It's sometimes strange how connections emerge when you research for a new article. Today I was looking through recently filed patents in regards to lighter than air and I stumbled over the following patent (WO/2009/046554) HOT AIR AIRSHIP flipping through it and reading the patent (in German Language) I wanted to see if I could find out more about this idea, see if there was already more information available on the web, so I did a quick search for the company mentioned in the patent iii solutions, the website is all flash so I can not link to a specific page. If you look into Current Projects you are greeted by a familiar sight, the Flying Stingray built by prospective concepts that we had featured in our Article called "Airships are just like fish in the sky". We will come back to prospective concepts in a minute but first I want to make the connection to the patent, in the current projects is an item called Hot-airships a click on it reveals a picture that looks very similar to the one found in the patent, it's the picture we also feature in this post. So why is iii solutions using the prospective concepts Stingray, well because it's the follow on company. On the prospective concepts website you can read:
In the aeronautical projects segment, tasks are to be undertaken in future which call for a different corporate structure with a stronger focus on project-specific issues. The decision was therefore taken to set up a new company to handle these projects under the sole management of Andreas Reinhard: iii-solutions GmbH.
Another connection that emerged during the research is the connection of prospective concepts to the pneumatics company Festo which I talked about yesterday, but I assure you that this really pure coincidence and wasn't planned. Festo and prospective concepts have worked together in project focusing on “Use of air” and “Movement in the air”.
I am including the patent below, which wont be of much use if you are not able to read German. Since there is currently no official English translation, I prepared these links to the auto translated Description and Claims. What do you think of the patent and the claims? Post your feed back in the comments or start a discussion in the forum, I would love to hear from you. (WO/2009/046554) HOT AIR AIRSHIP
Today I want to show you two Airship Videos that you might not have seen. The first one is from Aero Comercial LTDA (http://www.dirigivel.net/) they are a Brazilian company who are working with remote controlled advertising blimps. Check out more videos in their YouTube Channel and also a lot more info on their Website which is in Portuguese, but we have the auto translated version here for you. And now enjoy the videos
The second Video that I wanted to show you comes from Italy showing a hotair airship. Does anyone know more about this airship ? Have a look at the YoutTube Channel of dirigibile94 and enjoy the video here.
Do you know of any great videos that we should feature on the Blog or do you upload videos to YouTube or anywhere else on the web and would like us to feature them in this very same spot? Then send us an email or leave a comment. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and become friends with us there.
And if you are bored find our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/airshipworld with lots of videos from us but also a long list of play lists of other airship related Videos. But that's not the only thing you can subscribe to, have a look at our Forum and our Mailing-List to exchange thoughts with other readers. The Forum and Mailing-List are in sync so you only need to subscribe to one of the too to stay up to date. Last but not least you can subscribe to the Blog either by Email to get our articles delivered to your inbox or you subscribe to our RSS feed and use it in a Feed reader. The choice is yours.
A Hot Air Balloon looses a lot of its lift by the heat that radiates out of the envelope. This heat loss has to be counter acted by reheating the air inside the envelope. So how could a hot air balloon made more energy efficient and the reheating reduced? By insulating the envelope so that it doesn't loose so much heat and that is exactly what Festo has done. The company that is known for its AirJelly and AirRay lighter than air projects continues to innovate. Festo has build a hot air balloon that uses up to 70% less energy than a comparable traditional hot air balloon. This is achieved with a new material that sits on the inside of the balloon envelope. This aerofabríx® insulation not only reduces heat loss it also extends the life of the envelope by reducing the heat of the outer envelope layer. Check out the whitepapers below for the full detail, more information and additional pictures. I could imagine that this new envelope material would be of great use for Dan Nachbars Personal Blimp as well as the Gefa Flug hot air airships.
