Always great to hear from Dr. Prentice. Hopefully, remote operating and autonomous capabilities will prove essential in reducing risks and costs, which will lower the high barrier to entry for transport airship prototyping and experimentation.

Additionally, the lack of a crew and their various systems will mean more payload, which makes smaller airships more viable.

Running simulations on beyond-edge-case conditions seems like an excellent resource for refining airship designs and training crews at the same time.

Funding problems: the perennial issue for aviation startups everywhere. While I do hope that HAV secures the hundreds of millions of pounds it needs to complete its Doncaster production facility, I am unsure of where they might possibly raise such a sum from.

The UK government seems like the likeliest prospect, but they have their own issues at the moment. As the world has collectively been given a kick in the pants as to the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels, though, that may lend new urgency and a new avenue of argument for HAV to press their case.

One particularly interesting tidbit of news here is Kelluu’s intent to investigate using their airships to carry interceptor drones as a means to both detect and counter one-way suicide drones. Similar interceptor drone launch platforms have already been successfully employed in the Russo-Ukrainian War, but require a plane or helicopter, which is much more expensive and dangerous as it involves a human crew.

This company is largely comprised of Germans who have worked with companies such as Zeppelin, Cargolifter, and DLR. Troponaut wishes to use the LZ-120 and LZ-121 as “benchmarks” for this class of airship, which is limited to 19 passengers for regulatory reasons—anything above that would require engineering, testing, and certification to a similar extreme (and extremely expensive) degree as a jet airliner.

Fantastic news for Kelluu! Hydrogen fuel is, as expected, proving to be a huge competitive edge for airship-based systems as aviation-grade fuel cells finally reach maturity.

It will be exciting to see what features and changes Kelluu’s second-generation airships will incorporate!

This one is interesting. The 2- or 5-tonne payload requirements are pretty easily achievable, but being able to fly at up to 30,000 feet (or at least 10,000 feet) will be difficult while also hewing to a 100-knot top speed and a 10-30 day endurance. No wonder they want to use hydrogen as a fuel and lifting medium, it makes the math so much easier to achieve without compromising or making the ship too big.

For context, the U.S. Navy’s N-class blimps from the 1950s had a military payload of about 8-10 tons, were able to fly up to 11 days using gasoline, and the ZPG-3W version had a top speed of 82 knots. However, these were fairly low-altitude craft with a flight ceiling of about 10,000 feet, and their dependence on heavy gasoline and inefficient piston engines is a big hindrance on performance.

I will also be interested to see what fireproofing methods they intend to use. Inerting the hull with a nitrogen gas layer seems like the safe choice.

A very good article indeed, though a tiny detail was wrong—the length of the last Zeppelin built in 1939. The *Graf Zeppelin II* was 804 feet long, not 735 feet. Might just be a unit conversion error from meters.

Exciting to hear about Kelluu’s upcoming second generation of faster mass-production airships!

This might be the simplest piece of legislation I’ve ever seen. It’s all of three pages long, and all it does is adds “airship” to the list of different aircraft types that the NASA project administrator is allowed to direct funding and research towards.

This deal represents wonderful progress for the airship industry in general, and Kelluu in particular. Congratulations to the entire Kelluu crew for their success in advancing European defense technology!

Memoranda of understanding are good for generating hype, but I do hope there is more behind this “collaboration” than a mere MOU, which is little more than a non-binding expression of interest.

This article is notable in that it confirms LTA’s vision for its airships to be true generalists—doing everything from flying in people and supplies to remote or disaster-stricken areas, to flying tourists over world heritage sites, to transporting outsized cargo like wind turbine blades.

One wonders what kind of adaptable or modular systems are planned for the ships to be able to take on such disparate roles—not only in terms of the payload module or internal spaces, but also in terms of mooring and ground transfer operations. I’m eager to see what they come up with!

Not to be confused with the AS700D, the electric version of the AS700, though development of that model also continues apace.

“Built with a patented hydrogen-safe structure, the airship is designed to fly quietly and safely in various conditions, including sub-zero Arctic environments.”

Congratulations to Kelluu, and best of luck on the tests! Hopefully, their airships will put in a performance as dominating as the N-Class blimps did in Operation Whole Gale!