Airship Surveillance Inc - starts assembly

Duncan from the Blimpship Blog has been first to market with this but we were caught up in our birthday celebrations and in answering one of his questions he asked in the forum ;-) But we don't want our readers to miss out on the latest Press Release of Airship Surveillance Inc. which marks press release number 6 this month. ´Here is what it says:

Mar 25, 2008 06:15 ET

Airship Surveillance Starts Assembly of First Mission Equipped Airship

LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire - March 25, 2008) - WENR Corp. (PINKSHEETS: WNRC) announced today Airship Surveillance, a Nevada-based high technology airship company and a strategic marketing partner of WENR, has been requested to supply components of its L2 airship to a customer for the compatibility development with their sensor equipment. The request will be fulfilled in early April. Final completion of the L2 airship is anticipated to occur during the second quarter of this year.

Airship Surveillance has begun assembly of the L2 payload support section which, when completed, will be shipped to an instrumentation developer for initial integration and compatibility testing. The client and details of the program are to remain confidential; however, the payload bay will be delivered to a firm which develops cutting edge sensors and other instrumentation for the Department of Defense and Homeland Security.

"The sensors are being optimized for use in the fight against Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and in support of US Customs and Border Protection. Once the sensors have been integrated and tested, Airship Surveillance anticipates the payload section will be mated to the airship to begin flight testing under Government supervision within Restricted Airspace," stated Sandy Mangold of Airship Surveillance.

Mr. Dan Green of WENR, a strategic partner of Airship Surveillance, commented, "This is another exciting development for our Company. This news follows the LOI supporting the use of the airships in the fight against narcotics & terrorism, which Airship Surveillance received last week. This latest development proves that there is a very real demand for the products and services the Airship offers in support of the persistent surveillance mission for a growing number of government organizations."

About Airship Surveillance

The company is developing a series of advanced unmanned airships designed to fulfill a wide range of roles ranging from surveillance to environmental monitoring. The company's airships are built to be robust, yet simple to operate with the twin goals of providing highly reliable airborne platforms at an affordable cost.

About WENR

WENR is a holding company, which seeks to acquire marketing rights in various growth stage companies. WENR provides senior management assistance, secures working capital for marketing development, and delivers tailor made campaigns.

The foregoing contains forward-looking information within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties. The actual results may differ materially from such forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake to publicly update or revise its forward-looking statements even if experience or future changes make it clear that any projected results (expressed or implied) will not be realized.

Contact:
WENR Corp.
Dan Green
310.410.4426

If you haven't checked out the Blimpship Website you should give it a look. Duncan joined Airshipworld in the quest of bringing you the reader great airship related news. Here are some of his latest Posts:

• Auction for Goodyear Blimp Ride
• Satellite Roles for Airships and UAS
• Goodyear Blimp Warming In Ohio
• Remote Controlled (RC) Blimp Article
• Walney Island Airship History
• Future of Russian Airship Aviation

Happy 1st Birthday to Airshipworld

© Adventure Balloons

Yes you are reading right. Airshipworld just got 1 year old. This day March 25th 2007 we started with this project. And now 1 year and 220 blog posts later we can celebrate our first anniversary. I want to thank everyone who helped us along the way, all the support and positive feedback we got from the community and members of the industry. I want to thank everyone who subcribed to the Blog via email or the RSS feed and get their daily dose of airship news delivered right to them every time we post something. I want to thank the more than 10 000 unique visitors that visited the blog more than 20 000 times and generated almost 45 000 pageviews. A special thanks goes out to those that supported us financially with donations and of course I want to thank my family, because they had to bear me spending hours writing blog posts and researching new articles on the web.
We are still a relatively new and small Blog but we want to continue to grow, so that we have an even more successful second year. Looking back at the first year of blogging three events stuck out of the statistics, unfortunately two of them were also the saddest moment. The first was the destruction of the Zeppelin NT Prototype in Botswana in September 2007. The second was the destruction of the Total Pole Airship January 2008. Those two events were also the most work intensive ones. A more positive spike followed the surfacing of the Lockheed Martin P-791 video. There were many more events that I enjoy remembering like the RC-Airship Regatta in Munich or the Airship Parade in Bad Homburg at both events we were able to shot some great exclusive video that has been featured on the Blog.
We have really been able to establish a world wide readership on all 6 continents in 119 countries and more than 3500 cities. Check out this map to see where the Airshipworld readers came from.

