Aeroscraft in the News

IN THE NEWS Volume I, Issue I

News of 2013 About Aeros: Worldwide Aeros Corp. (Aeros) is a privately held international aircraft company headquartered in Los Angeles. Aeros is the world's most innovative, FAA-certified, lighter-than-air (LTA) aircraft manufacturing company.

The Aeros team does complete in-house research, development, production, flight, and operation of Aeros-branded advanced-technology air vehicles, FAA production certification, and flight innovation.

The Aeroscraft is the only cargo "hybrid airship" with the vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability offering an escape from infrastructure, ground personnel and other logisitcal challenges involved in cargo development.

Featured Stories:

PR Contacts:

John Kiehle: Director of Corporate Communications (323) 201-8374 John.Kiehle@aeroscraft.com Erica Irigoyen: Public Relations Associate (323) 201-8373 Erica.Irigoyen@aeroscraft.com Megan Bumgarner: Public Relations Associate (323) 201-8372 Megan.Bumgarner@aeroscraft.com

Table of Contents

HUFFPOST SCIENCE......................................................................................................................................4

(Gigantic Aeroscraft Airship Passes Ground Tests, Gets Set for Flight Operations) CO.EXIST..........................................................................................................................................................5

(This Giant, Floating Airship from NASA and the Military Gets Closer to Flight) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS..............................................................................................................................6

(High-tech cargo airship being built in California) BLOOMBERG...................................................................................................................................................7

(Airship Makers Float New Craft to Erase Hindenburg Blot) CBS NEWS.......................................................................................................................................................9

(Airships to Lift off Again? Firm engineers comeback) FF JOURNAL..................................................................................................................................................10

(It's Not a Blimp) WINDPOWER.................................................................................................................................................11

(Have you heard of the Aeroscraft?)

BLOOMBERG BUSINESS WEEK.................................................................................................................12

(Worldwide Aeros Aims to Turn Blimps Into Cargo Craft) FLIGHT GLOBAL...........................................................................................................................................14

(PARIS: Aeros rises to the occasion with unique airship design) INSIDE DEFENSE..........................................................................................................................................15

(DOD: Rigid-Hull Hybrid Air Vehicle Technology Demo Achieved Objectives) FLYER MAGAZINE.........................................................................................................................................16

(Ian Waller takes a Look at a New Type of Aircraft that Offers a New Solution to Cargo-

Carrying and Military Demands) ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER.....................................................................................................................18

(Dream Machine Being Built in Tustin) LOS ANGELES TIMES...................................................................................................................................19

(Entrepreneur Out to Prove his Zepplin Idea is More Than Hot Air) INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES............................................................................................................22

(Zeppelins Making A Comeback? Aeroscraft Airship Is Future Of Air Transportation, Says

California Company) POPULAR SCIENCE......................................................................................................................................23

(Airship 2.0: Inside the Lighter-Than-Air Revival) AIR CARGO WORLD.....................................................................................................................................27

(Aeroscraft Hopes to be Ready for Market by 2016) AEROS AROUND THE WORLD.....................................................................................................................28

(Foreign Language News) VIRTUAL MEDIA CLIPPINGS WORTH SHARING .......................................................................................32

January 07, 2013

Gigantic Aeroscraft Airship Passes Ground Tests, Gets Set for Flight Operations

By: Betsy Isaacson It's a blimp! It's a plane! It's an‌ Aeroscraft? The Aeroscraft, a new type of airship said to be capable of vertical takeoff and landing and speeds of over 130 mph, has passed an important round of tests, according to a Jan. 3 statement from maker Aeros Industries.

But don't rush out and try to book a flight. Aeroscraft hasn't flown yet -- these were ground tests, in which the craft floated along the floor like a hovercraft. The tests were conducted at a 500,000-square-foot hangar at the Former Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, California, an Aeros representative told The Huffington Post in a phone interview.

Though luxury cruises may eventually part of Aeroscraft's duties, its primary mission is defense. In 2005, the U.S. military awarded Aeros a contract to "build a 'hybrid ultra-large aircraft' that could transport 500 tons of cargo at least 12,000 nautical

miles," Popular Science reports.

The company hopes its airship will revolutionize cargo transportation, and it doesn't seem so implausible given the craft's impressive specs. Airships have some big advantages over traditional planes -- for one thing, they can take off and land vertically, which means there's no need for large, costly runways, according Aeros' website.

So why hasn't anything like this been built before? It's not just because airships fell out of fashion after the 1937 Hindenburg disaster.

It's also extremely difficult to steer something so light. Aeroscraft solves the problem with an innovative ballast system, which compresses and releases the balloon's helium inside special chambers.

