimedia Presentations for special events, or to be taken out on a laptop computer, are unsurpassed. His design staff uses only the most sophisticated, cutting edge software programs.(...no more of those"same old boring PowerPoint sideshow presentations" here!!)
Various clients of Michael Sands have been seen on: Good Morning America, The Today Show, World News Tonight, CNN, and in Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, People en Espagnol, Marie Claire, Self, Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Elle, Glamour, Parade, and Amica.

Sands Digital Media, Inc.
264 So. La Cienega Blvd. Ste. 922
Beverly Hills, Ca. 90211

Well I guess guys everybody better pay their bills, it's sad to see an airship project go away. But better the bad guys go down, then being around to take away the investors money from real Airship projects.

Navy MZ3A Airship #167811 continues operations amidst "tight" funding. [by Rick Zitarosa]

Navy MZ3A airship #167811 was up all day Saturday, providing a surprise visit to crowds on the boardwalks and "early bird" sunbathers at nearby beaches who were enjoying the first real "hot" day of Spring.

About ready to mark one full year since the first flight, the airship is undergoing mandatory Annual Maintenance Revue this week and is expected to return to the air early next week.

Meanwhile, funding for the airship to continue operating beyond June is a mounting concern. As little as the MZ3A project costs (about $5million per year for the entire operation) there is very little money to go around.

With $250million a day being spent on Iraq, every nook and cranny of the armed forces is being stripped of anything beyond bare funding. The MZ3A's role as a test, training and proof-of-concept vehicle for various promising airborne systems and operations notwithstanding, it remains to be seen whether the proponents of LTA can win continued funding.

One thing the airship has got going for it is a good operating record, the fact that it is already established inventory and the fact that from scratch the Navy people have created the only operational, fully-compliant current-military-standard LTA operation anywhere in the world with everything from tool/hardware inventory to Operational Risk Matrix appropriately documented, codified, quantified, etc.

The next few months should be interesting.

Rick

Thanks to Rick Zitarosa for this news item from the colorado Airship-list

One month of Airshipworld blogging

It's been exactly 1 month since our first post and today I would like to thank all the readers of the blog and all those people who helped me in finding good content to put on the blog. Seeing that there are actually some people who actually read this blog and check it out on a daily basis.
In this second month we will of course continue to provide you with informations and news from the industry. But we would also like to broaden our reach. So we would like to ask everyone to help spread the word about the blog. Link to the blog (our address is http://airshipworld.blogspot.com) from your website, tell your friends, make it your homepage, talk about it, in newsgroups, mailing-lists, investors meetings just about anywhere, where you could think about dropping our name. We ask this not so that we get more money from the blog, cause we don't get anything really. No, we ask you to spread the word so that we as a community have a platform that is independent from single companies, associations or groups. Here at Airshipworld, the world wide airship and LTA industry should come together, exchange thoughts, present new products and create a constant visible presence on the web, updated often and always current. So help strengthen the industry by promoting the blog. Please if you are skeptical tell us your concerns, if you don't want to promote us, then don't but if you could it would be greatly appreciated.
So I would like to present some facts and statistics from the last month, that might be of interest. There where 38 posts, which were read by more than 550 visitors on the site, resulting in more than 1100 pageviews from all over the world. The biggest part here where the United States with 51% of all visits, followed by Germany with 18%, the UK with 12,5%, other countries within the TOP10 have all contributed less then 5% of the hits, listed in descending order from most to least hits: Japan, France, Turkey, China, Canada, South Africa, Russian Federation. All together there where visitors from 27 Countries worldwide.
That should be enough for the statistics, our goal for the next month is going to be better then last month. How much better? Well, we will see. So tell us how you liked the first month of airship world, if you can not remember go back into the archive and check the posts again. We are really looking forward to your replies, opinions and maybe even criticism. If there is something that we can make better we will do everything we can to actually make it better. Thanks for your support and loyal readership.

Your resident blogger,

Andreas G.

New Lenticular Airship from France

Today we would like to point you to a new airship Company and design. The project is presumably called opération Alizé the project Website is located at http://www.operation-lta.com/ it's half English half French the sites are not translated word for word, so I assume the French is the more current half of the site.
So as stated in the title the airship is going to be lenticular, you can check out pictures on the Website that give you an impression, there is also a video available to watch, it shows the first prototype of the airship doing a test flight. As to specifications the website mentions the following for the final aircraft:

Diameter	100 m
Height	35 m
Flight altitude	500 m aboved ground
Maximum altitude	2 000 m above s.l.
Cruising speed	110 km/h
Max. speed	130 km/h
Range	4 000 km
Available volume	2 000 to 5 000 m

It's a very interesting concept and we are looking forward to hear more from this project in the future, we sure will be following the development of this project.
Thanks to Charles Luffman for pointing that out.