The darker the green the more visitors came from the country, so as you can see the USA with more than 40% of the visits is the darkest, followed by Germany and the UK with each more than 10% of the visitors. The remaining 40% of the visitors is scattered all over the world making Airshipworld a truly international Blog. Thanks again for your continued support and for reading the blog. Continue to spread the word.
Our next big project is the Airshipworld Conference and our quest for Speakers, feedback and ideas are always welcome. By the end of this week we will give you an update and a preliminary programme so if you want to present your project or hold a presentation hurry and let us know. To another great year of airship blogging.

A Question of Temperature - Warm air and Superheat

Duncan from the Blimpship website and blog asked an interesting question in the forum, he asks:

I've been reading more and more about the operations of airships recently and can't decide whether I'm missing something or there is some contradictory information out there.

Some info speaks of the rise in outside (air) temperature and how it degrades the performance of an airship, whilst other reports tell of how sun warming the envelope (and I assume heating the helium inside) provides increased lift.

Can anyone clear this up for me? What effect does temperature have on the capability of an airship?

Since I don't want to leave Duncan in the dark and nobody else has responded yet. I will try to bring a little bit of clarity. If I make any mistakes, please correct me.
So there is one major thing that makes airships fly and that is static lift, generated through the helium in the envelope. If an airship is flown light it has positive buoyancy, if it is flown heavy one speaks of negative buoyancy. Usually airships are flown slightly heavy so that they always sink back down to earth in case of an engine failure, the last bit of lift is usually aerodynamic lift generated through the forward movement of the airship. Since the helium in the envelope has a specific density, the air surrounding the airship either has a slightly higher or lower density or exactly the same if the airship is in equilibrium.
Now coming back to Duncans question. So now we have to go back to our old physics classes and think about temperature and density. If we look at the density of air we see that the warmer the air the lower the density. This leads so far that you can heat up the air and start flying, for example in a hotair-airship. So hot air rises because it's less dense, that means for our airship if it is flying from cold into warm air it looses lift because the density difference smaller. That is the one side of the medal which says warm air is bad for airships.
On the other side we have a term called Superheat, this describes the process of an airship heating up and becoming lighter because in addition to it's usual lift through the helium we now have warm helium that just like air has a lower density and produces more lift. Superheat happens when the sun warms up the helium in the envelope, which happens faster than the warming of the surrounding air. And suddenly the airship becomes a lot lighter.
Those two effects have a strong impact on airships and their performance and have to be taken in account when constructing and flying an airship. While I was researching for this blog entry i found a few articles on the web that are worth a read.
Especially a 12 Page Article written by David Samuels called "The Light Stuff — Learning to fly the Goodyear blimp" which was published 2003 in the New Yorker. But also the most recent entry in the Goodyear Blog mentions superheat. And last but not least we found an article on the Website of 21st Century Airships that mentions superheat. I hope that this answeres the question of Temperature and maybe we can pick up the discussion in the Forum. I am sure there is more to talk about. What other environmental parameters have to be taken into account? Rain, Snow, Wind ? Let's discuss in the Forum. If you enjoyed reading the article please consider posting it to Digg, Stumble Upon and Del.icio.us

The home made Robotic Blimp

© Surveyor Corporation

The Surveyor Corporation is currently working on constructing a small robotic blimp called YARB 1.0 (Yet Another Robotic Blimp) in their weekly update on their Build Log they report their progress regularly. It's quite impressive what is possible with just a little bit of electronics. So if you are interested in remote controlled blimps, autonomous blimps, and UAVs head over to the YARB Buildlog. They also have a video of each development step on their Site and on YouTube.

Lockheed Martin P-791 article

I just stumbled over this article about the "P-791 hybrid airship project". The P-791 is Lockheed Martins "secret" hybrid airship project that we have reported on a lot also in conjunction with the Skycat a project which is a little bit to similar to the P-791 for some. Check out the article it goes a little bit into detail on the airship and the project and the history behind and of course our regular Hindenburg disaster reference is also in it.

• P-791 hybrid airship project

More on Airship Surveillance Inc.

© Airship Surveillance Inc.

We did a little bit of searching and dug out a couple press releases concerning Airship Surveillance Inc. Here are they in newest to oldest order, most interesting is probably the newest one released this Thursday regarding the Letter of Intent by Auxillia a company focusing on Unmanned System Technologies.