This system allows Aeroscraft to deliver its payload directly to wherever it's needed, and Aeros expects the craft to to "cut fuel consumption

by one third of what’s traditionally generated by air freight," according to innovation news website Gizmag.

What else could the Aeroscraft be used for? Aeros CEO and Chief Engineer Igor Pasternak has discussed delivering food to Africa and factory supplies to remote areas, and tech writer Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo imagines even more idyllic Aeroscraft applications: Civilian versions would be able to offer air cruises at any altitude. Just like a cruise ship but over land.

Imagine taking the most awesome trip over a three or four days, from New York to San Francisco, slowly flying over the Grand Canyon or the Rocky Mountains, watching the incredible scenery while sipping on a cocktail or comfortably having dinner in a restaurant with huge glass windows. Then, at night, you sleep in your comfortable room.

That's what the full-size Aeroscraft will be able to offer and I will be the first one in line to experience it.

January 30, 2013

This Giant, Floating Airship From NASA and the Militarty Gets Closer to Flight By: Zac Stone In Orange County, California, a hulking, 230-foot long, 36,000-pound beast is being groomed as the future of air travel. For the next few years, all eyes in the aviation space are on the Pelican: a prototype for a revolutionary new airship-neither a blimp nor a plane-developed by engineering firm Aeros on a $35-million contract from the Pentagon and NASA.

What’s so significant about the aircraft? First, it doesn’t need a runway to land, which means it could deliver the 66 tons of cargo it’s expected to carry anywhere in the world. This could change the game for military operations (hence the investors) but also for humanitarian aid, by getting supplies to hard to reach places after a disaster or to islands lacking in infrastructure.

The Aeros team imagines using it to transport massive wind turbines some day, allowing for gains in an industry that’s long been hindered by transportation difficulties.

Another vision for the airship is as the Titanic of the air: a luxury cruise through the skies, letting passengers slowly absorb the sites below, while dining in style high above.

The Pelican will run on just onethird the fuel of the most common cargo planes by using helium to aid in buoyancy. As Aviation Week explains it, "compressing the helium makes the vehicle heavier than air for easier ground handling and cargo unloading. Releasing the helium displaces air inside the vehicle and makes it neutrally buoyant."

This month, the Pelican reached several important milestones in its development. In early January, its cockpit controls were used to move along the ground, without the

assistance of personnel on the ground.

The following week, the vehicle completed its "first float," hovering above the ground at its engineering hangar in Tustin, California.

While the Pelican is just a prototype, the real thing will be nearly twice as long when it’s ready for flight, some time in the next few years.

Until these are as ubiquitous as commercial liners, we’ll just continue praying for an aisle seat.

January 30, 2013

High-tech cargo airship being built in California By: Raquel Maria Dillon The massive blimp-like aircraft flies but just barely, hovering only a dozen feet off a military hangar floor during flight testing south of Los Angeles.

Still, the fact that the hulking 230-foot-long Aeroscraft could fly for just a few minutes represents a step forward in aviation, according to the engineers who developed it. The Department of Defense and NASA have invested $35 million in the prototype because of its potential to one day carry more cargo than any other aircraft to disaster zones and forward military bases.

"I realized that I put a little dot in the line of aviation history. A little dot for something that has never been demonstrated before, now it's feasible," said flight control engineer Munir Jojo-Verge.

The airship is undergoing testing this month at Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, and must go through several more rounds of flight testing before it could be used in a disaster zone or anywhere else. The first major flight test took place Jan. 3.

The biggest challenge for engineers is making sure the airship will be able to withstand high winds and other extreme weather conditions, Jojo-Verge said.

to carry more cargo more efficiently than ever before would provide the U.S. military with an advantage on the battlefield and greater capacity to save more lives during natural disasters.

to rise and taking in air to descend, said Aeros mechanical engineer Tim Kenny. It can take off vertically, like a helicopter, then change its buoyancy to become heavier than air for landing and unloading.

Worldwide Aeros, the company that developed the aircraft, said it also must secure more funding for the next round of flight tests, but is hopeful the Defense Department and others will step in again as investors.

The lighter-than-air vehicle is not a blimp because it has a rigid structure made out of ultra-light carbon fiber and aluminum underneath its high-tech Mylar skin. Inside, balloons hold the helium that gives the vehicle lift. Unlike hydrogen, the gas used in the Hindenburg airship that crashed in 1937, helium is not flammable.

"It allows the vehicle to set down on the ground.

And then when we want to become lighter than air, we release that air and then the vehicle floats and we can allow it to take off," Kenny said.

