While the design, materials and technologies that enable flight have changed a lot since the 1920’s, the fundamental laws of aerodynamics, economics and physics have not.

Success in the realm of airships lies in properly integrating the disciplines of aerodynamics, economics and physics – resulting in a modern airship that applies modern design, materials and technologies and integrates them into a proven Concept of Flight Operations like that which was proven and perfected in the first three decades of the 20^th century.

Low cost efficient aerial transportation is a key economic and military enabling mechanism that promises to deliver a highly efficient and cost effective solution a multitude of  21^st century military and economic problems. And the solutions exist today.

A correctly designed and built modern airship will be structurally sound and can scale safely to the sizes needed to be economical. It will operate at or near neutral buoyancy at all times, and carry heavy payloads long distances or for extended periods of time at very low cost.

There has been considerable confusion related to hybrid airships, which are heavier than air vehicles like airplanes, which require the burning of fuel in order to fly. Hybrid airships are in fact not lighter than air vehicles, which operate at or near neutral buoyancy at all times in order to be fuel efficient and cost effective.

For purposes of further clarification, the basic principles of correct lighter than air (LTA) design, construction and operation are as follows:

1.     For an airship to perform properly it MUST operate at or near neutral buoyancy at all times: The fundamental principles that govern lighter than air flight and consequently, correct airship design, construction and operation, are very similar in principle to those which underlie the correct design, construction and operation of a submarine. The main difference is the medium in which they operate, a submarine obviously operating in water and the airship operating in the air. The bottom line: For an airship to carry heavy loads for long periods of time with low fuel burn at low cost relative to other more familiar forms of air transport, an airship MUST operate at or near neutral buoyancy at all times.

2.     Scalability: Airship lift is volumetric, NOT aerodynamic. Every time the volume of lifting gas is doubled, the gross lift of the vehicle is tripled.  This means that airships must be built in large sizes in order to carry heavy or outsized loads efficiently and cost effectively. The key is to design and build an airship that is large enough to be efficient and cost effective but is also structurally safe and can scale to sizes where economics really make sense. The idea is to use helium to do the lifting and to use propulsion exclusively to propel the airship, NOT to generate lift.  Therefore, a correctly designed and built modern airship will be defined to balance volume and buoyant lift, sized to maximum operational payload and shaped to achieve best aerodynamic and economic efficiency.

3.     Airships are low speed structures. For an airship to perform well and be economically efficient, the optimal airship operating speed is at or below the stall speed of an aircraft wing. Attempts to design or fly airships over 100 M.P.H. fail to correctly distinguish, understand or isolate the inherent characteristics of lighter than air that are desirable and decouple them from those characteristics of lighter than air that are suboptimal or undesirable.

4.     Economics – Airships are simple, low speed structures. Simplicity means low cost. Increased efficiency (save time, increase capability, do more with less cost, fuel burn, environmental impact, etc.) and transformational operating capability and low cost economics are the reasons to build a modern airship. The way desirable economics and tremendous operating efficiencies are generated with an airship is by designing a lighter than air vehicle that operates according to the following principles: A. Uses aerostatic lift (helium) to lift the vehicle and payload, B. Uses propulsion exclusively to propel and maneuver the air vehicle and payload, NOT to generate lift. C. Fly safely by designing and building an airship that will exceed modern FAA flight safety requirements and standards by broad positive margins (and not be susceptible to weather and break apart in flight like large rigid airships of the past) and D. Design an airship in such a way that it can operate from remote areas with minimal infrastructure, making large ground crews unnecessary for landing and take off and E. design the airship in such a way that the vehicle has positive full axis control at low airspeeds (airspeeds under 3 knots).

The high fineness ratio multi mission airship design is the result of extensive research and development and fundamentally advances the state of the art in modern airship design. This design is non rigid and divides a long cigar-shaped airship into sections or segments that act in a manner similar to a large shock absorber. This is similar in concept to an aircraft wing that is designed to flex under loads rather than remain rigid.