• Airship Surveillance Receives LOI From Auxilia
• Airship Surveillance Begins Construction of L2 Airship
• Airship Surveillance Announces Successful Airship Test
• Airship Surveillance Appoints New Board Member
• Airship Surveillance Sets First Flight Target Date
• Airship Surveillance Announces Testing Milestone
• First Airship to Be Launched in March
• WENR Negotiating Marketing Agreement for Airship

The configuration of the propulsion system used by Airship Surveillance is very similar to that of Daniel Geerys Hyperblimp and of course can also be seen in some of the airships flown during the RC Airship Regatta. Check out the videos of Hinkelstein, Homer and LarsPing. If you have more info about Airship Surveillance or want to discuss the role of UAVs and airships for security purposes head over to our Forum and start a new topic, it's now integrated into the Airshipworld site and looks mighty fine. Let us know what you think. Also please remember that we are still looking for speakers for the Airshipworld Conference the end of May 2008. If you have a topic that you would like to talk about please let us know by the end of the week.

AVICTA Complete Cotton Airship - Tour

Another high profile airship tour is making it's way through the Southern United States. The AVICTA Complete Cotton Airship is on a tour also partnering with the Believe In Tomorrow Childrens Foundation. Thanks to the Blimp operations Yahoo Group for pointing out the links to the websites.
Here is also a YouTube Video of the Avicta Blimp over the Mississippi River:

Check out the Avicta Blimp Page which contains slideshows and a map where the blimp was. The airship is currently somewhere around the Mississippi River. Also read on about the Believe In Tomorrow campaign.

Newest Zeppelin NT picture

Accompanying the latest press release of Zeppelin was a really nice shot of the Zeppelin NT with it's current T-City branding. Enjoy.

To read the press release please click here.

Call for Speakers

We had posted our ideas for the Airshipworld Conference a few days ago here. And now we want to continue with the next shout out to the Community. Please think about holding a presentation at the conference. We only have to fill a program of 4 hours but even for that we need speakers. If you have a Project that you or your company or association or group or initiative wants to present let us know. Costs are absolutely secondary for now. Please consider speaking all you need to pay for is getting to the ILA and maybe a Ticket for the ILA we will figure that out but that's it. It's an easy and cheap way to get your company represented at the ILA. So join in send us you proposals with a short abstract of your idea. We do not need full presentations yet. Just a clear intent that you want to present something at the Conference. Again the target audience is the general public and possible investors and politicians so it's more an image and media campaign for our industry to show what is possible, what can be bought, build, done today. Read the Conference ideas and Proposal again and then send an Email to us at airshipworld at gmail dot com. Please consider participating. It would be sad if we didn't have an outlet for the airship industry at the ILA.

New joint Zeppelin NT website

© ZLTI just came across the brand new Website of Zeppelin Luftschifftechnick and Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei. For 2008 the two companies have teamed up to represent themselves with one newly redesigned Zeppelin Website which contains everything from the originialy two Websites. They have also just release a press release which is currently only available in German so I decided to let Google Translate to the hard work and here I present an auto translated version of Zeppelins latest press release:

PRESS RELEASE

Zeppelin NT starts in the eighth flight season

Friedrichshafen, 14 March 2008 - The Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei GmbH opens 15 March flight season for 2008 in Friedrichshafen. The popular sightseeing flights of the Zeppelin NT, this year by a route. Meanwhile progressing The construction of the fourth Zeppelin airship hangar in progress.

The annual inspection is completed, the first workshop flights have a Early start to the 2008 season already announced. On 15 March 08, it is Again so far - a slight hum betrays his route - the Zeppelin NT draws With passengers aboard his rounds on the Lake Constance region. This also Literally. New to the programme is 120 minutes flying once around the Lake, always with a view of land and water. But this year the flies Zeppelin NT is not only at the lake. Because of numerous inquiries, the Airship, 27 April to 8 May returned to Munich and offers from Flight value Schleißheim a 40 minute flight over the Isar metropolis.

The construction of the number four is far advanced. After the 75 meter Long structure in the middle of the hangar was moved, the Assembly The case began. In mid-May, the airship over to the Flight Test In the middle / end of June, the commercial flight operations. The Reservation contract for a sale in the United States still exists. A Final decision in the next few weeks is expected. Determined But that the fourth Zeppelin NT for about 3 2008 the Flight operations at the German Zeppelin company record.

With the new season in the next week, a new website. With the home, the two companies DZR Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei GmbH and ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH & Co. KG to a Joint appearance together. In addition to the new design is a Visitors from the controllable webcam highlight. Here, the Internet visitors at the Zeppelin NT Aushallen and operations Observe the airfield.