Airship Stuff on Ebay [Updated]

Today I would like to point anyone interested into airship, and LTA collectibles to look into some items for sale on eBay. The Seller, Ford U. Ross is a retired Navy Chief; ATC/AC USN, he spent his first 10 years flying in and maintaining Navy Blimps. He spent 7 years at NAS Lakehurst and 3 years in ZP-4 at NAF Weeksville. This is how he got interested in collecting Lighter-than-Air ephemera, primarily a few artifacts, books, photographs and flown Airship Covers, to include Navy Blimp covers.
He is a member of the Naval Airship Association; the LTA Soc; NLHS; MFHS(Life Member); ABAC plus the Zeppelin Collectors Club and the American Air Mail Society. Also active with the Military Museum and Memorial at NAS Richmond, FL.
And now he is in the process of liquidating his collections. There is a lot of really interesting stuff, in his eBay auctions and definitely worth a look. Also have a look at Ford's personal homepage, which has a collection of really nice classic blimp photos. Please look at his auctions and buy some stuff that interests you, we don't get anything from what he earns, we just like to support him, since those valuable artifacts should not be lost.
[Update] So just so you can find the eBay Items better, check out http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZzccaams

Unified Discussion Group activities

In the last few weeks a lot has been going on in the different online Discussion Groups about LTA Technology on the internet. Just for those who do not know the impprtant group sin the LTA Aircraft Industry. There is The so called Colorado Airship-list, thi sis the oldest list, it doesn't have an archive but you can send attachments to group members. Then there is the airshiplist Yahoogroup which recently resurrected from anarchy, the moderators came back, and now finally the list owner took action to fight the spam problem the list had in the last few weeks. The temporary airship-list on Yahoo has been removed and the Airshipworld Yahoogroup is mainly concentrating on the IAIC (International Airship Inverstors Conference). Charles Luffman provided a quite extensive post on airshipworld covering these topics, which I would like to quote in the following.

By way of explanation for airshipworld subscribers who may not know of the goings on in other similar groups, please read on. In doing so, please note the particular spelling of each group, since they are similar.

I'ts good to see that the owner and moderator of the airshiplist Yahoo Group have become active again and set things in place to re-establish control, preventing spammers abuse. This was a serious problem for a while, primarily due to the group's owners/moderators nonattendance. For some time it was not known for sure who these people were, leaving the spammers to take over.

Because of the situation and, in order to take control, one of the members started another group, called airship-list, with the intention to transfer the members and its data base. This was a difficult thing to do because, without owner/moderator rights of the original airshiplist, access to the database and subscribers details is somewhat restricted. This therefore was a last ditch attempt to recover the situation and relied on subscribers’ (over 300) good will for the switch.

Fortunately, one of the moderators (Gregory) returned, realized that things were amiss and took action to redress the situation. He also more recently was able to contact and get the support of the owner (Hermit), enabling full control to be reestablished. This being the case, the new airship-list was deleted as a redundant group by the member (Jim) who started it. In addition, Hermit engaged further help to administer the airshiplist group, ensuring good administration. The situation therefore has been made good and subscribers to that group should now be able to get on with their deliberations normally.

This was all done in an amicable way where we are able to cooperate. Jim and I are party to the exercise as new moderators in that group, so I will be acting for them as well. Jim and Gregory also are subscribers to airshipworld and I hope that their involvement will continue. As you probably know from previous posts, an objective of airshipworld is to cooperate with other related groups - to establish unity of purpose for the benefit of the industry. With these latest changes we now have a better basis for this.

The Colorado airship-list referred to by Gregory is not a Yahoo group, but is a similar airship discussion group to airshiplist and a large number of their subscribers (like me) are in both groups. The Colorado airship-list was unaffected by the spammers, so continued normally. The main difference between the two is that the Colorado group doesn’t have an online data base like the Yahoo groups but subscribers are able to attach small files.

I should like to say that my interest in airshipworld is undiminished, particularly since this group also has the primary purpose of a real event with public involvement at the investors' conference - where we intend to make a difference in actually promoting LTA aircraft with the people who need them and getting investment for new developments. To gain strength for this purpose we need to increase airshipworld membership so, whilst I would encourage members to expand their horizons, it would be upsetting to loose members now that the airshiplist is functioning properly. Spreading the message and getting new recruits is important.