Extensive research has shown that a modern long fineness ratio airship is substantially more load and cost efficient than equivalent payload shorter blimp-like airships. However, history has shown that all past long fineness ratio rigid airships had inherent structural inadequacies, many resulting in catastrophic failures. This series of airships has correctly analyzed and isolated the operational and structural inadequacies of the past era.  Therefore, the high fineness ratio multi mission airship design advances the current state-of-the-art for ultra-large pressure airships. The overall result is a fineness ratio in excess of 8:1 which provides a minimal cross section and capital and operating cost relative to payload capability.

Therefore, the modular, High Fineness Ratio Multi Mission Airship is tailored and optimized to the mission and is defined to balance volume and buoyant lift, sized to maximum operational payload and shaped to achieve best aerodynamic and economic efficiency.

In summary, I will leave you with two thoughts: 1. According to John Adams, “Facts are stubborn things”, which when applied to airships is intended to mean that while the materials and technologies have changed, the fundamental principles of lighter than air flight have not, and 2. Competition is what inspires creativity, innovation and excellence, improves performance and lowers costs. A level playing field and open and fair competition has been sorely lacking in military contracting for airships to this point.

In 1917 the German Zeppelin L.59 attempted to fly 50 tons of military supplies from Germany to German troops in what was then German East Africa (Now Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania) under the command of Gen. Paul von Lettow – Vorbeck. The flight covered a distance of 4,200 miles, which is equal in distance to a nonstop flight from Germany to San Francisco, California using the great circle route.
Built in 1923, the US Navy airship Shenandoah regularly used less than 3,000 hp while transporting 53,500 lb of payload up to 5,000 miles at cruise speeds of about 70 mph.
In 1928 the German airship Graf Zeppelin was the first vehicle to circumnavigate the globe by air. It flew nonstop legs eastward from Germany to Japan, which was a nonstop distance of 6,988 miles, and then from Tokyo to San Francisco, which was a nonstop distance of 5998 miles.
Despite the vastly inferior design, materials and technology of the era, mission profiles covering strategic and transcontinental distances with very heavy payloads were routinely flown by airships in the first three decades of the 20th century. Airships of this era repeatedly exhibited operational capabilities that could not be duplicated by airplanes 40 years later.

Our nation’s vital strategic interests rely upon open and unrestricted access to each of the three global commons, the sea, the air, and cyberspace for commercial and military purposes. These global commons are the lifelines of commerce and prosperity in the modern world. Affordable and unrestricted access to each of the global commons for commercial and military purposes is the key to the continued prosperity and stability of the modern interconnected global system. A properly designed, constructed and deployed airship will provide a platform to maintain and expand access to the global commons mentioned above.

A high fineness ratio cargo airship is a modern advanced design airship that uses some of the best design characteristics from the past history of dirigibles such as having a long fineness ratio for providing best aerodynamic/buoyancy efficiencies versus payload. The inherent core design feature of the Cargo Airship System (CAS) is a long slender cigar like airship that can provide net payload capability from 20 tons to over 500 tons depending upon overall proportions (size).

CAS is designed to have a minimum of five individual cylindrical buoyant sections. Each individual section interfaces and is connected to each other to complete a large airship with outstanding overall structural integrity. This configuration is capable of transporting greater than or equal to 40,000 pounds of flexible payload (vehicles, pallets, litters, personnel, etc.) at altitudes greater than or equal to 10,000 feet mean sea level (MSL) with a cruise speed greater than or equal to 80 knots and have a range of at least 1,000 nautical miles.

The interface of each section is designed to achieve maximum safety and full control over all structural forces encountered by the airship, including maximum forces of tension, compression, and torsion as encountered by a large-long streamlined style of airship. Overall structural integrity is in excess of 90 f.p.s gust loading, whereas all historical long finesse and rigid dirigibles were structurally limited to 17 f.p.s maximum gust loads. Modern pressure shorter finesse ratio airships such as blimps meet modern approvals of at least a minimum of 35 f.p.s cost load criteria, (a jumbo jet minimum gust load criteria is 65f.p.s.). The, structurally sound, long fineness ratio ‘CAS’ presents a major breakthrough for operational transport efficiencies of payloads with adequate structural integrity in all weather conditions.