There's more than one way to skin a SkyCat

Today we open our book once again and add another chapter to the never ending story about Skycat. If you don't know about the Skycat story you should catch up on what has been going on over the last year. You can read the articles labeled "Skycat" here on the Blog to get an overview. But let's quickly reiterate for those of you who kind of know the basic facts. SkyCat was a project for a hybrid airship that combines static lift with dynamic lift. The project was first started by ATG a British airship company which was based in Cardington and went into administration a few years ago. The so called father of the SkyCat, Roger Munk then bought the assets of ATG as well as the prototype SkyKitten. The new company was called SkyCat Group Limited and was founded in spring 2007. First everything looked promising, and the hopes were high that the great SkyCat program would resurrect. But fortune turne quickly for SkyCat when Roger Munk was sued by Lockheed-Martin. The dispute was probably over the undeniable similarities of the SkyCat design and the P-791 Skunkworks Airship. You can see a video of the airship here. This of course brought the SkyCat Group into administration just months after resurfacing. But this Cat really seems to have 9 lives, because shortly after Hybrid Air Vehicles(HAV) was founded now back in Cardington, and back with the SkyCats. Not much is know about the activities of Hybrid Air Vehicles, but I am sure the next months will not be without something new coming out of Cardington.
Today we want to invite you to check out the new website of HAV that gives a company profile and presents the SkyCats at http://www.skycatgroup.com/, sorry http://hybridairvehicles.net. There is many ways to skin a cat.

The Skycat puzzle continues

I think the Word SkyCat is not really derived from Sky Catamaran but more really from the Animal cause it seems that this Project has nine lives, or even more. So it was just back in May 2007 when we reported that Roger Munk's SkyCat is back with a multinational Company called the SkyCat Group Limited. But just 4 days after that we had to report that Lockheed Martin was suing Roger Munk because of Patent infringement. Only a few weeks after this on July 1st 2007 the Skycat Group went into Administration. 18 Days later that same month we reported about a new Hybrid Airship research Project at the University of Cambridge in the UK. And everything pointed to a company called Tensys who have helped to build the SkyKitten and the Lockheed Martin P-791 that looked a lot like the SkyCat.
After this it got quiet for a while, but now the SkyCat is back once again, or so it seems. We got word of a short press release by a Company called HYBRID AIR VEHICLES, we did a search for them on the Web but besides this Information from UK Data we couldn't find much. The Company Details that UK Data provides are not very broad, you would have to buy certain document to get more information. We don't know of any free way to access these documents, maybe someone from the UK knows how we could get access to those. So searching for the Company Number in the UK Companyhouse turned up this page of Company Details one thing that was most interesting was the Date of Incorporation which is according to the Companyhouse June 6th 2007 just around two weeks after the court filing of Lockheed against Roger Munk. So let's take a look at the press release, we are not going to name our source, since we didn't obtain this press release officially or got it from a source online. So we do not know how valid this information is:

HYBRID AIR VEHICLES

Hangar 2
Cardington Field
Shortstown
Bedford
MK42 0TG

STATEMENT - HYBRID AIR VEHICLES

SkyCat Group, previously owned by Italian and UK Investor Groups, has been in Administration for restructuring purposes since 25 June 2007.  The business of SkyCat, including all of the IP and assets, with technical team intact and free of any encumbrance from SkyCat Group, was acquired on 3 August 2007 by UK investors into a new company called Hybrid Air Vehicles.

Work continues at Cardington unabated, and the new company is planning to take forward the same range of Lighter than Air products as those of its predecessor, focusing on Condor in the first instance, closely followed by the SkyCat series.

21 August 2007

Note:
"Hybrid Air Vehicles is the trading name of HAP Acquisitions Limited, company number 06270723, registered office One Fleet Place, London, EC4M 7WS".