Here at airshipworld we have not been troubled by spammers so far. Because of this we have not had to impose restrictions on members so, relatively speaking, it is a more open group. I am, nonetheless, mindful of these problems and if it starts will take action to remove abusers and tighten control. I also am interested in moderation assistance to strengthen our position and should be glad to hear from anyone with enough time, patience, aptitude for the job and who supports our goals.

Cheers,

Charles
P.S. For anyone interested, the Airship Association (see link in the links section) are holding a meeting in London on Thursday evening (26 Apr, 18:00 for 18:30 start), which I plan to attend. See you there:-)

Send more aerostats to Iraq, Congress told

Ken DeLacy pointed out to the Colorado Airship-list, that there was a Post at UPI that the US Congress wants to push the use of static tethered blimps read the full story at the UPI Website.

Varialift in Discussion

News about the Varialift Concept reach us from the Airshipworld Yahoogroup. This week a discussion about the validity of Mr Alan Handleys claims on his Varilift Website started. His filed patent for the Varialift Technology was also mentioned, and the interested reader can get the PDF from pat2pdf. In this dicussion it was doubted that he was actually able to build it and was rather going to run with the investment money. What do you think ? Does the patent sound valid, is Mr Handley trustworthy? Should we doubt innovators and mistrust them, or should we rather try to build trust and thus avoid doubt? We are one industry and everyone of us tries his her best to bring airships back to the mainstream and we can only reach this goal if we work together worldwide.

Airship Pool on Flickr

First of, sorry that I haven't posted in a few days, I had a crazy busy few days in my day job so I apologize for the not posting, I try to make up for that during the next week. Tonight I would like to present a new find. It's the Pool of the Flickr Airship Group, they have some very nice and current pictures of airships, I'm gonna monitor this and point out everythign interesting that I can find. You should check it out, there are some very recent pictures of the Zeppelin NT for example.

Worldwide Helium demand

Bugra Moto from Skywork Media posted and interetsing question today at the Airshipworld Yahoogroup that I would like to pick up here to bring it to a broader audience, since I think it has probabaly been discussed widely in different lists and groups, but getting the conclusions, people have come to, is not so easy. Bugras point was the following:

Blimps & Airships with all these beautiful projects about heavy cargo lift, satellite communication, defense, floating giant hotel blimp etc.; which don't get me wrong I absolutely hope they will become full scale production some time in the very near future and I admire all of you out there who invest time, effort, energy and other resources in such projects; how will the ever increasing helium demand worldwide be met with only 2 helium manufacturing countries to my knowledge (being USA & Australia)...

And I don't mean to be pessimistic here. Just hope the supply will catch up to the quick increasing demand. Well sooner or later I know it will.

And this question is really an interesting one. What if Airships, are going to become easyly developable when their production costs become lower, how are we gonna have enough helium readily available? Will we need to consider hydrogen as a liftgas again just because helium is to expensive and to difficult to get? And, are the US and Australia not going to abuse their monopoly to drive costs, if the demand increases?
Please send us your Ideas and thoughts about this topic, on airship-list Colorado the discussion about hydrogen came up again and in feburary it was at the little blimps mailing list. We all agree that hydrogen is extremely difficut to deal with, but is it more dangerous then thousands of liter of kerosin fuel, todays airplanes are fueled with? Could there be an alternative, like artifical helium that is generated by some chemical process? Please share your thoughts about this topic with us.

Airship Cutaways

On the Airshipworld Yahoogroup Mark Nelson pointed out two really nice cutaway images of airships, one shows the Zeppelin LZ-129 “Hindenburg” and the other on the Airbus-Industries AD300 Airship of 1979, which I have never heard about. Unfortunately the images aren't in a huge resolution especially for the Hindenburg, one would have wished to be able to read everything in the picture. They are part of the Flight Global archive which just got boosted up woth many new pictures. Go to the starting page of the Flight Archive to find images, cutaways and soon full backlog magazines, it's definetly gonna become a great resource for everyone interested in aircrafts.

Zeppelin NT with Artwork spotted via Webcam

A sunny day in Germany today and the Zeppelin-NT Webcam captured a nice shot of the Zeppelin-NT with it's new paint job that we have reported on before. The webcam image was posted to the airship-list by Glenn Adams.