Also, the Pavilion of DZR, Zeppelin lounge has been rebuilt. The Flight operations may close in passenger pavilion directly on the hangar and the Launch and landing place of the Zeppelin NT pursued. All visitors are Welcome.

Reservations and coupons are available on the phone number 07541 / 5900 0 Be made. Further information is also available on the Internet at http://www.zeppelinflug.de.

For Immediate Release released.
Press contact:
Kathrin Runge
Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei GmbH
Allmannsweilerstrasse 132
D-88046 Friedrichshafen
Tel: +49 7541 5900 547
Fax.: +49 7541 5900 22547
presse at zeppelin-nt dot de
http://www.zeppelin-nt.de

In addition to this rather mechanical translation here the official PDF document which was obtained from here

Read this doc on Scribd: Zeppelin NT startet in die achte Flugsaison
PRESSEINFORMATION Zeppelin NT startet in die achte Flugsaison Friedrichshafen, 14. März 2008 – Die Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei GmbH eröffnet am 15. März die Flugsaison für 2008 in Friedrichshafen. Die beliebten Rundflüge des Zeppelin NT werden dieses Jahr um eine Route erweitert. Derweil schreitet der Bau des vierten Luftschiffs im Zeppelin Hangar voran. Die Jahresinspektion ist abgeschlossen, die ersten Werkstattflüge haben einen baldigen Start in die Flugsaison 2008 schon angekündigt. Am 15. März 08 ist es wieder so weit - ein leichtes Surren verrät seine Route – der Zeppelin NT zieht mit Fluggästen an Bord seine Runden über die Bodenseeregion. Dieses auch wortwörtlich. Neu im Programm ist der 120 Minuten Flug einmal rund um den Bodensee, immer mit Blick auf Land und Wasser. Aber dieses Jahr fliegt der Zeppelin NT nicht nur am See. Aufgrund zahlreicher Nachfragen kommt das Luftschiff vom 27. April bis zum 8. Mai wieder nach München und bietet ab der Flugwert Schleißheim einen 40 Minuten Flug über der Isar Metropole an. Der Bau der Nummer vier ist weit vorangeschritten. Nachdem die 75 Meter lange Tragstruktur in die Mitte des Hangars verschoben wurde, hat die Montage der Hülle begonnen. Mitte Mai wird das Luftschiff dem Flugversuch übergeben werden und Mitte/ Ende Juni den kommerziellen Flugbetrieb aufnehmen. Der Reservierungsvertrag für einen Verkauf in die USA besteht nach wie vor. Eine endgültige Entscheidung wird in den nächsten Wochen erwartet. Entschieden ist aber, dass der vierte Zeppelin NT für ca. 3 Monate im Sommer 2008 den Flugbetrieb bei der Deutschen Zeppelin-Reederei aufnehmen wird. Mit der neuen Saison wird in der nächsten Woche auch ein neuer Internetauftritt eingeführt. Mit der Homepage werden beide Firmen DZR Deutsche ZeppelinReederei GmbH und ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH & Co. KG zu einem gemeinsamen Auftritt zusammengeführt. Neben dem neuen Design ist eine vom Besucher steuerbare Webcam das Highlight. Hier können die Internetbesucher den Zeppelin NT beim Aushallen und bei Operationen auf dem Flugfeld beobachten. Auch ist der Pavillon der DZR, die Zeppelin Lounge umgebaut worden. Der Flugbetrieb kann hautnah im Passagierpavillon direkt am Hangar und dem Start- und Landeplatz des Zeppelin NT verfolgt werden. Alle Besucher sind herzlich Willkommen. Buchungen und Gutscheine können über die Telefonnummer 07541/ 5900 0 vorgenommen werden. Weitere Informationen finden Sie auch im Internet unter www.zeppelinflug.de. Zur sofortigen Veröffentlichung freigegeben. Presse-Kontakt: Kathrin Runge Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei GmbH Allmannsweilerstrasse 132 D-88046 Friedrichshafen Tel.: +49 7541 5900 547 Fax.: +49 7541 5900 22547 presse@zeppelin-nt.de www.zeppelin-nt.de

Airship video extravaganza comming up

I just realized that we have been posting a lot of Videos in the last few days. But YouTube is just bursting with airship related videos. So after our post of 10 videos on Sunday, Airship Surveillance Inc on Tuesday and the Goodyear Blimp Accident Video yesterday we will take a little break with posting videos. For those who like our posts of YouTube Videos don't worry we are already preparing the next batch. We are probably going to put more in to the next posts probably 20 to 25 there is just so much out there and we don't want you to miss it. We will provide you with the freshest YouTube airship related videos around, all pre-screened so that you will definitely not see anything that isn't worth watching. So just another reason to subscribe to Airshipworld if you haven't yet done so. And let us know if we missed a great video. Discuss the Videos in the Forum or post a message in the comments section

Goodyear Blimp Accident ?