The company says the cargo airship's potential

The airship functions like a submarine, releasing air

"Their vulnerability is their large size," said aviation expert and former Navy test pilot Pete Field. "There's a lot of surface area so wind affects it tremendously."

In the early 1930s, the Navy operated two airships — the Macon and the Akron — as flying aircraft carriers that could launch and retrieve biplanes. Both were lost to thunderstorms.

If the design team can make the Aeroscraft steady and maneuverable, it would be the ultimate logistics and transport vehicle, carrying tanks, equipment and supplies to bases around the world, Field said.

"I don't think there's much doubt about whether it's going to work or not. It's physics," he said. "In the right atmospheric conditions, it would be ideal."

The project has set abuzz the old

hangars at the Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin. The structures were built to hold blimps during World War II. Now workers zip around in cherrypickers, and the airship's silvery surface shines against the warm tones of the aging wood of the walls.

"You could take this vehicle and go to destinations that have been destroyed, where there's no ports, no runways, stuff like that.

This vehicle could go in there, offload the cargo even if there's no

infrastructure, no landing site for it to land on, this vehicle can unload its whole payload," said Kenny.

The prototype isn't intended to carry cargo, though a similarsized craft could haul about 30 tons. Aeros wants to build a fullsize 450-foot-long vehicle that can carry 66 tons of payload.

February 11, 2013

Airship Makers Float New Craft to Erase Hindenburg Blot be as big as the fixed-wing sector, with a huge impact on freight movements,” said Barry Prentice, professor of supply-chain management at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. “But I can’t be sure that it’s finally going to happen in my lifetime.”

By: Robert Wall Airship builders say the development of lighter, stronger materials will allow them to deliver on a centuryold ambition of making craft capable of winning business from freight operators such as FedEx Corp. within three years.

A drop in the price of carbon fiber and advances in systems that can control the buoyancy of the even largest airships have also

encouraged development of models that aim to move goods faster than surface ships and at half the cost of a Boeing Co. 747. A 500-foot dirigible being built by Californiabased Aeros Corp. will carry 66 tons, according to founder Igor Pasternak.

Manufacturers must overcome industry skepticism about a mode of transport widely regarded as obsolete, together with a

lingering fear of lighter-thanair travel that can be traced to the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, in which 36 people died as the biggest-ever airship was consumed by fire in New Jersey.

Airship makers argue their products are a cheaper means to move goods such as wind blades directly to the point of delivery.

“When it matures, the lighter-than-air industry will

Commodity Clients: Airship manufacturers themselves are likely to be the first commercial operators in order to build confidence, he said.

Commodities companies may be among early customers, Gary Elliott, chief executive officer at Britain’s Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd., said in an interview, adding that a study for a miner listed on the U.K.’s benchmark FTSE-100 index showed transport costs to a site in Africa could be cut by 40 percent.

Airships, traditionally rigid-

framed craft with a lifting capacity well in excess of blimps that maintain their shape through internal pressure, might also be used to supply oil rigs to remote locations, Elliott said.

The receptiveness of the market will become clearer later this year when Cranfield, England-based Hybrid begins taking orders for its Airlander 50 model. Elliot is targeting the first commercial flight for the year after next. The company doesn’t disclose a price for its product.

Any sales to airlines would probably follow interest from logistics specialists including Memphis, Tennessee-based Fedex, operator of the world’s largest cargo carrier, and United Parcel Service Inc. of Atlanta, the No. 1 package-delivery provider, according to Prentice.

“These companies have tremendous needs for lift, and pressure on cost, so they would be likely customers,” he said.

Direct Delivery: Hybrid says its Airlander will beat aircraft shipments on price, allowing it to win some flows even though an Atlantic crossing would take two days rather than eight hours. And while sea-freight will remain cheaper, an airship has the advantage of being able to cut out transfer consignments on trucks and trains, aided by the ability to take off and land vertically.

“The whole concept of transportation will adapt,” said Elliott, whose company occupies the site where the R100 model was built in the 1920s to meet a requirement under the U.K.’s Imperial Airship Scheme.

British enthusiasm for the technology ended when a rival model, the R101 -- the world’s largest flying craft at the time with a length of 731 feet -- came down in France on its

which features a multi- hulled, nonrigid design, is a cousin of the LongEndurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, which first flew in August and has been sold by Northrop Grumman Corp. to the U.S. Army for $517 for 3 airships, including some deployment costs.

maiden overseas voyage in 1930, killing 48 of the 54 people aboard.

The Airlander will measure 365 feet and feature a 440 cubic meter cargo compartment capable of handling standard containers, LD3-type aircraft boxes and other cargo forms.

