A return to flight in the UK for a huge hybrid airship now seems assured, following a fundraising exercise by its maker. Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) is receiving more than $3 million from nearly 900 investors via CrowdCube, a crowdfunding website. The company had hoped to fly the Airlander 10 this year, but now says that won’t happen until the end of the first quarter of next year. The 300-foot long airship flew just once in the U.S. in 2012 as the long endurance multipurpose vehicle (LEMV), a project sponsored by the U.S. Army and subsequently cancelled after nearly $300 million had been spent.
Fundraising documents reveal that HAV received $90 million from the U.S. for providing the LEMV platform. The British company was a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman, which briefed the ambitious project here at Paris back in 2011.
HAV, which retained the intellectual property of the hybrid design, paid the U.S. government $301,000 for the LEMV hardware, minus the surveillance sensor payloads that Northrop Grumman was integrating. The Airlander 10 currently rests within one of two giant hangars at Cardington near Bedford that were built during the golden age of airships in the 1930s.
Until the latest fundraising, HAV had been financed by $14 million worth of private investment, supplemented by recent technology and regional growth grants worth $7.5 million from the British government. The development of airships in the UK and elsewhere has been littered with failures, so the recent public and private investment is a vote of confidence in HAV’s ability to bring an innovative technology to market.
Hybrid airships combine aerostatic lift from inert helium gas with aerodynamic lift and vectored thrust. On the prototype Airlander 10, the thrust comes from four Thielert 325-hp turbocharged V8 diesel engines mounted fore and aft each side of the 1.34 million-cubic-feet envelope. They drive three-bladed ducted propellers and were run again for the first time last February.
The envelope of the Airlander 10 is made from a multi-layered weave of modern materials inflated to just above atmospheric pressure. The 150-foot long flight deck and payload module is carried beneath the envelope and made from composite materials.
HAV said that the market for this innovative technology over the next 20 years has been independently valued at more than $50 billion, of which two-thirds is commercial rather than military.
After the return to flight, including a 200-hour test program, the company plans to demonstrate the Airlander 10’s utility in two key roles: point-to-point heavy lift into remote areas and persistent; and low-cost flight for search, survey and surveillance. Communications relay is another possible application.
Potential civilian, military and parapublic agency customers would fund the demonstration flights, according to HAV, allowing production to start in late 2016. The company formally submitted a type certification application to EASA two months ago.
Last year, Selex ES agreed to partner with HAV to provide sensors for a proposed demonstration to the UK Ministry of Defence. HAV also expects to run a trial with Ocean Sky, a Swedish company with some government backing that is investigating how awkward loads such as wind turbine blades could be delivered to remote locations.
In the unmanned surveillance role, the Airlander 10 could fly for up to 21 days carrying a one-metric-ton payload. In the cargo-carrying role, it could carry a payload of 10 metric tons at a cruise speed of up to 80 knots. A passenger module could be substituted, with seats for 48.
HAV is quoting a price of $40- to 50 million for the bi-hulled Airlander 10, depending on role fit. But one of the great benefits of the hybrid airship concept is scaleability. HAV is designing a tri-hulled and turboprop-powered version designated Airlander 50 that is 2.7 times larger by envelope volume that could carry up to 60 metric tons at a cruise speed of 105 knots.
Lockheed Martin To Launch Hybrid Sales Drive Here
The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has been working on hybrid airship designs since the early 1990s. In 2006, it flew a one-third-scale demonstrator designated the P791 at Palmdale, California. LM competed for the U.S. Army’s LEMV requirement, but lost to Northrop Grumman.
Since then, behind the scenes the Skunk Works has kept a small team working on refinements to the design, including the flight control system; the air cushion landing system; vectored thrust control; and manufacturing technology for the envelope materials. The team has also prompted the FAA to develop hybrid certification criteria (HCC).
Like HAV, Lockheed Martin believes there is a big potential for hybrid airships to serve the remote transport market. At a briefing here this morning, entitled “The Road Not Needed,” the company will introduce Hybrid Enterprises, the company it has created to drive commercial sales and advise future operators. It may also confirm the first sale to Global Hybrid, a California-based startup.