Insulated hot - air balloon A hot - air balloon with fuel consumption reduced by half Innovative insulation sets standards in energy efficiency for balloons Volume - specific buoyancy (kg / m²) 0.40 +50 % 0.30 -50 % with 3.5 mm insulation without insulation 0.20 0.10 0.00 200 surface - specific heat output (W / m²) 300 400 500 600 700 800 Flock insulator Results of measurements on the model balloon (volume: 30 m3) Conveying five persons in a hot-air balloon for one hour consumes around the same amount of fuel as an economical passenger car during a drive from Berlin to Barcelona. Thanks to an innovative ultra - light membrane flock insulating material, the fuel consumption of a balloon can be reduced by more than 50 %, or its carrying capacity can be correspondingly increased for the same consumption rate. Insulated hot - air balloon, which was manufactured for Festo, is the world’s first balloon to include this new insulating material, which allows the number of fuel cylinders to be reduced and additional passengers to be transported. At the same time, the thermal load on the balloon material is reduced and its service life thereby extended. In the development project HeiDAS (hot-steam aerostat) by Festo, steam was used instead of hot air to fill the balloon. Steam has twice the load-bearing capacity of air; however, it necessitates insulation to prevent condensation from forming on the interior of the balloon envelope. For this purpose, flock insulation is bonded to a light but sensitive carrier foil that was first produced on commission from Festo in 2003. The membrane flock insulating material was further developed and applied to the insulated steam balloon. A new ultralight metallised base fabric transforms the foil into an insulating material suitable for everyday use in balloons. The innovative membrane flock insulating material provides the layer of air required for insulation by means of vertically oriented raised fibres on the base membrane. This membrane with its spacing elements is known as the spacing layer. The gap is closed by a covering layer. The insulting effect is determined by the width of this space, the flock pattern and the surface characteristics of the spacing and covering layers. The outer layer of the balloon envelope itself provides the insulation. The membrane flock insulating material is extremely light, highly reflective, mildly heat - reflective, temperature - resistant, compressible, readily adaptable to individual requirements and easily optimised by means of adjusting the spacing gap and the number of layers. High compressibility is a fundamental requirement, since balloons are packed and transported after a flight. Simulations and measurements carried out with test balloons have provided for initial insulation optimization and savings estimates. Subsequent measurements on the test balloons have confirmed that fuel consumption is reduced by half for a given buoyant force, or carrying capacity is considerably increased for a given quantity of fuel. 2 Insulated hot - air balloon in the air The lightweight insulation is situated on the interior of the envelope, where it is protected against the adverse effects of everyday handling; this insulation in turn protects the load bearing envelope against the effects of high temperatures. Higher temperatures than usual are encountered on the inner surface of the insulating material, while the cooler exterior of the envelope hardly radiates any heat. To test this technology in practice, the engineers from UltraMagic and the Technical University of Berlin undertook trials using a first manned and insulated test balloon with a volume of 1.600 m3, under various conditions for a period of six months. This prototype completed about 100 hours of operation, during which it attained consumption savings of more than 70 % and confirmed the material’s durability. With increasing size, the ratio of a balloon’s surface area to its volume decreases. At the same time, the internal pressure on the insulating material increases and reduces the insulating gap between the envelope layers. These effects could impair the function of the insulation. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the aerofabríx® insulation in the new Festo insulated hot - air balloon, a special race was staged: fuel consumption was measured in a direct comparison with an uninsulated balloon of the same volume and with the same load. After 40 minutes of operation, the conventional balloon had used 37.2 kg of Thermographic images without insulation (left, approx. 55° C) and with insulation (right, approx. 40° C) of model balloons with 30 m3 volume and identical load-bearing capacity propane – the contents of several tank cylinders. The insulated hot air balloon, by contrast, had consumed less than 11 kg – in other words 30 % of the fuel required by the conventional balloon; this represents a drastic improvement in energy efficiency. The insulated hot - air balloon shows what innovations are possible in lighter - than - air aviation. Festo manufactures energy - efficient products and advises its customers as to how energy can be put to even more efficient use in automation. With the insulated hot air balloon insulated balloon envelope, it will be possible to make balloon travel 50 % more efficient in future. 3 Technical data Balloontype: Volume: Envelope weight: Passengers: Fabric insulation: Thickness: Specific weight: Thermal conductivity: U value (6 mm): Max. operating temperature: M - 105 3000 m3 158 kg 4–5 aerofabríx® [Iso] 45 | 4.5 6 mm 45 g / m2 0,0265 W / mK 4,5 W / m2K 140° C Project partners Project initiator: Dr. Wilfried Stoll, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Festo AG Project manager: Dipl. - Ing. (FH) Markus Fischer, Corporate Design Festo AG & Co. KG Envelope concept and manufacture: Josep Maria Lladó Costa, UltraMagic S.A., Igualada, Spain Material development and manufacture: Dr. - Ing. Alexander Bormann, Dipl. - Ing. Stefan Skutnik, Milan Habovcik, German Aerospace Centre (ILR), Technical University of Berlin, Germany Christian Gebhardt, aeroíx, Berlin, Germany Thermographic images and laboratory tests: Ilka Rudolph, Martin Wähmer, Maik Scheel German Aerospace Centre (ILR), Technical University of Berlin, Germany Flock technology consultants: Prof. Chokri Sherif, Birgit Mrozik Institute of Fibre and Apparel Technology (ITB), Technical University of Dresden, Germany Joachim Müller, Engineer’s office for flock technology, Büdingen, Germany Balloon operator for Festo: Rien Jurg Promotions BV, Hengelo, The Netherlands Further support and consultation: Prof. Jürgen Thorbeck, German Aerospace Centre (ILR), Technical University of Berlin Yousif Abdel Gadir, aerarium e.V., Berlin, Germany Photos: Walter Fogel, Angelbachtal, Germany Festo AG & Co. KG Corporate Design Rechbergstraße 3 73770 Denkendorf www.festo.com / ballooning Phone +49 / 7 11 / 347 - 38 80 Fax +49 / 7 11 / 347 - 38 99 fish@de.festo.com Brand designation: aerofabríx® is a brand of Dr. - Ing. Alexander Bormann, Berlin, Germany 53342 EN
Isolierter Heißluft - Ballon Ein Heißluft - Ballon mit halbiertem Brennstoffverbrauch Innovative Isolation setzt Maßstab bei der Energie - Effizienz von Ballonen Volumenspezifischer Auftrieb (kg/m2) 0,40 +50 % 0,30 -50 % mit 3,5 mm Isolation ohne Isolation 0,20 0,10 0,00 200 Oberflächenspezifische Heizleistung (W/m2) 300 400 500 600 700 800 Membran-Flock-Dämmstoff Ergebnisse der Messungen am Modellballon mit 30 m3 Um im Heißluftballon mit fünf Personen eine Stunde in der Luft zu schweben, wird etwa so viel Brennstoff verbrannt, wie ein sparsames Auto für die Fahrt von Berlin nach Barcelona benötigt. Mit Hilfe eines innovativen, ultraleichten