In reply to that Christian Michel pointed out that one

You might see more aircraft crossing in front of the Zeppelin Hangar. Next weekend (19th to 22nd) will be the AERO fair on the fairgrounds just left of the visible area of the webcam, so aircrafts that are on display in the exhibition will have to cross just in front of the hangar (and they have to cross the public road, always funny, when you have to wait for aircraft crossing the road).

So yes the Aero is this weekend in Friedrichshafen Germany, it's gonna be the largest one in the history of the exposition. Check out the Aero Website and if you happen to go there, take some pcitures of the Zeppelin, and send them to us or upload them to Flickr and tell us where we can find them.
If you want to see yourself what is going on in Friedrichshafen Germany and want to see the Zeppelin NT, you should either come to Lake Constance or take a look at the Zeppelin-NT Webcam, actually as I am writing this post, it's currently dark in Germany the Zeppelin is there. Don't believe me ? Well, look for yourself :-)

Airshipventures on the rise

Alex and Brian Hall from Airshipventures mentioned already in a previous post are now actively posting quite a bit on their blog Airshipventures the first post of today is about the Zeppelin which is scheduled to be in London 2008, an article in the UK Sunday Times talks about the guy who wants to bring the Zeppelin to London, and ya the Times thinks airships fly with hot air, at least that's the impression you get from reading the article. The guy is supposed to be a "recent 'firing' from the UK equivalent of 'The Apprentice' TV" according to the article. Alex's comments are worth a read, check them out over at Airshipventures. But they didn't rest after that one Post, the also published a clarification post with the Title "Yes, we mean Zeppelin". To me it's clear what that means, Alex and Brian Hall are trying to get a Zeppelin NT over to the US, if they will just operate it or actually buy it, well I don't know but we sure will post about it when we find that out.
If you want us to report on your airship related news drop us an email or post a comment on the blog, we will for sure read everything you send us and consider it as a post. Check back tomorrow for more news from the airhsip business maybe from Airshipventures, but for sure from somewhere in the LTA industry.

The Friedrich Files, WDL and la Compagnie des Dirigeables

So in lack of really great news on the April Sunday we are going to introduce you to some websites. Some of them might already be known to you, but maybe some are are new. First I would like to introduce The FriedrichFiles it's a site containing a pretty extensive list of airship manufactures and their crafts and some pictures of airships like the one on the right. Definitely worth checking out.
The next page I want to point to is the homepage of WDL LUFTSCHIFFGESELLSCHAFT their homepage is available in german and english. WDL is a Manufacturer of Airships and is the only manufacturer of full size advertising blimps with all necessary permissions and CofA for the US, Japan and Germany. Check them out they also have some nice pictures of their airships on the site.
Last but not least we take a look at the French website of La Compagnie des Dirigeables they have a personal blimp, that can carry one person, and a very innovative inflatable hangar. Check out their site, there are also some great videos available. It's not necessary that you are able to read French, cause discovering what you can find behind the different links is actually quite interesting and fun.

NYK Sells Its Shares of Nippon Airship Corporation

News come from Japan these days NYK (Nippon Yusen Kaisha) who invested in the NAC (Nippon Airship Company) sold all their shares, that is 58.8% of all NAC shares. On the NYK Website there was an announcement that went in to further detail. From what I can read out of this it seems that NAC is actually doing pretty well so it shouldn't effect them negatively. Grant Morgan investigated this a bit closer on his blog and found some Japanese Blog that is stating where the Zeppelin NT is right now and some more general News about Airships and Zeppelins. So ya I guess we will look again at the Zeppelin NT in Japan, in a future post.
Let's see where the Zeppelins are right now, as far as I know one is in Japan operated by NAC, sold by Zeppelin, one is in Africa right now in service for De Beer Diamonds and one is in Friedrichshafen and doing tourist tours and number 4 is beeing build and is scheduled to fly across London in 2008. I am not sure if these informations are 100% valid, so please help us to track them. Do you know more or have other informations, please contact us or write a comment in the blog.

"World`s Largest Advertising RC Airship" (60ft/18m) now for Sale or Hire

Yes you read right, I don't know if it is actually the largest RC Advertising Blimp in the World but it is now for sale. Why ? Well, read on about who Skywork Media is and why exactly they are selling their airship.

We like to shortly introduce our company. Skywork Media was founded in May of 2006. We are offering alternative Advertising Mediums & Services such as RC Blimps/Airships, corporate branded hot air balloons and special shapes here in Istanbul, Turkey.