Hybrid expects to set prices next month and needs 15 orders “to Goodyear Blimp: Elsewhere, start cutting fabric,” with an initial American backing for the airship public offering planned if demand diminished in 1933 when the Akron, blossoms. Elliott said he’ll avoid operated by the U.S. Navy, crashed the over- aggressive expansion into the Atlantic during a storm. The strategy that undermined Cargolifter, 785-foot craft had been built by a with thousands of shareholders joint venture of Goodyear Tire & losing their investment as a result.

Rubber Co. and Germany’s Zeppelin, which developed its first model, Aeros is conducting indoor tests of the LZ 1, at Friedrichshafen on the its rival half-scale Aeroscraft model, shores of Lake Constance in 1900. with flights in the open planned Zeppelin survives as Zeppelin mid-year. The Montebello-based Luftschifftechnik GmbH, which began company is seeking $400 million developing semi-rigid airships in the to fund full- scale versions with a 1990s and which won orders for three near-3,500 mile range, mainly from craft from Goodyear in 2011 for delivery U.S. federal and state sources, in 2014 to replace aging blimps, with certification sought for 2015. reviving the decades-old alliance.

The last large-scale effort to Still, development of a viable airship commercialize rigid airships failed in industry remains hobbled by outdated 2002 with the collapse of Cargolifter thinking among regulators that AG. While the company remains has its origins in the Hindenburg in business making more modest disaster, Prentice said, among them balloon-like craft, its gleaming white a ban on the use of hydrogen that 550,000 cubic-meter (19.4 million makes the craft more expensive. cubic-foot) hangar that rises in a field south of Berlin is now used “There is a lot of legacy regulation as a tropical amusement park. that was passed 75 years ago that hasn’t been updated,” he said.

Pentagon Boost: Over the past decade, the Pentagon has provided momentum for airship development as it seeks lower-cost surveillance capabilities. The Hybrid Airlander 50,

February 12, 2013

Airships to lift off again? Firm Engineers Comeback

There was a time when it was common for airships and blimps to fill the skies of America and Europe. That all changed with one simple word: Hindenburg. Now, more than 75 years later, airships could be taking off again.

It looks like a big balloon, but engineer Tim Kenny with Worldwide Aeros Corp., of Tustin, Calif., calls his airship the evolution of air transport.

It's the Aeroscraft: a 270-feet-long, 100-feet-tall prototype of the actual airship that will be twice as big and designed to lift tons of cargo.

It's remarkable, not just for what it can carry, but where. Kenny explained, "There is no place that this vehicle can't go, we can go anywhere there's no ports, no runways, it could be the rainforest, it could be the Arctic, we can land on snow, ice, water."

Igor Pasternak, the Ukranian-born chief executive officer of Worldwide Aeros Corp., said, "The picture of Hindenburg, it will be there in people's minds."

But Pasternak wants to erase that image. His creation is lifted by nonflammable, lighter-than-air helium.

It's not just bigger than earlier airships, but far safer, he says.

And he's not alone. Dozens of And all at speeds putting traditional companies are working on nexttruck or ship cargo carriers to generation airships. Lockheed Martin shame: 100 miles per hour, from designed an airship to haul heavy New York to Los Angeles in a little equipment to remote parts of the globe. more than a day. Airships seem so But the aerospace company couldn't practical, some wonder why they find funding to mass produce it. ever went away in the first place.

Graham Warwick, an aviation analyst Airships first graced the skies back in with Aviation Week, an information and the 1920s and 1930s as surveillance services provider to the global aviation, platforms, cargo carriers, and even aerospace and defense industries, said, passenger luxury liners. That all "We're very close, probably closer than came to a tragic end in May 1937 we've ever been since airships started when the Hindenburg crashed, being operated to building something killing 26 people. It's believed a that the commercial world can use." spark ignited the volatile hydrogen gas that kept the Hindenburg afloat. Warwick says the only funder with the deep pockets and technical know-how The future of airships to get new airships off the ground is was thought to be over. the U.S. military. Last August, the Army

and aviation giant Northrop Grumman Corporation took to the skies with this $517 million aircraft, designed as a surveillance platform loaded with cameras. But with the Afghan war winding down, it now sits in a hangar with its further funding in doubt.

Warwick said, "One of the concerns is, is that the military is going to lose interest before the commercial world can pick it up."

The Aeroscraft got off the ground with just $35 million from the military, but engineer Kenny is convinced it will stay afloat because of its unique technology.

He said, "If I wanna put the payload on, I just push a button and it automatically will adjust the vehicle to either be lighter if we add the payload, or become heavier if we remove the payload."