Membran - Flock Dämmstoffs kann nun der Verbrauch des Heißluftballons um mehr als 50 % gesenkt bzw. dessen Tragkraft bei gleichem Verbrauch entsprechend gesteigert werden. Der isolierte Heißluft - Ballon, der für Festo gebaut wurde, ist der weltweit erste Ballon, der mit dieser neuen Isolation ausgeliefert wird. Die Isolation ermöglicht die Reduzierung der Anzahl von Brennstoffzylindern und die Mitnahme von zusätzlichen Passagieren. Gleichzeitig reduziert sich die thermische Beanspruchung der tragenden Ballonhülle, was die Lebensdauer der Hülle verlängert. Im Entwicklungs - Projekt HeiDAS (Heißdampfaerostat) von Festo, wurde anstelle von Heißluft im Ballon Wasserdampf verwendet. Dieser besitzt die doppelte Tragkraft, erfordert aber eine Isolation, um die Kondensation des Dampfes im Traggasbehälter zu vermeiden. Dafür wurde 2003 im Auftrag von Festo erstmals die Flockisolation auf leichter, aber empfindlicher Trägerfolie produziert. Der Membran-Flock-Dämmstoff wurde weiterentwickelt und auf den isolierten Heißluft-Ballon übertragen. Ein neues ultraleichtes, metallisiertes Trägergewebe macht nun aus der Folienisolation einen alltagstauglichen Ballondämmstoff. Beim innovativen Membran - Flock - Dämmstoff wird die für die Dämmwirkung erforderliche Luftschicht durch senkrecht auf der Trägermembran stehende, aufgeflockte Fasern gewährleistet. Die Trägermembran mit Abstandshaltern wird Abstandslage genannt. Der Spalt wird durch eine Decklage geschlossen. Der Abstand, das Flockmuster und die Oberflächeneigenschaften von Abstandslage und Decklage definieren die Isolationswirkung. Bei der Ballonisolation stellt die äußere Ballonhülle selbst die Decklage dar. Der Membran - Flock - Dämmstoff ist extrem leicht, hoch reflektierend, gering wärmeabstrahlend, temperaturbeständig, komprimierbar, leicht konfektionierbar und durch Spaltabstand und Lagenanzahl einfach optimierbar. Hohe Komprimierbarkeit ist eine grundlegende Forderung, da Ballone nach dem Flug verpackt und transportiert werden. Simulation und Messungen an Versuchsballonen erlaubten eine Voroptimierung der Isolation und die Abschätzung der Einsparung. Die nachfolgenden Messungen an Versuchsballonen bestätigten eine Halbierung des Verbrauchs bei gleich bleibendem Auftrieb bzw. eine deutliche Steigerung der Tragkraft bei gleichem Verbrauch. 2 Isolierter Heißluft - Ballon in der Luft Die leichte Isolation wird an der Innenseite des Ballons angebracht, womit sie vor den rauen Einwirkungen beim Handling des Ballons geschützt ist und ihrerseits nun die tragende Hülle vor hohen Temperaturen schützt. Dabei treten an der Innenseite der Isolation durchaus höhere Temperaturen als üblich auf, die kühlere Außenseite der Hülle strahlt kaum noch Wärme ab. Um die neue Technologie in der Praxis zu erproben, testeten die Ingenieure von UltraMagic und der Technischen Universität Berlin sechs Monate lang einen ersten bemannten und isolierten 1600 Kubikmeter großen Versuchsballon unter verschiedenen Einsatzbedingungen. Dieser Prototyp absolvierte etwa 100 Flugstunden, erreichte Verbrauchseinsparungen von über 70 % und bestätigt die Haltbarkeit des Materials. Mit zunehmender Größe verringert sich das Verhältnis von Oberfläche zu Volumen der Ballone. Gleichzeitig steigt der Innendruck auf die Isolation und presst den isolierenden Spalt weiter zusammen. Diese Effekte könnten den Vorteil der Isolation schmälern. Um die Wirksamkeit der aerofabríx® Isolation beim neuen isolierten Heißluft - Ballon von Festo zu demonstrieren, fand eine Wettfahrt der besonderen Art statt: parallel zu einem nicht isolierten Ballon mit gleichem Volumen und gleicher Beladung galt es, den Verbrauch im direkten Vergleich zu bestimmen. Nach 40 Minuten Fahrzeit verbrauchte der konventionelle Ballon mit 37,2 kg Propan den Inhalt aus mehreren Tankzylindern. Thermografieaufnahmen ohne Isolierung (links, ca. 55° C) und mit Isolierung (rechts, ca. 40° C) an Modellballonen mit 30 m3 Volumen bei gleicher Tragkraft Der isolierte Heißluft-Ballon begnügte sich hingegen mit weniger als 11 kg und benötigte somit nur 30 % des Brennstoffs im Vergleich zum konventionellen Ballon; eine extreme Verbesserung der Energie-Effizienz. Der isolierte Heißluft - Ballon zeigt, welche Innovationen in der Leichter-als-Luft-Luftfahrt möglich sind. Festo stellt energieeffiziente Produkte her und berät seine Kunden, wie die Energie in der Automation noch effizienter genutzt werden kann. Mit der isolierten Ballonhülle ist es in Zukunft möglich, das Ballonfahren um 50 % effizienter zu betreiben. 3 Technische Daten Ballontyp: Volumen: Hüllengewicht: Passagiere: Stoffisolation: Lagendicke: Flächengewicht: Wärmeleitfähigkeit: U-Wert (6 mm): max. Einsatztemperatur: M - 105 3000 m3 158 kg 4–5 aerofabríx® [Iso] 45 | 4.5 6 mm 45 g / m2 0,0265 W / mK 4,5 W / m2K 140° C Projektbeteiligte Projektinitiator: Dr. Wilfried Stoll, Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender der Festo AG Projektleiter: Dipl. - Ing. (FH) Markus Fischer, Corporate Design Festo AG & Co. KG Hüllenkonzept und Fertigung: Josep Maria Lladó Costa, UltraMagic S.A., Igualada, Spanien Materialentwicklung und Fertigung: Dr. - Ing. Alexander Bormann, Dipl. - Ing. Stefan Skutnik, Milan Habovcik, Institut für Luft - und Raumfahrt, Technische Universität Berlin Christian Gebhardt, aeroíx, Berlin Thermografieaufnahmen und Laborversuche: Ilka Rudolph, Martin Wähmer, Maik Scheel, Institut für Luft - und Raumfahrt, Technische Universität Berlin Flock-Technologieberatung: Prof. Chokri Sherif, Birgit Mrozik, Institut für Textil- und Bekleidungstechnik, Technische Universität Dresden Joachim Müller, Ingenieurbüro für Flocktechnologie, Büdingen Betrieb der Ballone für Festo: Rien Jurg Promotions BV, Hengelo, Niederlande Weitere Unterstützung und Beratung: Prof. Jürgen Thorbeck, Institut für Luft - und Raumfahrt, Technische Universität Berlin Yousif Abdel Gadir, aerarium e.V., Berlin Fotos: Walter Fogel, Angelbachtal Marken: aerofabríx® ist eine Marke von Dr. - Ing. Alexander Bormann, Berlin Festo AG & Co. KG Corporate Design Rechbergstraße 3 73770 Denkendorf www.festo.com / de / ballooning Telefon 07 11 / 347 - 38 80 Telefax 07 11 / 347 - 38 99 fish@de.festo.com 53341 GE
Today we bring you the 4th and last video (for now) of the Airship Parade. We have some shorter Clips that we will edit and upload later but the main event is covered now. Following our photo and video coverage we will now dive into the teams, their companies, the advantages of hot air airships but also the disadvantages. We will give an overview of costs, and give information on how you can get one, either for lease or to own.
If you liked the videos, and would like to publish them on your website, please contact us, we will assist you in doing so. You can share them completely free but we ask you to provide proper credit to Airshipworld.
The airship parade continues, now the competition starts the airships compete in the first airship bowling ever captured on video, at least we think so :-) The hot air airship perform very risky maneuvers and touch the ground a couple of times.
Tonight we have the second part of the video from the airship parade for you. Now finally all the airships are in the air except three for which the wind was just to strong. If you have missed part one see it here. But now enjoy another 9 Minutes of hot airship flying in part two: 5th Airship Parade - part 2
If you would like to put those videos onto your website please go ahead, share them. If you don't know how just send us a quick mail. We can also get you the full original version of the video if you want to. We also have much more pictures of the parade than the 100 we shared if you are interested please contact us.