As of October 2006, we own & operate the "Worlds Largest Advertising RC Blimp" (not military) in its class. It is 60ft/18m long, has a volume of 7.451ft3/211m3 and a net Advertising area of 861ft2/80m2 (net banner are), which is larger than a small studio apartment.

We are currently selling this Airship. It is in good and only has 2 hours flight time on it. Local civil aviation changed their regulations about rc airships and now we are not allowed to fly it here.

For more technical information, please contact us at: Skywork-media.com

More pictures can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skywork/

So that's the story the law doesn't allow them to fly their airship anymore. Do you know of other RC Blimp of a comparable size? Where else is it legal or illegal to fly those, what are the actual regulations in your country. We like to know more about this subject, please let us know what you think via a comment or an email to airshipworld at gmail.com. This is a issue as far as I know also in the US but I can not confirm this. Should it be allowed what can be done to change those laws ? It's an interesting topic and we will look further in to this in future posts.

[Update] The company introduction has been modified on the request of Skywork Media.

About "Airship Advertising"

Together with Skywork Media we would like to publish two posts one more general about Airship Advertising this is this one, and then another one about Skywork Media and their Airship. So read on to find out more about Airship advertising.

Airships are a very powerful marketing tool. Unique & different, they are highly emotional and a high impact alternative advertising medium.

Throughout history and still today humans always have been fascinated with things that fly. You have the air shows, festivals etc. There are many positive feelings associated with things that fly (power, prestige, trust, patriotism...). These positive feelings will be reflected upon the Advertiser and the Brand through "power of association".

Airships also have a high recall rate compared to other media. You will remember an Airship and messages on it after years have gone by.

There is no Advertising clutter in the Sky and this makes Airships also highly visible. It is also a basic human instinct to look up...

Compared to other Advertising Medium, Airships have the lowest Cost per Thousand (CPM) rate, a well known term in Advertising. Yes, therefore Airships are great to reach masses

Among other, Airships complement and maximize your corporate PR efforts.

One of the most impressive features about Airships Advertising is that they reflect an increase in sales & market share and if done right and integration with effective PR, the free publicity & media coverage received is very valueable.

Last but not least, Airships increase brand awareness and strengthen your company/brand image. They draw attention to your marketing message and build impact.

Airships are widely used by Fortune 500 Companies as an integral part of their Marketing Plan. Some famous corporate Blimps include Met Life, Sanyo, Fuji, Saturn, Monster.com, Blockbuster Video and last but not least Goodyear Company who started it all. Being a manufacturer of Blimps during World War 2, Good Year Tire Company operates 3 Advertising Blimps in the US today. Blimps have been an indispensable and powerful vehicle for Goodyear Company in achieving near universal Brand Awareness.

Thanks to Bugra Moto from Skywork Media for this article. What are your opinions about advertising in the sky, please let us know, send us an email or leave a comment on the Blog and check back later today for a closer look at the 60ft/18m remote controlled Skywork Media advertising blimp

Helium price

The US Geological Survey Homepage provides statistics and information about Helium, the 2007 Mineral Commodity Summary for helium is online there with informations about production, prices, trends, worldwide production and reserve base and more. It's definitely worth checking out for anyone in the lighter-than-air business.
-Minderal Commodity Summary - Helium (2007) [PDF]

The Mineral Commodity Summary is available from 1996 - 2007. There is also a Minerals Yearbook from 1994-2005, as well as one special publication.
Thanks to James Logajan from the AirshipList for finding this page.

AIAA Balloon Systems Conference

The American Institue of Aeronautics and Astronautics is hosting it's 19th Balloon Systems Conference from May 21st - 24th 2007 in Williamsburg Lodge, Williamsburg VA.

The purpose of the AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference and Seminar is to provide a forum for the world’s leading experts, scientists, and engineers in parachute and aerodynamic decelerator system technologies to present recent advances in the field. The conference will foster an environment for the free exchange of information, provide an opportunity for technical interaction among the field’s leading researchers and developers, and cultivate an atmosphere of cooperation on an international scale. This year, the ADS Conference and Seminar will be collocated with the AIAA Balloon Systems Conference, which will provide attendees with a unique opportunity to expand their knowledge in the technological advances of both disciplines.

Early registration ends April 23rd online proceedings for registered attendees will be available as of May 10th. Check out the Website of the AIAA for more informations, there you will also find the Call for Papers and the Preliminary Program
Thanks to zuppalloon from the Airshiplist for this information.

