The Airship League

Have you ever thought: "Wouldn't it be cool if more people would be interested in Airships?" If you answered "Yes" then you are like me, if you answered "No" then I guess we have to convince you that it would be cool if more people would be interested. But as a matter of fact Airships are in the minds of people, be it in books or movies. If there is an event, hundreds even thousands of people are coming to an event like the airship parade. But what is keeping airships out of the mainstream. It's that fact that many people do not know what is possible with airships, many think they are gone for good because of the Hindenburg and all that jazz.
But what if there where an organization that would try to a) make airships exciting and b) educate more people about the possibilities and technologies behind airships. And that's where tonights headline starts making sense. The Idea is to create an "Airship League" an open and free (as in beer) organization that helps organizing races and contests around airships, that also hosts educational material about how to construct a remote controlled blimp what to look out for. The Airship League could showcase good successful designs, help educating and connecting children, students, universities, companies and the general public. This is of course some how far fetched and visionary but the idea is to aim high and then see what is realistic. So to gather Ideas we created a page in our Wiki called The Airship League it would be great to get the ideas and the brainstorming going. Please sign up for the Airshipworld Wiki if you haven't done so, yet. We believe that such an organization might help the industry as a whole and get more people interested in airships. Please feel free to add to the Article in the Wiki, add new pages link to existing projects. We believe that just by combining our efforts and joining forces, we can change a lot without having to invest much more than our time that we spend on our own efforts already.

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.