Dark Roasted Airships

© Dark Roasted Blend

I stumbled last month across a really great article from the Blog Dark Roasted Blend, called Airship Dreams. It really wakes the dreamer in all of us and illustrates why Airships have and will always inspire and fascinate people. The article talks about the past the present and of course the future of airships. Mentioning the Festo Airray, the Aeroscraft and our friends from Airshipventures. It's worth a read even if it is just for all the great pictures of past concepts, the glory days of the Graf Zeppelin or the great rigid airships of the Navy. The article has been online for a while but I just wanted to share it because it is really great. Do you think the airship industry is on the right path to make a comeback? What does it take for airships to make the break through from niche to mainstream?

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

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.

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?

It's gonna be a GoodYear for Blimps

Excuse the little pun in the title but it's true the new year starts out good for airships and it seems Goodyear has caught the blogging virus.
So as always it's quiet for a while around Goodyear and their Blimps and then bang they throw themselves back in to our radar.
Quite an old story that I almost completely missed was pointed out by Michael Vinarcik on the Airship-list. An old Lady who worked for Goodyear for 29 years got a ride on the Blimp for her 100th Birthday. The story that Michael pointed out can be found is this one Her 100th Birthday Wish? A Ride on the Goodyear Blimp! but we researched a bit and found some more. First some pictures from Ohio.com that you can get here and a short video clip from Weathernet5.com available here.
And then of course was the 50th Daytona 500 the most important and prestigious race in the NASCAR series on February 17th 2008 that got quite a bit of media coverage and of course also including the Goodyear Blimp. Rick Zitarosa on the Airship-list pointed out that USA Today featured a great Interview with Chief pilot Larry Chambers of the Spirit of Innovation. It's worth a read and quite enjoyable to get an inside scoop from someone inside of the Blimp. Speaking of inside scoop that brings us back to the title of this blogpost. As you might already have seen from the image that is attached to this article Goodyear has now an official Blimp Blog. Of course we are going to keep an eye on it and inform you if there is something happening that's worth noting. The author of the Blog is Martin Chandler, Assistant Chief Pilot. Since the Blog just started the beginning of February there are only 4 posts as of yet. But I am sure it will be growing. Here are the links to the first entries:

• Cold fronts and Speed Weeks
• Speed Weeks media blitz
• 50 years of Daytona plus one day
• Picture perfect

This is the second airship pilots blog after Keiths Blimpin' Ain't Easy Blog. Go check out Keiths Blog, he recently passed his checkride and is now an airship pilot, flying with the Metlife Blimps. He also posted a nice slide show of the past 5 months in his latest blog entry.
Do you know of any other Airship Blogs that are written by someone working with one of the current operators? Maybe Zeppelin, Ros Aerosystems or Worldwide Aeros?

Airships topic of the week at EcoGeek

This week EcoGeek has Ron Hochstetler in a interview about Airships and how they could solve many problems with todays airtravel and transport, how they can become the most fuel efficient aircraft ever built and even more. Read the interview at the EcoGeek Blog.
Here is a little teaser:

... The airship has some very unique qualities that enable it to probably be the most fuel efficient (and environmentally friendly) air transport system possible. The large surface area of the airship causes the high aerodynamic drag that limits its airspeed, but that surface area can be used to carry thousands of square feet of solar cells to provide electric power for the ship’s propulsive needs. The non-flammable helium inside the ship also provides a perfect environment in which to store hydrogen fuel containers that can provide hydrogen not as a lifting gas (as was used in the Hindenburg) but as a fuel for either a fuel cell propulsion system or simply to burn in conventional internal combustion propulsion engines. These technologies could be used to produce “zero emissions” transport airships with the ability to carry hundreds of tons of cargo or people over distances of hundreds or even thousands of miles. ...

Follow up to Lockheed and Livejournal airship websites

As reported yesterday Lockheed will probably not get anymore funding for it's High Altitude Airship program, there was a comment to the post from yesterday pointing out another blog post titled "A Lesson in Defence Contracting" if you want to get some more in depth knowledge I suggest that you check it out. My question to the anonymous commenter how does your google bot work, I don't have that yet, and maybe it would help me digging out new stories. So please contact me and tell me how to set it up, thanks.
Also I want to point out two sites, the first one is a Livejournal Community called "luftschiff abteilung" (airship department) we will keep an eye on them if there is something worth mentioning you will read it here.
The second page was pointed out in a comment to the post about Historic Airship Pictures yesterday. I had written about in May already but somehow lost track of it. It's the aerocrat Livejournal a Russian blog focused on LTA. Updated very regular and a source for more information in the future.
I really want to thank everyone for their comments, they are great, so keep em coming, especially point out new sites that you discover and news Items, or at least bookmark them with del.icio.us use the tags airship or airships and it will pop up in my daily reading.

Historic Airship Pictures

I just discovered a site with some very beautiful historic photographs of airships dating all the way back to 1908. The Site is called Shorpy.com it's a photo blog with pictures from around 100 years ago, featuring images of the daily life, technology as well as Zeppelins and Airships. Check out the Zeppelin and blimp gallery, for pictures of the ZR-1, the Shenandoah disaster, the Zeppelin 3 and much more.

The Future of Mass Transit (via Bravenewtraveler)

Today reaches us a very nicely written story from Bravenewtraveler.com it's called The Future of Mass transit - part 1 and describes a world in the not to distant future where airships could become an integral part of our daily commute, helping to ease the pain of mass transit in urban mega cities. Derek C Wallace draws a picture where airships who land on rooftops of the city's skyscrapers could help getting commuters from A to B. It's really worth a read and has some very nice pictures, too. Check it out at Bravenewtraveler.com the next installment will follow adressing the issues raised in the post and

what life would be like for tourists who could see a city from above as well as from ground-level, the effects on people who live in cities with airships and other unconventional methods of mass transit.

We will keep an eye out on this Blog for the next part of "The Future of Mass Transit"

Airshipventures on the rise

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

Updates from the Current Airship Blog

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