Updated the last post

Unfortunately the links which where posted to the Call for Papers and Potential Subjects PDF-Documents did not work, if you weren't a registered member of the Airshipworld yahoo group, we moved the documents now to a public location so that everybody can access them now. Again our apologies for this inconvenience.
Here are the correct links again:
-Call for Papers [PDF]
-Potential Subjects [PDF]

First International Airship Investors' Conference - Call for Papers [Updated]

Today we like to draw your attention to the First International Airship Investors' Conference, which is organised by P R (Robin) Denton and Charles Luffman, the conference wants to bring manufactures, operators and investors together. We would like to republish the call for papers, that was released last October.
Please take a look at these documents:
-Call for Papers [PDF]
-Potential Subjects [PDF]
If you have any further questions please contact us at airshipworld@gmail.com we will forward your message to the right person. If you aren't interested in writing a paper, and rather would like to know more about the conference, if you want to be an attendee or present your products, if you have an airship that you would like to present, even if it is just an R/C Blimp please contact us for further assistance.

Airship, Blimp and LTA Organisations

Tonight we would like to present a small link list of Airship, Blimp, Ballooning and Lighter-Than-Air organisations. Thi sis by no means a complete list, but we like to start this list today and regularly update it. We are also interested which of those Organisations you might belong to, which you consider important, on which we should report or which of them seem more or less irrelevant. So here is tonights list:

• Experimental Balloon and Airship Association
• The Lighter Than Air Society
• Assn of Balloon & Airship Constructors
• Airship Association
• Naval Airship Association

This is our first try of creating a list of airship organisations, but I am sure we forgot quite a few, especially international ones, germany, france? It would be great to get some input or comments about the listed organisations and the ones we haven't mentioned yet.
Another little side note, you might have noticed a slight change in the colors on the website and a new Airshipworld Logo, it's a first try and we are looking forward to your comments, and opinons. Over the next couple of weeks we will completely redesign the layout, since we started out with a basic Blogger template and now are on the way to our very own design. So please leave your comments in the comments section of this post or send us an email, feedback and criticism is really welcome.

Total Pole Airship

I just discovered a new Project Website that I would like to share with you. It is the "Total Pole Airship" a project flying with an airship to the northpole.

In the context of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008, the Total Pole Airship expedition aims to measure the thickness of the pack ice layer covering the Arctic Ocean.

They will be using a russian AU-30 (54 m long, 13,5 m diameter, 5,000 m3) built by RosAeroSystems which will be prepared specially for this expedition.

Zeppelin over London in 2008

John Christopher of Airshipinitiatives just released the following news that I would also like to republish:

We can confirm that plans for a Zeppelin NT to operate over London during 2008 are being finalised.

At present the 3-4 week stay for the Zeppelin (probably 003 if 004 is not ready in time) is still under negotiation and remains subject to permissions being granted by the various authorities. This includes Health and Safety who are expected to reach a decision next week on the airship operating from the open ground at Blackheath (incidentally a former airfield).

A final go-ahead for the 2008 visit is expected by the Autumn.

This is great news for Airship fans in the UK, I personally look forward to some great pictures of the Zeppelin and the Big Ben, and other sights in London. Signup Forms will be avaialable shortly at Airshipinitiatives as soon as we have more information about that we will report it.

Varialift Airships

Tonight we are announcing the launch of a new website, for a new airship company called Varialift, it's a rigid-airship concept, for a freight airship, that doesn't need a large ground crew to handle cause it has, as the name suggests variable lift. On the ground it is heavier than air and with it's variable buoyancy units becomes lighter-than-air to take off. It's a great concept and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Check out the new Website http://www.varialift.com/. Of course we will keep you updated, on the going ons with this project. Please also give Mister A. Handley a feedback on his website.

Airship Art - Sneak Preview

Paul Adams provided me with this picture based on the "famous" photo of the ZR1 unmasting from the Patoka, it's a sneak peak of a newly commissioned airship painting that is one of a series depicting the history of rigid airships. He says, that the series should be released in the not to distant future, they are currently working out the media, format and some other details. Of course we will report on it, when we have news about them. Click on the post-title or the picture to see a fullsize version of the Image and leave your Comments, either here in the blog or via email.

The Magenn Air Rotor System

Bex Huff just reported on a very interesting concept by Magenn Power Inc. it's a wind energy generator that is mounted inside a lighter-than-air blimp, working a blit like a water-mill in the sky.

