Taking Flight

In March of last year I brought you the story about a company called Hybrid Air Vehicles, and their attempt to produce a lighter-than-air/lifting body hybrid aircraft, along the same lines as the legendary Aereon 26 which was first flown in 1970. At the time, I noted that the original hybrid designs had failed to generate any interest due mainly to the opposition from people who build heavier-than-air vehicles and the relatively low cost of aviation fuel at the time. When something is unfamiliar in form and function, faces massive political opposition, and does not provide an offsetting advantage, it is difficult for it to make headway in a free market economy. At least two of those things appear to be changing now, however…

There’s a CNN story on-line this week that describes a new offering from Lockheed-Martin in partnership with a company calling itself Hybrid Enterprises: a lighter-than-air lifting-body airship. The article is non-technical in nature, but the LMH1 airship is said to have a payload of twenty tons or so, a range of 1,400 nautical miles, and a top speed of around 60 knots, which would make it about the same size as one of the medium-sized Aereon designs from the 1960s. More importantly, Lockheed-Martin is claiming that the LMH1 will have a payload in the twenty-ton range, which puts it in the same class with the company’s famous C-130 cargo aircraft. Granted that the LMH1 is significantly larger (300+ feet long to 97 feet for the C-130) and only has about 20% of the top speed, it should in theory be significantly cheaper to operate than its conventional equivalent, and require significantly less room to take off or land…

So far the company isn’t reporting any interest from military customers, but that could change if they are successful in selling these aircraft to civilian users. Their current marketing appears to be geared more towards customers who need to transport large amounts of cargo to places that don’t have runways than anything else; they’ve already mentioned the utility this would have for oil exploration teams, who need to move a variety of survey and drilling equipment to places that don’t have roads or harbors, let alone airports. But it’s probably worth noting that military organizations also have a need to place equipment and build installations in places where there are neither roads nor harbors, and the ability to carry more weight at significantly lower cost than using helicopters for the same project has got to have a certain appeal…

Now, when I wrote the original piece I did note that the original company to try building and selling these craft, Aereon, was stymied in part by the inability to generate interest from either military or civilian customers. Why it didn’t occur to me to suggest that they partner with a company that already had established customer relationships on both the military and civilian markets escapes me, but why neither they nor Hybrid Air Vehicles thought of it before is probably a better question anyway. I don’t know if Lockheed-Martin is providing capital, technical support, production facilities, marketing, lobbying, or access to their existing customer base, but any one of those things could make the difference between being a start-up company with an unfamiliar technology and being part of a project involving an established aerospace company and defense contractor…

Lockheed-Martin is claiming that they will have the new aircraft ready to fly in three years, and might be selling them not long after that. It’s still a bit early yet to start speculating on whether the airship will really make a comeback, let alone whether there will be military versions, passenger versions, larger commercial versions that would replace cargo ships, or small versions that might be available for private ownership and general aviation. But if this article is accurate, the game has changed this time – and the production models are already on the way…