2 years and 85.000 visits later

Welcome airship enthusiasts,
Airshipworld is a new Blog about anything Airship and nothing but Airships, if they are LTA or HTA doesn't matter, what matters is that we are wanting to bring the community together. This site should become the central hub for all Airship news, events, announcements, sightings and everything else of interest for the Airship community. In the next weeks there is going to be a lot happening, so stay tuned.

It was 2 years ago when I posted these lines and started this little experiment called "The Airshipworld Blog". Since then I have learned a lot about blogging, the airship industry and of course airships. I have met many great people and made contact to the Airship Association, the DGLR, IsoPolar and others. It is still hard to believe that 2 years ago no one in the community knew me. Thanks for letting me in and helping me to become a part of the community. I started with a simple Blogger blog template which was more or less suited for the Airshipworld Blog.
The template was nothing special but it was good enough to get the word out and to publish. With visitor numbers increasing it made sense to put up some ads to get a little kick back for my blogging work, and by the end of 2007 I had made enough money to get a full Domain with web space and all the bells and whistles someone could ask for. Airshipworld.info was born. In January 2008 we also did our first design refresh, moving away from the Blogger theme to a theme completely designed for Airshipworld.

This was how the blog looked ever since January 2008, visitor numbers grew fast to over 8000 visits a month in Summer 2008, this was probably also related to the many events that happened in 2008, like the Zeppelin NT #4 that was flying over London and then later transported to the US for Airship Ventures. Just look into the archives of 2008 it's crazy how much had happened, we even released our first Software the Gertler Series 58 Generator.
As the year came to a close I had to slow down a little with the blog but kept working on Airshipworld as much as my time permitted. End of February 2009 we were proud to announce the Airshipworld Event Calendar, which is a collaborative Calendar solely dedicated to capture Airship and Lighter-Than-Air events all around the world. We have many features planned, but are also looking for your contributions, to make the Calendar a central place for the airship community to contribute and find events.
Another big step forward in 2008 was that I attended two important Airship Events last year, the first one was the International Airship Convention in Friedrichshafen the other one was the Airship Association Annual Symposium. I was allowed to film the sessions of both events, so the video of all the sessions is captured and preserved for history. I am working with the Airship Association and the DGLR on how to publish the videos, it will take a while to work out everything in regards to copyrights and licensing but once we cracked that nut we should be able to launch a video portal for session videos from conferences.

For this year I will record the Sessions of the DGLR Workshop XI and plan on coming to the Airships to the Arctic Symposium in Calgary this fall. So there is lot's of material coming. If you have experience with publishing video on the internet both the legal and technical aspects please contact me any help is highly appreciated. We are also bringing you an upgraded layout for the Blog, that aligns with the layouts of the Forum and the Events Calendar and we are planing on providing more services, beyond the Blog and utilizing the Website Airshipworld.info more. I will still blog but am in desperate need for contributing editors, so if you are interested please send an email.
So now after 2 years and 85.000 visits all that's left to say is Happy Birthday Airshipworld.

Taking a break till Saturday

No this ain't an April Fools joke I currently don't have internet in the evenings so I won't be able to blog. But I am going to do some development work, so if everything works as I hope it will Airshipworld might get some new features soon. In the meanwhile why don't you check out our 2007 Archives or dive into the 2008 Archives to check what we have done the last few months. Or start a new Topic in the Forum and discuss with other readers. More from me and the Airshipworld on Saturday.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Airship links for week number eight of 2008

I have been collecting quite a few links in the meanwhile on my del.icio.us account, but i have also saved a lot of them private and haven't shared them yet, hoping that I could write a blogpost about them one day. While i have shared already almost 200 links with you i also have almost 300 links that I haven't yet shared. So I thought before those links get all dusty and old, I am going to publish 10 links every week, for you to browse through and to empty out my queue. So let's get started, shall we.

1. Airshipworld.com
   Our inspiration and forefathers, the home of the Airshipworld Magazine which was formerly called Gasbag. The Magazine was produced up until 2003. Since then the website hasn't really been refreshed but it's a website that you should check out. If you know anyone from Airshipworld.com let em know that we want to help them revive the magazine.
2. Vertical Airships - airship.org
   Vertical Airships is a very interesting concept for an airship that is not traditionally cigar shaped instead it's very high leading to a smaller footprint on the ground compared to traditional airships. Check out this project by John Engstrom and give him some feedback on his project.
3. JP Aerospace
   Self titled as Americas OTHER space program the JP Aerospace program aims to reach space with lighter than air vehicles. The project dates back to January 2005 but recently it seems to gain traction, they also have a blog at http://www.jpaerospace.com/blog/
4. Wikipedia Entry: Airship
   Of course everybody knows about the Wikipedia enrty for "Airship" but i just want to remind everyone that everyone of us can go and improve this article, update it with new projects or add more historic references. Also the Wikipeadia references dmoz for edited links to Airships sites, currently there are only 10 in there but you can also become an editor and help filling this directory. We will also try to transfer some of our links to dmoz.
5. GOODYEAR BLIMP CONTEST: GlobalGiants.com
   This article about a Contest with the Goodyear Blimp, where students had to throw a basket ball out of the blimp into a hoop, was featured on GlobalGiants.com all the way back in March of last year, that was when we just started.
6. The Mooringmast
   This website has been around for quite a while and has always been a great point of reference for links to airship related websites, I wonder if the Airshipworld Blog is linked there.
7. Airship by John Dziadecki
   The godfather of all Airship websites, has been around for more than 10 years and is still one of the resources for reference when you want to get to know more about airships. John is also the owner of the often mentioned Colorado Airship-list the without a doubt longest running airship mailing list since November 1995.
8. Hybrid Aircraft Corporation
   Yes the resemblance of the airship displayed on the first page of their websites bares a striking resemblance to either the Skycat or the Lockheed Martin P-791. The never ending story has not yet been completely solved but HAC is another puzzle piece worth checking out.
9. American Blimp Corporation
   The American Blimp Corporation is owner of The Lightship Group and operates most of the Lightships all over the world. Their website seems a bit outdated but it's a good start if you want to get in contact with them.
10. Millenium Airship
    A cargo airship project that is looking for investors to build their Skyfreighter which is supposed to carry up to 500tons of cargo.