It's an intersting concept, and we are eager to see it in production. The fact that it is easily deployable is a big advantage over conventional Wind Turbines. It's an interesting application of the LTA technology and shows once more, that lighter-than-air has many advantages that we haven't yet exploited completely.

=FUTURE>FLIGHT - an airship story - Part 1

Paul Boldt has been writing a what he calls FurtureFi Story and he thought why not share it with the community. He sent me the first page, and I decided to publish it, please read it and leave your comments, do you want more or would you prefere not? Do you want to leave feedback for paul, please send us an Email.
Please be aware that any views expressed in the story are the views and opinions of the author, and we just publish it as an independent source. So here is the first teaser page of his story, enjoy:

=FUTURE>FLIGHT


A FutureFi story by: Paul Boldt


From Air to Airternity


Any references to persons living and or fictional is solely from the mind of Minolta and all identities herein may or may not reflect certain aspects of those living so take that as you will and any and all sarcasm and wit to be displayed only to those who can handle criticism constructively, and certain instances of writings on the
airship list will be copied and pasted as deemed desirable, so if you don't want it quoted don't write it in the first place! Plus any below average marks given for my poor English prose can be directly directed at my early childhood negligence and disinterest at studying the aforementioned subject.


Chapter One: An Early bird wouldn't swirm.


Monday, I was late for work, which was usual after a hard long weekend of clubbing it all around Manhattan. Usually it would have been down to Atlantic City to shoot the dice, bang!, batoboom batabing, but I had just found a new woman who was directing my direction in her direction, if you directly know what I mean. I had actually wanted to get in early to get a jump on the day, as it was to be an interesting next few days, which the interesting part was to start at 3PM, with the lift off of the company charted Airship. (Oh, by the way, the aforementioned newfound interests name is Ceya).

The boys in the top floor at the place I work like to show the world that they are pulling in the money correctly, their global investments and partnerships reaches into the billions, so what's eight and a half million dollars to charter a blimp bag for a week? Entertain cliental, give the office a few days rest, while keeping them working with the full internet connectivity aboard the ship.

The buzz around the office was one of the top managers was afraid to fly cause he didn't want to go down in flames like the Hindenburg, but the bean crunchers in accounting worked with legal and gave the green thumbs up, they even had to give top management a fifteen minute presentation (that took 3 weeks to research and write for another $300,000!! they got some of the information and misinformation on some
obscure internet airship list).

Mid morning was swamped; lunch was a V8, as I was planning to have my meal on board, which was heard to be as good as the New Astoria Megahotel. My head was buried inside my computer screen with two phones one on each ear, one to some coke infused night owls in Shanghai, and the other to my shift change associate in Guam, who was just telling me how jealous she was that I was going to be flying….

I first looked at the clocks on the wall, located the one for NY, holy shitake mushroom batman it was 3:17pm, I looked out the window overlooking the river, and in the background I see the Statue of Liberty, and in the foreground I see the mammoth ship already lifting off! No wonder I could finally get some work done the whole place was empty around me. I vaguely remembered an email note, that said if you were tied up with important client meeting or just had to delay, you could pay an extra $1000 and catch a helicopter ride on the top of the airship within 2 hours of take off, as the ship would still be buzzing around Manhattan, displaying full fuselage advertising for the company (additional money on top of the charter fee).

I typed on my credit account info and billed for the heli-ride, downloaded the ticket info to my watch, and bee lined it (whatever that means) to the roof. Probably lucky that I missed the actual take off as none other than Wiley E. Bill himself was stepping on the elevator 4 floors above where I got on. Rumor was he had figures upon figures down to the toenail on just about everything that could make the firm reach it's trillion dollar goal, proven by the facts; a) he knew my name, as his secretary had just told him, via his download feed, who had just purchased late tickets, and who would be riding on the elevator, the download giving him vast amounts of data to dissect, b) he rattled off on my account I was to be closing on board the airship with the Czech contacts, c) he quoted the friggen dimensions and stats of the whale we'd be landing on in 27 minutes time which are as follows:......

TO BE CONTINUED

Now what? You might ask, well I guess you will have to wait, for the next installment. So my question to all who read the whole piece: Do you want more? Or would you rather have less fiction and more facts on the Blog? Leave a comment or send an Email to airshipworld@gmail.com. We really need your opinions. If you also happen have something like that and would like it published here, please go ahead and send it to us.