That means no need for ground crews or long mooring ropes. It stays stable in high winds. The Aeroscraft is awaiting Federal Aviation Administration approval to take a test flight outside the hangar. Then, this California crew is betting the sky's the limit.

April, 2013

It's Not a Blimp By: Gretchen Salois Imagine taking off and landing vertically like a helicopter while transporting up to 500 tons of cargo. The Aeroscraft ML866, a 260-ft. prototype vehicle with a 66ton payload is the first in a series that promises aircraft capable of transporting 200ton and 500-ton payloads in the future. The design is just as impressive as its strength.

of more than 200 people.

According to Ashraf, the most challenging task for fabricators was the assembly and parts integration process because of the size of the The Aeroscraft’s variable vehicle. “But we have been buoyancy (lighter than air successful in overcoming while in flight, heavier than that,” she says. As expected, air for ground operations) all the metals used required is changed using a tight tolerances to meet the combination of mechanical stringent requirements of the systems rather than through aircraft’s design. Workers loading or offloading used an extensive amount structural adhesive external ballast. Unlike a of blimp, which maintains its during the assembly of components to shape by pressurization, metal materials. the Aeroscraft relies on an composite internal framework. Bringing this formidable beast of The Aeroscraft is the only transport to life required available Rigid Variable Air Vehicle the expertise of a host of Buoyancy experienced fabricators. designed to control lift in The trusses of the aircraft all stages of air or ground are a combination of operations, according to the carbon fiber and aluminum company. It has the ability to members. Aeroshell, used offload payload without reto sustain the shape of the ballasting. Aeros considers vehicle, is fabricated from the Aeroscraft a “fourth high-strength, lightweight dimension of flight,” built with aluminum honeycomb new technology that was panels. The project took tested and met all design two years to complete target sets by the Department and required the efforts of Defense, NASA and

Defensive Advanced Research Projects Agency.

According to Aeroscraft, the key features include a rigid structure, vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, as well the ability to operate at low speeds in a hovering state from unprepared surfaces.

Buoyancy is often the biggest obstacle to running a hybrid airship. Ballast exchange, ground infrastructure and the need for runways can limit where aircraft can pick up or deliver cargo. The Aeroscraft is expected to break through those limitations.

The rigid aeroshell of the aircraft and ballast control system allows for vertical takeoff and landing, as well as hovering capabilities without using off-board ballasting.

“Runways, airports and ground support are not required, consequently expanding the potential of commercial cargo transport, military applications and large-scale humanitarian relief efforts,” said the company in a statement.

The Aeroscraft uses only a third of the fuel used by traditional air freight. Once in production, future versions of the Aeroscraft are expected to carry payloads of more than 500 tons and fly up to 12,000 nautical miles.

The aircraft made its first “float” maneuvers in January 2012 inside its hangar in Tustin, Calif. The industry is keeping an eye on the aircraft as the new technology is expected to change the way heavy loads are transported. “We believe that the Aeroscraft vehicle with its global reach will revolutionize the transportation of large and heavy cargos, transforming any number of equipment-dependent megaprojects and the industries that manage them including wind energy, aerospace, petroleum, highway construction, engineering and telecommunications,” said CEO Igor Pasternak, in a statement.

June 03, 2013

Have you heard of the Aeroscraft?

If not, you should. Developers of the Aeroscraft say it will cut costs and time off a conventional wind project timeline in several ways. For instance, it will: • Minimizes overall installation project costs and cost to build roads • Opens new markets for development by making remote locations more readily accessible • Overcome the growing height, weight, width, and length limitations in wind turbine transportation • Reduces the overall cost of wind energy by lowering transportation and logistics costs • Needs no airport, thereby minimizing environmental impact Not a blimp, zeppelin, or hybrid vehicle – the Aeroscraft is a new way to move wind turbines.

The transportation of windpower components from factory floor to project site is a primary challenge for the industry. It can only get worse as turbine components are built larger. Today, massive trucks and specialty rail cars haul components across the country under strict guidelines and over tricky routes that can include an inch of clearance here or a tight turn there.

A California-based company is aiming to eliminate the complications. For 25 years, Aeros (www.aeroscraft. com) has advanced conventional airships. It has now turned the page and started work on an entirely new technology called the Aeroscraft, which can transport large, heavy equipment to almost anywhere. The rigid, variable-buoyancy vehicle has the ability to off-load without re-ballasting. Its vertical takeoff and landing capability will help transport components from manufacturing site directly to point-of-need destinations, including those that are unprepared, hovering above uneven ground.

the lead aeronautical engineer, says Aeros has been in talks with several wind companies across the globe.