It's finally online, faster than we thought the first video of the Airship Parade Bad Homburg, showing the start and lift of of the hot air airships. Enjoy 8 Minutes of high quality video. Airship Parade Video Part 1
Tonight we bring you the gallery of the airship parade Bad Homburg that you all have been waiting for. The actual flight and the landing of the colossal hot air airships with a whopping 51 pictures. The next days we will use to get the video ready, since it's more than 7GB in raw data we will have to make some editing to get it ready for the web. But now after you have seen the pictures, and are looking forward to the video we want to ask you what you would like us to focus on in the background stories. We have already some ideas but also want to take your suggestions. Do you want us to talk about costs, of these airships, who the companies are that offer the ships, more about the event? What do you like? Leave your ideas in the comments or send us an email with your suggestion. But for now have fun with these great pictures from the 5th airship parade Bad Homburg
The video of the event is now digitized and on our hard drives, we are now in the post production and readying it for release on the weekend. Until then we are continuing our picture coverage of the 5th Airship parade (Luftschiffparade) Bad Homburg. Today we present the flight preparations, by the teams, as they fill their airships with air first and then heat it up with their burners.
Make sure to subscribe to our Blog with your feed reader or subscribe via email so that you don't miss the time we post more of the Airship parade. Have you read all the posts about the event? Take a look at our special label to get an overview of all the posts regarding the 5th Airship parade Bad Homburg
We spent the whole day at the Airship parade in Bad Homburg, talked to many people took lot's of pictures and videos. Since it will take some time for reviewing the many many pictures we took, you should come back daily in the next weeks for more pictures and posts about the different teams, the event and the people behind the event. Tonight we would like to share the first gallery of shots taken by Alexander Elsas an aircraft photographer who also contributed to a previous post about hot-air-airships. Now enjoy the pictures, more to come tomorrow.
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Do you like Airship ? Do you think Blimps are cool ?
Then come to the 5th Airship Parade in Bad Homburg, Germany and you will be able to see 9 airships, yes nine at once flying over your head. On August 11th you will be able to see 9 hot air airships competing in the first ever airship bowling. It's a first in the world and this is not the only thing happening. Check out our previous post about the Airship Parade to read what exactly the parade is and why it's happening in Bad Homburg. If you don't know how to get there read on to find out. Bad Homburg is located just 15 minutes north of Frankfurt and easily reachable from Frankfurt Airport. If you travel from around mainland Europe, use the route planner it will help you to find your way.We will continue to report ahead of the event and we will be having extensive coverage after it. With videos, pictures interview and lots and lots of information. If you have questions that you would like us to ask the pilots email us or write in the comments section. Also make sure you are subscribed to the Blog via this link, so that you don't miss important updates. And if you haven't yet then read our announcement of the Airship Parade.
Today we want to announce the 5th Airship Parade in Bad Homburg, Germany on August 11th 2007. It's a unique event in Germany and maybe in the World. 9 airship are gonna be on site and flying, more than ever before, which is a record in Germany. The 9 airships will compete in the first ever airship bowling, where the pilots will have to knock over a stack of boxes with a ball attached to the airship. The site is the same as the 1. German Luftschiffparade from 1910, back then Kaiser Wilhelm II., the German Emperor at that time, ordered his war-airships to the town to get an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the different models. Just like on this 22. April 1910 the parade is going to be a big folk fest, together with lots of information booths, films and music. Starting at 12 o'clock on August 11th the brewery "Graf Zeppelin" opens it's beer-garden and exhibitors open their booths, this is a rough overview of the program:
Legendary Atlantic-Crossing Dr. John Provan, historian and airship-expert is in charge of the exhibitions at the parade. This time he revives the legendary Atlantic-crossing of the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin - service to North and South America. No other airship did more flights, transported more passengers and mail and travelled longer distances. 144 times the "Graf Zeppelin" crossed the Atlantic ocean, twice the airship and crew where greeted with a parade in New York
Special-Edition Stamps of the German Post The LZ 127 is also the topic at the booth of the philately-team of the Deutsche Post. They open a special office at which you can buy stamps with the logo of the parade and the special-stamps about "Graf Zeppelin" which came out earlier this year. Also there is a Book about the "Graf Zeppelin" on sale that was just released.
