Russian Airship Videos

Stanislav from PBO.ru(Translated English Page) posted a great video from the MAKS 2007 that we would like to share. If you do not remember read our post about MAKS from September 2007.
Тележурнал "Воздух!" №3 (click here to view the video)

More videos can also be seen at http://video.mail.ru/mail/fuodoroff/58/
PBO.ru is if I am correct the Russian Aeronautical Society. They have a great page about all Russian Airships as we have mentioned in May of this year

Massaud - Manned Cloud Hotel

In November we featured a post about the Stratocruiser and that designers discover airships in this article we also mentioned a site by the designer Jean-Marie Massaud his website features the picture of a great white whale like airship. Now we have kept our eyes open and here is what we found out. It seems to be a project that is not really new. Even though it seems to get attention just in the last few months as it makes it's way through the Blogosphere. The first mentions of this project seem to be in French websites as early as January 2007. One mention is from Liberation.fr (English translation here) and Cote Masion.fr (English translation here) also containing pictures.
A little later in in February 2007 there was a post at 365questions.org which contains the most pictures of the Massaud Manned Cloud which are known to me.
We also found a video on a site that was written in Spanish and has a copyright of 2006 (English translated version here). We uploaded the video to YouTube so that you watch is easily.

Massaud - Manned Cloud Airship Hotel

As Mentioned earlier in this posts there was quite some coverage about the airship in the last few weeks. It is supposed to be a hotel for eco tourism, able to fly 280km/h and provide 60 rooms for passengers enjoying it's 3 day cruise around the world and as many project state it could be realized as soon as next year.
Considering no airship ever flew that fast it's an ambitious project. According to Modern-Airships the fastest Airship to date was the Macon with about 140 km/h this ship would have to fly twice as fast. Also having 60 rooms on 500 square meters seems like a big step, considering the Hindenburg had about that size of space. Today the largest Airship the Zeppelin NT can carry 12 passengers maximum. So this is another visionary project that we will keep looking into. But till today an airship that can match the Hindenburg, Graf Zeppelin, Akron or Macon still has to be built.
So here is the rest of the Coverage about the Massaud Manned Cloud Airship.
As always our friends at Aerocrat where a good source. check out their post about the Massaud Airship here (English page here)
But also Bornrich.org did their homework well in their Post called "Manned Cloud by Massaud Studio – The flying eco-hotel!" they linked to a some great sources:

• ecofriend: Manned Cloud: Fly high without polluting sky
• univers-decoration.com: Un hotel dans les airs (English translation)
• Diario del viajero: Viaje al futuro (English translation here)

One last source also seems to be design-italia with their post "Maned Cloud, Jean-Marie Massaud" (English translation here). We are sure that there is more but we are also wondering how much of this is actually feasible . Right now it seems to be a dream of a designer without much of an engineering background but we love to be wrong on that. If you have more information pictures, numbers, videos anything that might be of interest post a comment or send us an email.

The Helion project

France should never be underestimated when it comes to Lighter Than Air. Even though Germany, Britain, and the US are the usual suspects for LTA news, France is always a great place for new innovative ideas. Today I would like to introduce you to another great idea that is coming from France. "The Helion project" is a concept of an ultralight motorized glider with VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) capabilities. It has been featured already in Gliding Magazine in 2005 so it is no new kid on the block. Jospeh Loury the creator of the Helion project just sent out a new Presentation about the project as PDF that you can download here. It explains the project in more detail and also contains some more pictures that can also be found on the Helion project website together with an even more extensive PDF with more background information that can be downloaded from here. What do you think of the project? Tell us in the comments section or send us an email. We love to hear more from you. And if you have questions don't hesitate to ask. We will try to get Joseph Loury for an interview to get more insights into his project.
Oh and yes for all subscribers to the Blog, a belated Xmas gift. All posts are now published completely with all links and images no more summary posts in the feed. But please, stop by at the website too, we would miss you as our visitors. If you have not subscribed yet, please do so either by subscribing to the RSS feed or by Email. If you need any help or assistance please don't hesitate to drop us a line, we will help you getting set up with feed reader. If you don't know which one to use I am using Bloglines and it's working great for me.

Airship Xmas Cards

Throughout the Holiday Season one usually gets a lot of Christmas cards, these are just four cards that I got this Xmas, anyone else got some nice Airship related Xmas cards?

The first one is from our friends at Airshipventures Brian and Alexandra Hall they are working hard on getting the first Zeppelin NT to the American continent. For news around their venture also check out their well written Blog "Up Ship!"