“It’d be used within a month if we had it today,” Kinny says. “The problem with wind turbines is they can’t build the blades big enough to maximize the performance.

This vehicle will not only let turbine OEMs increase performance, but let them build wind farms in more remote destinations, and with a lighter environmental impact.”

Aeros is three years away from having a flight-ready Aeroscraft capable of carrying a 66-ton load. Later models will have greater weight capacities, such as a 250-ton model the company plans to build within the decade. The 66-ton model, however, will be able to carry three 300-footlong turbine blades. They will be transported in a cradle, which would be lowered to the ground from a hovering Aeroscraft. Developers would then transport the tower and nacelle equipment in additional Aeroscraft transports.

The machine is capable of traveling 100 to 120 knots, for A prototype Aeroscraft is under development in a 3,800 nautical miles, and has an operational ceiling of up California hanger. The actual aircraft will be almost to 12,000 ft. After construction crews erect the turbine, the twice as long and capable of carrying a 66-ton payload. aircraft would return to pick up the empty cradles. This is The company believes the aircraft could be used in many a more efficient than ground transportation, Kinny says. industries – tourism, humanitarian, oil and gas – but it maintains a special focus on windpower. Tim Kenny, “This is going to move equipment at one-third the cost

The Aeroscraft is unlike any other blimp-like aircraft because it’s designed with COSH, or the control of static heaviness, an internal ballast system that lets the vehicle operate as heavier-than-air during ground operations or lighter-than-air during flights. It works like an inverted submarine, Kinny says.

About two-thirds of the craft’s lift is provided by helium gas. The remaining lift is provided by the thrust of the craft’s propellers, in combination with its aerodynamic shape, forward fins, and rear fins. Along with horizontal propellers, the Aeroscraft will have six downward-pointing turbofan jet engines for vertical take-off and landing. of traditional aircraft,” Kinny says. “And the logistics of it – taking it from the manufacture’s site in a direct shot to the wind farm, and reducing the costs and time of traveling, will save money because it moves them faster.”

A 254-foot-long prototype is housed in a giant California hanger. A gleaming silver vessel, Aeros has completed proof-of-design testing with the machine and met all the design targets set by partners at the Department of Defense, NASA, and DARPA. It first floated in January of this year.

June 13, 2013

Worldwide Aeros Aims to Turn Blimps Into Cargo Craft By: Nick Taborek Aeroscraft Cargo Airship: Its operating cost could be one-quarter that of a regular cargo plane.

Inside a decommissioned military hangar in Tustin, Calif., about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, sits what at first glance looks like the world’s biggest Mylar balloon. Closer inspection reveals a skeleton of carbon tubes clothed in a silver skin dubbed the Aeroscraft. It’s Igor Pasternak’s shot at proving to the world that helium-filled airships, long ago eclipsed by planes, have a bright future in commercial cargo.

of 500-foot-long zeppelins capable of traversing the U.S. at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour, ferrying mining equipment to roadless stretches of Alaska and bringing “What we’re doing is revolution,” says organic strawberries to gourmet Pasternak, who started Worldwide supermarkets in Manhattan, at a Aeros in his native Ukraine and then quarter the cost of a cargo plane. moved the company to Los Angeles in 1993. “We’re establishing a new Since they’re light and can take off and market.” Pasternak wants to be the land vertically, Pasternak’s airships— first to harness helium for multi-ton the industry’s preferred term—could deliveries. He envisions thousands be an energy-efficient way to bring

big loads to out-of-the-way places without first having to build a runway or a road. The Aeroscraft could have a cargo capacity of as much as 250 tons, about three times that of the military’s C-17 transport plane.

Its success hinges on a design solution to a problem that’s plagued lighter-than-air craft since their early1900s heyday. Traditional blimps, like birthday balloons, are great at rising but not so good at returning to

earth. Lacking buoyancy control, they have to be tethered by a crew after landing. The drawback makes large cargo deliveries virtually impossible: Any weight that’s offloaded has to be replaced with an equally heavy load—say, of sand or lead—for the craft to keep its equilibrium. To tackle that problem, Aeros engineers created a “variable buoyancy” system that pumps helium out of the main chamber and into lightweight compression tanks in the hull. The compressed gas makes room for the ship to take on more air, allowing for a slow descent.