So the work continues? We will see and we hope it will. The SkyCat is a great concept that deserves success. Interestingly to get even more cross references let's take a look at this Article from Findtheneedle. The Article talks about Tensys, yes the people behind the Skykitten and guess what the Title of the Article is? "Hybrid Air Vehicle (HAV)" exactly. Notice this slight connection? So we have Roger Munk, with ATG, the SkycatGroup and now Hybrid Air Vehicles, also we have Lockheed Martin/Skunkworks with their P-791 Craft and Tensys. How about we introduce yet another player into the SkyCat puzzle. Entrance the Hybrid Aircraft Corporation. The talk about their Product the SkyCat ?!? Wait a Minute, isn't that the one the Roger Munk is Building? But they also talk about nothing other than the Skunk Works P-791 that they must have been involved with too. And to top everything of for the night they have a page about patents connected to the SkyCat and when they where filed. Some date back all the way to 1928? So if everything related to the SkyCat is prior art, why would or could Lockheed sue Roger Munk? The deeper we get into this story the more confusing it get's and to date I have not found anyone who could tell me the whole story. Who knows it? Do you have a piece to the puzzle called SkyCat? Then tell us, we want to know. Do you know Roger Munk, tell him to contact us, we would really like to talk to him. Until we don't have first hand knowledge all we can do is research and speculate, but maybe some of you, our readers, know more. It would be great if you could share your knowledge with us, either in the comments section or via email. You feedback is welcome.

New Hybrid Airship Research Project - Memories of the Skykitten and the P-791

Chris Jisi from the Airship-list posted a link to a very interesting Article talking about a hybrid airship research Project at the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Dr Fehmi Cirak, a lecturer in structural engineering at Cambridge, is leading the research. He specialises in computational research to develop models and algorithms for structures and fluids that, for this project, will simulate all the factors that affect the airship's dynamic behaviour.

'Our job will be computational modelling. In this and most other industries, people are moving away more and more from doing experiments and building prototypes. we basically want to accomplish the entire design process on the computer,' said Cirak.

Ok sounds interesting but nothing spectacular. The article continues with:

The project will use data gathered from a 40m-long prototype hybrid airship to improve the design of subsequent larger vehicles.

And further down comes an even more interesting piece:

'Imagine an inflated doughnut, with a large fan in the centre. It can either blow or suck air, allowing the vehicle to hover like a hovercraft or to grip to the ground after landing.' This means the airship can be pulled to the ground on landing or pushed away on take-off.

The only hybrid airships who have an aircusion landing system are the Skycat by Roger Munk which was never built only a small scale version called Skykitten was built, or the Skunk Works/Lockheed Martin P-791 prototype.
The Skykitten with a length of roughly 15m as far as I know could not have been the prototype they are talking about so it must be the Skunkworks P-791 which provided the data.
We will investigate this further, if you know more let us and the readers know leave your comments or send us an Email.
[Update:] Arnold Nayler from the Airship-List commented on the post by Chris Jisi with the following:

Of interest is who is financing the research? Did you note that the research is in conjunction with Tensys, who worked with ATG on SkyCat and then Lockheed Martin on the P 791 ? I am pretty certain that the funding is not from the UK so maybe it is Lockheed Martin that is behind what must be an expensive piece of work.

A quick look at the Website of Tensys shows even more evidence that there is something going on and that this is more an evolution of what has been done before. Obviously coming back to the first quote of the article, after having helped to build two prototypes, the Skykitten and the P-791 they are now looking into developing the concept furter with the help of computer simulation.

Skycat group in adminsitration

Trevor Monk reported on thE Airship-list that the Skycatgroup is in administration. Which can also be read on their Website:

Steve Akers and Daniel Smith of Grant Thornton UK LLP were appointed Joint Administrators of SkyCat Group Limited on Monday 25 June 2007.

The Administrators are currently assessing the position of the businesses and can be contacted at:

Grant Thornton UK LLP
Grant Thornton House
Melton Street
Euston Square
London
NW1 2EP

Tel: +44 (0)870 991 2417

The Skycatgroup just recently bought assets from the Advanced Technologgies Group, which went out of business, we have reported in may about the new Skycatgroup Website, everyone was hoping that the Skycat, a new hybrid airship concept would finally be built. But the announcement of a court filing by Lockheed Martin against Roger Munk and Skycatgroup probably put a quick end to the newly started company. Of course this is speculation, we have no contact with the Skycat group or Roger Munk and thus don't know more. I believe the Skycat is still not dead. But it doesn't seem to fly soon. If you have more infos for us, send them to us or add comments to this post. As soon as we know more, we will be posting here on the blog.