The second card comes from Zeppelintours by John Christopher from Airshipinitiatives. Your one stop shop for your Zeppelin tourism needs world wide.

The last two cards where sent to the Airship-list by Ken DeLacy and I have to thank him for pointing me to the website where he got them from. These last to cards are out of the Navy Department Library and are part of the Macon collection

Do you have any more airship related Xmas cards or collectibles? Let us know we will be happy to feature them. Or maybe you have other Holiday Cards and collectibles that we could feature ? How a bout new years, easter or thanksgiving ?

Happy Holidays from everyone at Airshipworld

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to each and everyone out there. I and the team of Airshipworld would like to thank you as our reader for this last year. The Airshipworld Blog is not even a year old but we have established a loyal readership and want to thank everyone who is reading this blog for giving us a chance as the new kid on the block. We want to thank each and everyone of those 15.000 people that have visited our Blog throughout the last year. When I first started out with this project in March 2007 I didn't expect this tremendous success. I have made a lot of new friends in this last year and I, as well as everyone working on Airshipworld will be happy to serve you in 2008 as your news source for the Airship Industry. The year ends but the work on Airshipworld continues and picks up speed as we are approaching the First International Airship Investors Conference at the end of May 2008. Just this week we have signed the paperwork to establish the Airshipworld Association e.V. here in Germany we should hear back from the authorities early next year. This step now allows us to proceed in organizing the Conference. Stop by in the next few days on this site to learn more about the Airshipworld Association. Also I am working on the Airshipworld Website which will have more information about the Conference and the Association. I hope to have something up before I have to get back to work in January.
A last I want to send out a very special thanks to all the subscribers of this Blog. If you subscribe by Email or to the RSS-Feed in a feed-reader, thank you for your support. I can not believe that there are more than 100 people already subscribed to our Blog. Thank you so much, you keep me going. But let us know what we can improve. I know the number of blog posts have declined throughout the last few months, this was mostly because of my new job situation. I am working hard on trying to improve it, so that I will be able to post 2-4 days a week again. And you can believe me I will find a way. But for now happy holidays to everyone many presents and some peaceful days. I am away for a few days but will be back before new years.

Ho ho ho,
Andreas G

Years End News from the Zeppelin

Before the year ends here few year ender updates from Zeppelin. The Zeppelin NT flew this year for the first time all the time until the beginning of December, letting more than 12.000 passengers experience Lake Constance out of an airship this year. This totals in more than 73.000 Passenger since August 2001. That is more than 14.6 million Euro just in ticket sales. The Zeppelin NT also received a new branding. With a 14 month contract the Deutsche Telekom signed the longest running branding contract in the companies history. The URL that can be seen on the Zeppelins envelope directs to the T-City which was a contest project by the Deutsche Telekom to find a City in Germany with innovative concepts on how to use communication and information technology in a city. The winner of this contest was Friedrichshafen at Lake Constance the home of the Zeppelin.

The bottom part of the envelope that can only be seen from directly underneath the Zeppelin is branded for the same time with the Health Insurance BKK Gildemeister Seidensticker.

Also I would like to share with you this years holiday Card from Zeppelin, which was only sent out digitally and the money saved by doing so was given to a charity.

Interview with Stephen Wood from the Lightship Group

Since I have quite a long commute to work every day, I listen to a lot of Podcasts they range from technology to music to aviation. One of these aviation Podcasts I just recently subscribed to is the Pilotcast "a Podcast for Pilots, by Pilots" it's great to get a glimpse into the general aviation world. And it was even greater when I heard that they had featured an interview with a Blimp Pilot. This Pilot is Steve Wood who was flying a Lightship Blimp during this interview which got featured all the way back in September 2005. I discovered it because I listened through all the Archived episodes to get a better understanding of the current developments in the HTA (Heavier-Than-Air) aviation industry.
So check out this 28 minute excerpt of the Pilotcast Number 11 by clicking on the play button below.

You can download the original 1:14 long episode by using this download link
If you are listening to podcasts and are interested in general aviation this podcast is a must. Go to http://www.pilotcast.com and subscribe to their show. If you haven't downloaded a Podcast yet, maybe this could be your first one. Let us know what you think about audio content on the page, would you be interested in a Airship Podcast or is there one already out there? Let us know, send us comments via email or post them in the comments section of this post.

Blimp Pictures

I just found a nice website with lot's of Blimp pictures that I wanted to share with you. It's http://www.photovault.com in their Aerospace and Aviation section they have a nice collection of Blimp pictures featuring the Goodyear Blimps and some others. Check them out here. Regarding the Goodyear Blimps check out the Exhibition that's currently running in the Zeppelin Museum.