Movies of the Zeppelin-Museum The Zeppelin-Museum shows some of their movies and the Collector Dieter Weih is selling speclia souvenirs.
Aerial-Pictures The Basler insurance one of the main sponsors of the event has a tethered model airship with a ground controlled camera that allows to take pictures of the people on the ground, the pictures can then be seen on a Website (we are going to announce the correct address later).
Warm-up to the main event Starting at 16 o'clock the warm-up begins. Guido Holz an airship-expert and moderator is going to introduce the 9 airship teams competing in the first German Airship-Bowling. The tournament is scheduled to start around 18:30 depending on the conditions. The 9 team in alphabetical order are Arnold Luftwerbung from Kassel, whose green white HIT Radio FFH airship will be piloted by Germany's only female airship-pilot Pia Marie Witt. Out of Cologne comes Airgraphic Cologne for Germanwings, steered by Matthäus Smodis. Airovision GmbH & Co. KG out of Aachen is starting the the silver-blue Linde-"Zeppelin" with Sebastian Harrer as it's pilot. Two airships come from Kißlegg, one of them is Helmut Seitz from Ballonsport Seitz who is piloting the Thomapyrin airship and the Andreas Merk with the Ratiopharm airship. Blue Sky Promotion from Barcelona, with their Pilot Daniel Stuber is driving for Hessen in his yellow-white airship. Wim van den Boogaard from the Cologne Airship Comany and the Gefa Flug GmbH from Aachen are also part of the teams. Last but not least there is The Airship Company from Stockach with their silver EnBW airship with Albrecht Fischer as it's pilot. We are going to introduce the teams in detail in the next few days so stay tuned. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us. We can also help you with travel arrangements, and are looking forward to seeing you in Bad Homburg on August 11th 2007. Check out the Luftschiffparade Bad Homburg Website for more detail information, unfortunately only in German, but we have provided an autotranslated version in the links below. The pitures used in the article are copyright by Gerd Kittel/Kur- und Kongreß-GmbH Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe. More information can be obtained by emailing us at airshipworld@gmail.com or directly via: Kur- und Kongreß-GmbH Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad 61348 Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe
We are continuing our hot-airship coverage with some news about Dan Nachbars Personal Blimp. The first good news is that Alberto got the allowance to transport passengers. So Dan and Mike, can take passengers with them. Here is what Dan posted on his mailing list:
Greeting all.
After nine months of waiting, the FAA has finally said "YES" to the request that Mike Kuehlmuss (my cobuilder) and I be allowed to take passengers in Alberto, the Personal Blimp! Getting rid of this stumbling block is a big step forward.
To be clear, we could have taken passengers in Alberto long ago if Mike and I were willing to go through the technically required but utterly pointless exercise of obtaining an "airship" pilot's rating. But before doing such a nonsensical thing, we decided to ask the FAA to do be reasonable. And now they have.
START OF LONG BUREAUCRATIC EXPLANATION. SKIP BELOW IF BORED OR BUSY
This entire exercise in bureaucratic fiddling about was necessary because the FAA lumps all aircraft into a one of several "classes" -- e.g. airplane, helicopter, balloon, and so forth. In order to take passengers, a pilot must have a rating that matches the class of the particular aircraft being flown. (Pilots are permitted to fly so-called "experimental" aircraft -- such as Alberto -- without a matching rating so long as nobody else is onboard. The FAA is reasonably open-minded about killing oneself but not others.)
Alberto falls into the class labeled "airships". Things classified as "airship" are distinct from those in the class "balloon" in that airships have a motor and can be steered. But, the fact is that Alberto behaves much more like a balloon than an airship. Unfortunately, the classification scheme is not terribly subtle. So Alberto has the bad luck of falling into the wrong classification box.