While the concept of variable buoyancy has been around for more than a century, “the accepted opinion was that it was not practical due to the weight of the equipment,” says Rob Knotts, a member of the Airship Association in England, a group of zeppelin enthusiasts. Lightweight materials such as carbon-fiber tubes and the aluminum honeycomb panels used in the Aeroscraft’s frame have changed the calculus, says Tim Kenny, a lead engineer on the project. Also, instead of titanium tanks for pressurized helium, the company is using laminated fabric pouches. Kenny and his crew proved the system could work this past winter using a 266-foot prototype; they plan a test flight later this year.

the bigger challenge. Pasternak realizes it may not be easy to find buyers for a new class of aircraft at the outset. To win converts, he wants to build a fleet of 24 ships, most of them large enough to transport 250 tons, and lease them to companies or governments. His estimate to build the fleet: $3 billion.

To secure investors, Pasternak will have to overcome what Paul Adams, editor of the Airship Journal and a pilot who’s flown the Budweiser (BUD) blimp, calls the “giggle factor.” Says Adams: “People just don’t take them seriously. Everybody sniggers at you when you say you work with airships.”

So far, the U.S. Department of Defense Bill Crowder, a logistics consultant has committed $60 million toward in McLean, Va., is optimistic. He development of the Aeroscraft; that thinks oil and wind power companies money runs out in August, leaving the could be among Pasternak’s first company to seek private investment. customers. “As soon as they see that A.P. Moeller-Maersk, which operates it really does fly, there will be people the world’s biggest cargo container line, out there willing to put up the money.” is interested in using the technology for overland deliveries, but that doesn’t The bottom line: Worldwide Aeros mean the company is willing to foot wants to turn blimps into cargo the bill for an initial fleet, says William vessels capable of transporting Financing, rather than engineering, is Kenwell, a Maersk senior vice president. loads as big as 250 tons.

June 17, 2013

PARIS: Aeros rises to the occasion with unique airship design It plans to have the first production prototype aircraft completed by 2015 with a goal of certification by 2016.

By: Kristin Majche California-based Aeros is making its first Paris air show appearance and is pushing its Aeroscraft concept, a vertical take-off and landing vehicle designed to transport oversized cargo loads without the requirement for a runway.

Aeros has several "commitments" for the aircraft already, says Pasternak.

The manufacturer will not sell direct, instead it will wet-lease the airship to customers around the world, particularly targeting industries with a requirement to transport heavy payloads to remote areas without an airport or other existing infrastructure.

Unlike other airships, Aeroscraft is designed with a proprietary internal ballast system that does not require tethering to stay grounded after unloading cargo. It will be lighter than air while flying, and heavier than air while on the ground, says Aeros.

Igor Pasternak, founder and chief executive of Aeros, has been working for more than 20 years to turn the concept into reality. A proof-of-design vehicle, the ML866, which is half the size of the final version, made its first movement and ground handling tests in late 2012.

The ML866 is designed to carry a 66-tonne payload with a cargo compartment measuring 220ft (67m) by 40ft by 30ft.

Aeros is planning to manufacture an initial fleet of 24 vehicles in two versions, the 66t ML866 and the larger, 250t ML868.

Aeroscraft's engines will be dieselpowered and Aeros estimates that fuel consumption will be lower by about one third than a traditional fixed-wing aircraft when flying up to 3,100nm (5,740km) at a cruising speed of 100kt (185km/h).

Creating the rigid, aluminium and carbonfibre truss structure integral to the Aeroscraft design was the most difficult part of the process, says Pasternak.

July 03, 2013

DOD: Rigid-Hull Hybrid Air Vehicle Technology Demo Achieved Objectives Pelican testing will be evaluated and used to conduct a technical study to scale hybrid airships to large cargo carrying vehicles,” Elzea said. “Beyond the scalability study, DOD plans no near-term investment in airships.”

The Pelican is designed to land vertically and take off at maximum gross By: Jordana Mishory The Pentagon has deemed a weight. Unlike existing airships and demonstration of a rigid-hull, variable- other hybrid airships in development, buoyancy hybrid air vehicle a it will be a heavier-than-air vehicle “success,” noting that the program during ground operations, according designed to address some of the most to fiscal year 2013 Pentagon budget significant challenges facing heavy lift documents. The program is slated airships has achieved its objectives. to end in 2013, and the Pentagon has not requested any more funding.

Project Pelican, a non-deployable airship technology demonstrator designed by According to a presentation Aeros gave Aeros, met its demonstration objectives to NASA and reviewed by Inside the in January within parameters accepted Pentagon, the company determined that by the Pentagon and NASA, Defense the rigid-hull, variable-buoyancy system Department spokeswoman Jennifer could scale to larger size systems.

