World Largest Aircraft Reviving - May Be Set For Flight By 2015

It’s as long as a football field, packed full of helium like a balloon, can stay up in the air for three weeks and might just change the way we travel around the globe. Introducing “Airlander,” a high-flying mega-blimp from Britain’s Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd.


The invention of airplanes has contributed tremendously to the speed and comfort associated with transportation of goods and people. Talking about cargo, there is much being done in terms of the increasing the size of cargo that can be air-shipped.  The Wright Brothers flew their first flight in a 21 ft. airplane over the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Now the world's newest, largest aircraft project, the Airlander, a 300 ft. zeppelin-shaped, helium-filled vessel can have about 14 of their planes  fit inside.
 

British media got the first glimpse of what is now the world’s largest aircraft Friday at the U.K.’s biggest hanger, located in a field near Bedford. The BBC likened it to three giant cigars sewn together, while the Daily Mail called the Airlander a “flying bum.”

All who saw it expressed amazement at HAV’s monumental achievement. Though the company doesn’t anticipate conducting its first passenger flights until 2016, the Internet is already buzzing over the ways in which the Airlander could potentially revolutionize global air travel. Here’s a look at seven of them:



This amalgam of a plane, airship, helicopter and hovercraft was originally developed for the U.S. Army as a Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, but the government ditched the project last year amid budget cuts and sold it back to HAV for just $301,000 (less than 1 percent of the original cost). What they lost out on, it turns out, was a game-changing aircraft that can carry up to 22,000 pounds, sustain a few bullet holes, and set down on ice, land or sea.

Hybrid Air Vehicles (H.A.V), a British company, brought the plane back and is reviving the Airlander project. H.A.V. had the plane's parts shipped in 40 huge crate-size boxes to its headquarters in Cardington, England, where zeppelin planes flew the British skies nearly a century ago.

The aircraft can carry a load of 2,700 lbs. for up to 21 days. On shorter flights, it could carry up to 5 tons, according to the BBC. The bubbly ship has three rounded points in the front and propellers on each side. H.A.V intends to fly it again in early 2015 with hopes of making it available for passenger and cargo flights.

If it flies again, the airship would be 24 feet longer than the present world's largest plane, the Antonov Mriya, a Russian-Ukrainian cargo plane. What a jump forward that would be to cargo air-shipment.
The Wright Brothers' flight only went 120 ft., or 160 ft. shorter than the length of the Airlander project. How intriguing. What do you think about this project?

source : Marshable.com
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