I just found this video of the Goodyear Blimp on YouTube.

Goodyear Blimp Accident

The info to the video states that the video is from 5/27/1995 in Carson,California so it's a few years ago but I couldn't find anything about a Goodyear Blimp Accident on the web at that time. But maybe I haven't searched enough.
Do you know anything about this incident ? Let us know and discuss it in our Forum or send us an Email or post a comment in the comments section of this post.

Also you might have seen these new links right below the post. Using these links you can share our articles with the rest of the world. Right now we provide links for del.icio.us, Digg, and StumbleUpon which are the most popular social bookmarking sites on the web that allow you to share those articles that you like. Do you want more or less options? Do you maybe want to be able to send an article as email to someone? Let us know we are happy to add anything that you ask us to and that makes sense.

Airship Surveillance Inc. - new airship company

When I looked back at last year this January I felt that 2008 was going to become the year of the Airships and right now all signs seem to point into the right direction.
Today we want to present you a new company that joined the airship industry. Airship Surveillance Inc. based in Las Vegas, USA. Their name states already the goal of the company to build surveillance Airships, on their product page they already list three planned types that they are planning to build. They also put a video of their first test flight up on YouTube, you can watch it here:

Airship Surveillance Inc R&D 1 Airship First Flight

While I was watching this Video I could not help but think about the Hyperblimp which is a development by Daniel Geery from which it seems Airship Surveillance has taken a few clues. Check out our posts about the Hyperblimp here. Do you know anything more about Airship Surveillance Inc ? Thoughts about the Hyperblimp similarities ? Share you thoughts in the Forum&Mailinglist

10 brand new airship videos - you haven't seen yet

We are regularly taking a look everyones favourite video portal YouTube, looking at the amount of brand new airship related Videos one has to say the airship world is alive and growing strong. Take a look at these new videos that you might have not seen yet.

Playlist can be found here

If you have subscribed and aren't seeing the video displayed jump over to the Blog to see the video. Click here to watch them.

More Airshipbloggers and updates

A few days ago we were telling a bit about the Airship Blogosphere. And we want to continue to point out another great resource and tell you a little bit about their latest posts. We have previously mentioned the Russian Blog Aerocrat. He keeps posting great content, in Russian of course but thanks to Google Translate we are also able to enjoy what he writes. Most recently he had an article about a Russian TV Programme about Airships (translated here), in Russian but there might be some of our readers who can read Russian. Can you read Russian? Then contact us please. Another Article is about the Festo Air Ray (translation here) and it's similarity with a stingray. The article is quite difficult to understand but we have also written about it before why don't you check out our article called "Airships are just like fish in the sky" in another post Aerocrat also mentions the bionic EMPA blimp that we mentioned in our article. But his post focuses more on remote controlled Blimps in general featuring a nice collection of Youtube videos. Check it out here of course there is also the translated version but the video are only linked in the original version. We also would like to extend our coverage more on remote controlled airships. A Topic that we have previously covered but not enough in my opinion. Aerocrat also had recently a great article about the Holden Airship (translation here). Featuring this great Youtube Video of the inflation and applying of the artwork.

Holden Blimp

Two other articles are also worth mentioning one is an article about the Swiss Straxx Project as alway accompanied with many pictures. Read it here and the English translation here. Last but not least he also had an article about the Aeroscraft (translated here) and it's involvement in the DARPA Walrus programme. To learn more about the Aeroscraft continue reading here
Please remember that we need supporters for the Airshipworld Conference. We aren't looking for financial support at the moment, right now we need people who want to present their company their idea or just general Airship concepts. You will not have to pay anything to hold your session at the Conference, you might need an ILA ticket but that is something we can work on. Please consider a presentation read our post about the conference and our ideas, could you help in any way? Do you have contacts to airship companies that might present their business? Do you have contacts to the media, and politics? Please Let us know, I believe that we can achieve something if we act as a community. Join our Forum&Mailinglist to exchange thoughts and ideas on the conference. And if you haven't yet please subscribe to the Blog, it's free. You can do it via RSS in a Blogreader or via Email whichever you prefer. Spread the word, Digg our page and link to it, put it on Stumble Upon and Del.icio.us, link to us from your homepage write an article about the Airshipworld Conference Idea. Let's get the machinery rolling, let's see what we can change. Spread the word, support our industry.