I hope you had some fun browsing through those websites, if you know of any sites that I should have mentioned today wirte us an email or post in the comments, and while we are posting links, if you have a website it would be great if you could link to Airshipworld.

The Airshipworld Redesign

It has been quiet a few days on the Airshipworld Blog but now we are back and as you can see with a completely new look and feel. In the coming weeks we will tweak the layout a bit to get all old stuff out, that was left from the previous Blogger Template. We hope you enjoy out new look, which we hope is cleaner and easier to read. This is just the start of a number of changes happening to Airshipworld. The Airshipworld Association e.V. is in the process of being registered and the Conference preparations are under way. We also have a full Website registered and are working on setting it up too. Since we now have the proper infrastructure you will also see a lot more content coming up on the website than just this Blog. So stay tuned for an exciting 2008. What do you think of our new look ? What would you like to see in 2008 from us. Tell us in the comments

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

Airshipworld Wiki - A new way to share the industry's knowledge

Today we would like to introduce a new platform for collaboration. The Airshipworld Wiki, an open free collaborative knowledge base. Before we go into more detail we would like to explain why we created this new site. The airship industry is not very big, there aren't billions of dollars made at the moment, but there are many people out there who try to develop an airship, want to build up a business around airships or want to use one for marketing. Everyone of them goes through the same process besides their unique ideas. Each of the builders has to select an envelope material, each needs to find an engine, control systems, communication instruments and when there is a first prototype built everybody needs to get in contact with the authorities to get a flight license. The operators need airfields and hangars, and knowledge about the different laws and regulations. People in Marketing need to know what is possible, what they can do and where they can get it. Right now there is no source that helps new companies, and projects to speed up their development by providing them with this basic knowledge. There is no free flow of informations between all the Airship and LTA associations world wide. The Internet is a great medium to build such an knowledge base from which everyone in the industry can benefit. This could be the possibility to share technology and concepts in airship construction and design. Points to cover in the beginning would be

• Approval Processes (World Wide) with contacts to the Authorities, like FAA and others.
• Envelope Materials, proven to be further investigated.
• Engine and Propulsion Systems, worthy for an airship
• Steering and Communication Systems
• Materials and Fabrication Techniques to build an Airship.
• Envelope Designs that have proven to be more or less successful.

There are many ways to pool information. We decided to start a wiki, right now this wiki is empty but we are filling it with information as we research and find new topics. Right now there are only a few manufacturer who are actively building airships, and only one who is building not a blimp and that is Zeppelin. The future of Airships does not only lie in manufacturing of them, but also to a great part in in the operation of Airships. So let's pool our information to create a stronger world wide industry. This is a chance for a new way to collaborate, across boundaries, across disciplines, all over the world. There is specialists that are needed, companies that build envelopes, everyone has only one goal, making a living out of this. But if investors, manufacturers, inventors and operators don't have one platform to get together and exchange their thoughts, demands, offerings and services then this is not possible. The Airshipworld Wiki is this platform, register today and create a site to your company, write about the products you offer and the unique value your customers can get. Developers, tell the world about you, share your projects and findings. You know of a good and lightweight engine that can be used in an airship, publish it on the Wiki. You have a project that you want to inform about publish it. There is no technical knowledge needed, all you need to do is to Sign UP and start writing. This is an experiment and it might not succeed, but it could also be a chance for the industry to come together. Just as the upcoming Airshipworld First International Airship Investors conference in Berlin 2008 is gonna be. We are going to publish more about the conference in the next weeks, we will be looking for Sponsors, Speakers and sign-ups for Tickets soon. But for now let's start contributing to this new knowledge base. There is so much written on mailing-lists, so much content generated for association meetings, most of it doesn't reach the audience it could. Much information is actually lost in archives, never read again. This is a shout out to everyone who has an archive with valuable information that is not read by a broad audience, share it help the industry. Go to the Airshipworld Wiki and start a new Article. It doesn't need to be polished, or extensive, anything is valuable. Please also leave your comments and thoughts about this, send us an email with your opinion.