In particular, because almost all other airships have pressurized gas bags and use Helium rather than hot air, the training syllabus and testing rules for the "airship" rating are focused largely on pressurization and Helium. Perhaps if our technology becomes more prevalent someday, the FAA will change the airship rating. But, for the present, it is pretty irrelevant to Alberto.
We pointed out the disparity to the FAA. In particular, we pointed out that Mike and I both have hot air balloon ratings and ratings in powered aircraft. We showed why we think the combination of those two ratings is better preparation for flying Alberto than an airship rating. After mulling it over for nine months, the FAA agreed with us.
END OF LONG BUREAUCRATIC EXPLANATION -- SKIP TO HERE
As luck would have it, we won't be able to take advantage of our newly granted status right away. Mike is already on the road to the gigantic airshow in Oshkosh, WI for the week. I'm heading out that way in a few days. (We are giving a talk on our project this Saturday at 2:30 if you happen to be attending the show.) When we get back around the end of the month, we'll start taking people for rides. What a treat!
In the meantime, we expect to have a bit more press coverage. In particular, The Boston Globe will be running a story on us in their Business section and on their news website in the next few days. Several other national news outlets are working on stories as well.
Regards, Dan Nachbar
So we will keep our eyes open for them, here is already the first story from the Boston Globe, talking about the project and it's fathers. Read the full Boston Globe article and watch the high quality Video which contains some great footage of the airship. Showing some of the inside of the envelope and the patented aluminum tubing giving Alberto it's structure to which the motor and the fins are attached.
Following up to our article from Tuesday morning about the Radio FFH hot-airship G-BWKE We have to thank Brett from Airminded who pointed out some great information in response to the last post. The Airship has a UK registration and is registered to Wilfried Arnold in Kassel Germany. You can read the registration details here at the G-INFO databse Search of the UK Civil Aviation Authority Website. The Manufacturer of the Airship is Cameron Balloons UK which seem to work together with GEFA-Flug (also check out their more extensive German website). The AS-105 GD is a very versatile little hot-airship that can be stored in a trailer when not in use. The crew needed to operate it is just 3 people the pilot plus two ground staff. The Envelope is 2,970m³ (105,000ft³) and 41m(134.5ft) long and weighs about 200kg (440lbs) together with the Gondola which is made of "Stainless Steel Space Frame & Aluminium Panels" the whole airship doesn't weigh more than 500kg. According to the Cameron Balloons website such an airship "costs less than 5% of the price of a large helium airship to buy and incurs less than a tenth of one percent of the operating costs, yet will conservatively return 50% of the advertising value". These airships are also similar to Dan Nachbars personal blimp "Skyacht" which he built and constructed with some friends.
Here are some additional pictures of the airship and other Cameron Balloons airhsips. Check out each link for the pictures Airliners.net:
[Update] I am proud to announce that this was the 100th post on the Airshipworld Blog, now on to the next 100 I would say. Right now I want to thank everyone who has subscribed to the blog and reads it regularly. Please continue to send us your feedback and comment on the posts. If you want to support us, click on the "Make a Donation" Button on the left and send us your donation so that we can afford hosting and provide you with more stuff and better service in the future.
I just realized that I haven't posted an article since last Wednesday, the reason for this was, that we are in the process of launching a the website for the upcoming First International Airship Investors Conference. So have patience if the updates are a bit slower in the next few weeks. Before I work through the many news items, that have accumulated in the last few days, I would like to start of this week with some pictures of a hot air blimp that was hovering over a folk fest in the Rhein-Main area in Germany this weekend. The advertising shown is for a local radio station FFH. FFH is known for it's love to airships, blimps and Zeppelins, every year in summer you can spot them somewhere with one. You can not reach more people that visually impressive with anything else than an airship. The Identification reads G-BWKE, I'm trying to track this down and try to get an interview with the operators, to find out costs, and availability. If you know anything about this ship, please contact us.