Public Lecture on LTA in North Somerset Council, UK

Charles Luffman form LTA Solutions who is a regular contributer to the blog is holding a public lecture on "Lighter-than-air (LTA) Aircraft Technology" at the The Campus Library in Weston-super-Mare,UK on Tuesday 8 April 2008 at: 19:00 (7 pm). You can see the full invitation below. Also follow this link for driving directions through Google Maps. Let us know if you want to attend and we will make sure that you are kept up to date on any changes that might occur.

The Invitation to the Public Lecture:
Lighter-than-air (LTA) Aircraft Technology

Read this doc on Scribd: Lighter-than-air (LTA) Aircraft Technology
Lighter-than-air (LTA) Aircraft Technology Charles R Luffman, Aeronautical Engineer, Specialist in LTA Structures, LTA Solutions Limited. LTA technology, largely overlooked these days, covers those giant aircraft that primarily use aerostatic lift (buoyancy) to remain airborne instead of aerodynamic lift, as used by aeroplanes and helicopters. The vehicle types involved include: • • • • Airships and Dirigible Balloon Systems – Rigid, Semi-rigid and Non-rigid (Blimps) Free balloons Tethered aerostats (Barrage Balloons, Joy Ride systems, Mobile Platforms, High Reach) Hybrids – Liftin

AirShipOne - a new Airship Concept

Coming fresh from our Mailinglist we present a new hybrid airship concept developed by Gosha Galitsky as a graduation project in Industrial Design. Click on the image to get to a small picture gallery of the Airship. Also check out this great video that he uploaded to YouTube showing the rendering of the Airship from all sides:

AirShipOne

Please continue to stuff like this on the mailinglist or if you do not want to share it yourself in the forums just send it to our main email address airshipworld at gmail dot com and we will make sure to put it in the pipeline to be published. It makes me happy to see the Airshipworld Mailinglist slowly gaining momentum as more people subscribe. Speaking of subscribing please consider also subscribing to the Blog if you haven't yet or tell your friends that they should subscribe. We really want to reach even more people and need your word of mouth to introduce others to our site. We are currently growing at a relatively steady pace which makes me really happy. So please continue to spread the word, it really helps. Subscribing is completely free and will always stay free. Remember that there are two ways to subscribe one is via Email the other one through the RSS feed. Which ever you prefer there shouldn't be any substantial differences except that the feed is probably a bit faster and might have additional features not possible to implement through email.

Announcing the 4th Annual XLTA-Amherst

©07 by Bethany Seeger

Has it been a year? Well almost we are approaching our first full year with big steps it's not far away at the end of this month. And as we come full circle we can also announce once again a great annual event organized by Dan Nachbar the father of the Personal Blimp.

4th Annual
Amherst Experimental
Balloon, Hopper, Chariot, and Airship
Rally
(also known as XLTA4 and XLTA-Amherst)

May 16-18, 2008 (This is two weeks earlier than previous years.)

Amherst MA (two hours by car West of Boston in the beautiful Connecticut River valley)

All builders, owners, and fans of experimental and ultra-light LTA aircraft are invited.

This is a small private non-profit event: no paid rides, no public audience, no muss, no fuss. Just experimental LTA and the people who love to build and fly them (as well as friends and families, of course.) This event provides both an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences amongst builders and a chance to fly together informally.

The event features:

• A fascinating bunch of one-of-a-kind LTA aircraft and pilots.
• Nearby or (depending upon winds) on-site launches.
• On-site field for tethering to show off your latest design.
• 24 hour on-site propane available for purchase.
• On-site workshop/sewing facilities for experiments/repairs.
• Pleasant on-site daytime hang-out, cooking, and eating space.
• On-site camping and RV parking.
• A wide variety of motels and hotels available nearby.
  (Be advised motel rooms in this area in May start at $110 per night. Some less expensive motels are a 20 minute drive away.)
• Local chase crew available.
• On-site catered group meals available (with sign-up in advance)
• Nearby dining/entertainment/culture for rainy day amusement of both pilots and non-flying family members.
• On-site playground and indoor playroom for kids of all ages.

The online registration page is: http://www.xlta.org/regform2008.php

Space is limited. Please don't show up without registering in advance. All registration fees and food/fuel deposits are fully refundable if you can't make it. So sign up and send a check by May 1 and everything will be just peachy.