Airship and Dirigibles history pages - Part 2

We are continuing our roundup for airship, blimp and dirigible history websites with pictures and historical informations from the great ages of the airships. The first Website I would like to Point out is Æ Aeragon Website, the website is dedicated to military technology transfer, and has different section one of them is Air Transportation, in there you will find a special section about airships how their development went from military to public commercial use. It's a great and insightfull read.
The next Site is the Airship Heritage Trust an active site with lot's of pictures, videos and information about airships. It's a great resource and the Website is actively promoting Airships and the fascination surrounding them.
The last historical Site is The Zeppelin Library Archive a resource listing the history and specs of the great Zeppelins also mentioning the new Zeppelin NT, which was really brand new the lst time the Website was updated. It seems pretty dead, but history doesn't go away and in this way it's a great resource.

Airship and Dirigibles history pages - Part 1

Today we take a look at a russian Website, since my Russian skills are not existant since I have never learnt that language I can only say, nice pictures of historc Airships in the early 1900s the first Page is in english but there are about 19 Pages of pictures none of them are in english. Whoever speaks russian and would be so nice, should get us those texts under the pictures translated. And while we are at it, and already pointed to some russian website, let's bring in the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society which also has some nice picture of the historic navy airships. Continuing our travels in the US there is also another Site dedicated to Historic Aiships and that is The Naval Air Station Tillamook Website, also containing many images and stories about Airhsips of the US Military.

Zeppelin Art [via Airshipinitiatives]

John Christopher who I just mentioned yesterday has posted an announcement into the Colorado Airshiplist, since it doesn't hve an archive or at least I don'T know of any archive here is the full text. We hope to reach a broader Audience by posting it here too. So John Christoper writes:

It's great to see the Zeppelin NT out and about again.

This artwork on the Zepp is in fact a special project by the artist Stefan Szczesny. The following paragraph comes from his website where you will also see an impression of the finished design - which incidentally is a reclining woman. See http://www.szczesny-online.com/start.php?lang=eng&active=zeppelin

Szczesny designs zeppelin

From April through mid-May 2007, the zeppelin NT will be part of a major event in which artist Stefan Szczesny will transform Mainau Island into a total artwork. The motto for this grand project is: 'A dream of an earthly paradise'. During this period, the zeppelin will also display a design by Stefan Szcezsny, making it part of this marvellous artwork, rounding off the project from up in the air. On trips over Mainau Island during this period, passengers aboard the zeppelin can marvel from on high at the 'earthly dream' - the zeppelin trip will make them one with this wonderful event.

And if you want to come and fly in this Zeppelin and see the island for yourself then why not join one of our Zeppelin Tours to Friedrichshafen - see our website www.airshipinitiatives.com and click on Zeppelin Flights + Tours.

JC
John Christopher

Airship Initiatives - putting airships to work
www.airshipinitiatives.com

So check out the page of Stefan Szczesny and if you are interested contact John Christopher and book your flight.

Updates from the Current Airship Blog

Grant Morgan made an update to his Current Airship Blog he announced 3 new Websites one of them is us, thanks Grant for that. Besides our blog he also mentioned Levante-Vision a site from germany unfortunately the site seems to be offline right now, so I thought I include a lik to a google search allowing you to look at the cached copies of the pages that where available. So check out the chached pages on Google if you are interested.
The other Site Grant mentions is Airship Initiatvie a Site dedicated to build business around airships. The Airship Initiatvie are John and Ute Christopher and they are Living in the UK. It's quite an intersting Site, with a lot of information check it out at http://www.airshipinitiatives.com/. To some of you John might be a name that you remember, he was editor of Airship – the journal of the Airship Association, for three years.

Stardust - The Movie

Well I have come across a Blog post about a Trailer to a Movie caled Stardust, and so I went and looked. And in the movie there are some fantasy airships, but at least it's airships, and when I say airship I mean air ship cause those are really ships with a blimp mounted ontop and they are flying, I think it would actually be quite cool to see something like that become reality, if it is technologically possible, what do you think, could it be build? Here is the Trailer watch it and leave a comment here in the blog telling us what you think.

The Movie Sardust should be out August 10th 2007 in the US, it is based on the Novel "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman, I have posted some links to amazon, for those who would like to check it out or even buy the book.

Airshipventures update

I just found out that he two "guys" from Airshipventures are actually not two guys but husband and wife Brian and Alexandra Hall. Just wanted to clarify that. The Airshipventures website will be changing quite a bit in the next couple of weeks, and I will course keep track and keep you updated.