Each participating pilot with an aircraft is asked to chip in $50 to cover his/her group. (All money collected is used for the fixed expenses of the event. This is a purely non-profit affair.) Folks who come on their own (i.e. without an aircraft) will be asked to chip in $20 per person or family. Non-flying folks will also be asked to lend a hand with crewing and other logistic stuff. This is a participatory, not a spectator event.

Contact Dan Nachbar at 413-549-1321 or dan at nachbar.com for more information. (If you don't get a quick response to your email please assume that your message has mistakenly fallen prey to spam filtering and give me a phone call instead.)

The airship blogosphere

The Blogosphere is big there are probably more than 113 million blogs on the web and of course Airshipworld is not alone when it comes to airship focussed blogs. With the still dysfunctional Colorado Airship-List we at Airshipworld have to turn more to the web as a news source and of course that includes a lot of Airship related Blogs, so let's take a look at the latest headlines of other airship blogs.

Of course there is Blimpin' Ain't Easy where Keith keeps us updated on the live of the Metlife Blimp and his life as an airship pilot. These were some of the recent posts:

• Out of the Hanger
• Hanger Talk
• Blimp Wash
  

Another Blog that we just recently discovered is the Goodyear Blimp Blog. Since our last post February 26th they haven't been sleeping and posted three new articles on their blog here they are:

• Want to fly the blimp?
• ESPN The Weekend
• Visiting California pilot

Last but not least for today I want to mention one of the all time favorites the Airshipventures Blog UpShip! Alex and Brian Hall have been a part of our reporting since the very early days and we won't stop bringing you updates from them, just like their newest updates.

• Cover Up
• 6 inches

That's it for today, we will continue with a similar post on non English blogs and websites. Check the Mailinglist and discuss this entry there, do you know of any blog that we haven't mentioned yet but should mention in a future post? Please also give us feedback on our previous post about the Airshipworld Conference. What do you think?

The Conference - we can still make it happen [Updated]

UPDATE May 19th 2008: Because of time constraints we have decided not to go forward with organizing a Conference at this years ILA. Currently my private life and my day job take up to much of my time to allow me to organize a Conference on the side. But we are continuing with many other projects where we need your support. If you want to sponsor Airshipworld, either financially or with your time as a contributor please send an email to airshipworld at gmail dot com.

Hello everybody, I wanted to wait with this a few more days but I think now is the time. Paul R. Denton just released the following statement to the Airshipworld Yahoo Group

After discussing the current issues with Charles; combined with the delays on the registration of the association and the mishaps in marseilles, we have decided that to proceed with the conference at this time would not be a good idea.

It is sadly as well that I have just had a personal loss and cannot put my personal energies into this project at this time until I have sorted out my personal afairs. This will probably happen around june. I have not given up the dream as I hope those who have been following this also. We will continue to try our best to promote the
airshipworld cause.

But , at this time I have to report that I can no longer put any more energy into the focalising of this conference.

I will continue to moderate this forum as well as work on other airship goals; but the synergy is not there at this time and it seems pointless to make something happen when only a few people are doing all the work.

Yours faithfully,

Robin Denton
VP Airshipworld Association.
Berlin & Johannesburg.

This means that the Airshipworld Association is not able to stage the First International Airship Investors Conference at the ILA this year. But it doesn't mean that there will not be an airship conference. I believe that there needs to be a dedicated Airship Conference at the ILA and if the only purpose is to show that our industry is part of the whole aerospace industry and that we are not just a small group of dreamers. I had a chat with Ekkehard Münzing on Friday afternoon, where we discussed the current situation. Mr Münzing is our contact at the ILA and helps us organizing the conference. We both agreed that there should be a conference about airships at the ILA. So yes we have the Support form the Berlin Airshow. We both agreed that it's probably easier to make a shorter event instead of a three day conference like it was originally planned. We came up with the following idea that - I think - is feasible. We reduce the conference from three half days in the afternoon to 1 half day in the morning on May 30th 2008. Using the Friday allows us to still appeal to business customers who are at the ILA opposed to the general public who will be at the ILA Saturday and Sunday. Since this will have to be in a different format I would like to call it:

The First Airshipworld Conference

I would like it to become a get together of the Airship Industry where Projects and Companies share their ideas and present themselves. I want to show those attending the conference where and how airships can be used. But also allow the attendees to address their questions and concerns. I have identified the following target markets from which I will try to invite representatives:

• Governments - surveillance, funding, research
• Tourism - leisure flights (Zeppelin NT), eco tourism, cruises
• Freight and Logistics -cargo airships and heavy lift
• Media Industry - advertising, mobile camera platforms, UAVs

This list is by no means complete, I rather see it as a first brainstorming. I believe we can make it happen. The next step is to develop a programme and to find speakers. This is the first and foremost goal and we only have 2 weeks to accomplish this. This is short notice but if we as the airship industry act as one and show the general public what we are able to deliver we will strengthen the whole industry. And who knows maybe we can even accomplish one of the original goals of the conference which was to attract investors but this should be a secondary goal.
After we have developed a basic programme we also have to think about financing the conference. Thanks to the web and computers most of the work can be done at a relatively low budget but the rooms at the ILA and some logistics will cost money and for this I ask for sponsors who pitch in some money. By cutting down the length we are looking at less than 1000 Euros that we need to have to be able to pull the conference off. I believe this is possible and I count on the industry, since I am not able to pull this of alone. I can devote my free time and all my knowledge to this but I am not in the financial situation to run this Conference all by myself. Please let me know what you think, share your ideas and start a discussion on the Mailinglist post a comment in the Blog or send us an email. Link to this post and the Blog let's get the word out. The Blog and the Airshipworld website will be the central hub for all activities around the conference. Maybe we can even extend the programme by having a little RC Airship Regatta afterwards or some workshops with some local Institution like a University, Library or Museum. I also see this as a prequel to the 7th International Airship Convention in October 2008. I am also thinking about doing something similar at the Farnborough Airshow in July 2008 in England if things come together for the ILA. Of course I would love it if the DGLR (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt as well as the Airship Association and other associations from the Industry could join in and help so that we act as one industry showing the world that Airships are alive and coming back strong. If we believe in the Conference we will make it happen. So share your thoughts on the Mailinglist what do you think?

The Airshipworld Mailings has an archive and webinterface

On Tuesday we announced the new Airshipworld Mailinglist and today we are happy to announce that we went a step further, we teamed up with Nabble to host our mailinglist archive there. You now can click the new link in the menu on the Blog which will take you directly to the Nabble web interface to the mailinglist. You don't have to be a subscriber to read it and you don't have to subscribe to use the search there. This will give us a powerful forum that you as our reader can use to exchange thoughts with other readers or to discuss topics that have been started here on the Blog. I want to thank the first 9 subscribers and want to invite everyone who reads the Blog to participate. Spread the word about this new list, invite other airship enthusiasts. Unfortunately the Colorado Airship-list is still defunct, please correct me on this if I am wrong but I haven't received any mails. So if the list will not recover, which is something that I do not hope will happen, we can accompany all the old subscribers with ease if they want to join us. So spread the word, because without a list the broadcasting of news is relatively slow since the number of airship blogs and news sites is still very low.

[Update:] I just saw that John Dziadecki has posted an update on his website, check out the news about the Airship-list in the Announcements of his Airship website. He also has instructions how you should be able to get back on the list, but it had not worked for me unfortunately.

The Airship-List is down, Number 200 and we have a List

The Colorado Airship-list has been a trusty place to exchange Ideas and thoughts about Airships. The list has been around since 1996 and can easily be called the mother of all Airship Mailing Lists. Unfortunately there are currently some issues with the servers. They started February 19th 2008 and have not been solved to date. The Airship-list is currently not running but technicians are working on it according to list owner John Dziadecki. Since we at Airshipworld also have our own server with lots of bandwidth I offered to help, but got reassured that the Airship-list will be back up and running soon.
Never the less I did not want my efforts in setting up a mailinglist go to waste, and so I have decided in honor of our 200th post that Airshipworld should get it's own mailinglist, for you the reader to exchange thoughts and ideas, to join in to conversations. We will have a full public archive of the list, and have a web interface from which you will be able to post to, you will be able to search for posts and much more. But to search for posts and answer them through the web we first need a few subscribers. So hop over and sign up to The-List. Post a hello, a news item or a question, I will try to answer or at least reply to each post on the list if I can. Also tell your friends and colleagues. If you have been a subscriber of the Airship-list and want to have a little backup why don't you subscribe to the Airshipworld list that way there is a backup list for the future.

You might wonder why there is a need for yet another list, and I would like to give a simple answer to this. The Airshipworld Blog is our editorial platform where we can share news with you. The list should be more like a discussion forum to discuss the news and other topics and a place where our readers can exchange thoughts and get to know each other.