Elzea said in a July 2 email. Additional subsystem testing is slated to continue Project Pelican also demonstrated “a throughout the summer, Elzea said. rigid, lightweight-composite external structure; a responsible low-speed/hover The system demonstrated the control control system; and ground handling of static heaviness, or COSH, system capabilities that allow operations without that allows direct6 management of a ground handling crew,” Elzea said. the vehicle’s buoyancy. When the airship is on the ground, this system A final report will be submitted in will pump helium into pressurization September, which will complete the envelopes. This enables ambient air Project Pelican program, Elzea said. to fill portions of the airship, causing And DOD aims to monitor commercial the vehicle to become heavier than air airship development to identify any to provide for cargo to be offloaded applications for lighter-than-air solutions. without on loading weight. To take off, the system releases helium, allowing In their fiscal year 2014 defense legislation, Senate the vehicle to become lighter than air. authorization authorizers call for U.S. Transportation “The technical data cleaned from Command and Air Mobility Command

to track the progress of this capability in the private sector, noting commercial industry is interested in the transportation abilities of a heavy-lift, hybrid airship.

The committee wants to report within 180 days of the bill becoming law on any pertinent commercial developments.

TRANSCOM Commander Gen. William M. Fraser III had told the committee that these hybrid airships “represent a transformational capability, bridging the longstanding gap between highspeed, lower-capacity airlift, and low-speed, higher-capacity sealift.”

“We encourage development of commercial technologies that may lead to enhanced mobility capabilities in the future,” Fraser said in his prepared statement for a March Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

The Senate panel notes that while the Pelican program showed “a limited capability of the underlying technology for controlled variable buoyancy, there are still significant advances that are needed to be made in order to develop a robust flight vehicle that would have a cargo capacity with any military utility.”

House authorizers, in their version of the bill approved last month by the full chamber, also called for the Air Force and TRANSCOM to work with industry to “more fully develop the capability requirements and mission analysis needed to pursue such a n operational prototype.”

–Jordana Mishory

August 08, 2013

Dream Machine Being Built in Tustin

By: Joshua Stewart Igor Pasternak knows what he’s trying to do with his massive silvery airship, a handmade flying contraption that looks like it was ripped from a sci-fi movie.

“We’re not proving anything, we’re just changing the world,” he said.

More specifically, he and his team from Worldwide Aeros Corp. are trying to change the way the world moves its stuff.

Their secret is in the nearly 300-footlong airship they built in a blimp hangar in Tustin that they hope can create a new way to quickly and cheaply move things very long distances with no need for paved roads, rail lines or airports.

The physics used in the airship are similar to the physics used in a submarine, which also depends on ballast to dive and submerge. To lower the airship, its supply of helium gas is compressed into one of the specially designed tanks onboard while another tank is filled with regular air, which is comparatively heavier than helium.

This extra weight makes the ship sink. To go up, the air is expunged and the helium is decompressed.

crew. Second, it allows the airship to unload cargo without the need for an Aeros has taxied Dragon Dream exterior ballast supply. Pasternak sees and has done one brief flight inside this as a breakthrough in logistics. the hangar and is planning to fly the ship around the former Marine Corps Typically, factory goods are loaded Air Facility in the coming months. onto a truck and taken to a depot where they are loaded into metal “After the flight test, we’ll have a lot freight boxes. From there, goods of lessons learned,” Pasternak said. might be shipped on a train or put onto a ship for a trans-Pacific cruise. The team will use those lessons to help When the ship arrives in the United build the next airship, a model that’s States, the process is reversed. twice as large and can carry 66 tons of cargo. The project is funded with Aeros wants to streamline this chain around $35 million from the Defense by eliminating some of the links. Department and NASA. Ultimately, For example, an airship could go the goal is to build airships that can directly to a factory in Asia to pick carry 250 and 500 tons of cargo. up goods and then drop them off at a depot on the U.S., where they Until then, the group will use the dirigible could be shipped directly to a store. in the Tustin hangar as much as possible.

This technology does two things. First, along with the rotating propellers on its sides, it allows the airship to take off and land straight up and down without assistance from a ground

And it also means that it can go “We’ll test it until it break and then sell where transportation infrastructure it on eBay in pieces,” Pasternak said. doesn’t exist. For example, it can carry supplies to military forces in Afghanistan’s mountains.

His airship, dubbed Dragon Dream, can go anywhere; it can land on any sort of terrain, just like a helicopter, but with much more cargo on board.

September 05, 2013

Entrepreneur Out to Prove his Zepplin Idea is More Than Hot Air

1937, when the giant Hindenburg burst into flames in front of news cameras, killing 35 people. The explosion of the hydrogen-filled zeppelin deflated the chances of lighter-than-air ships ever becoming a popular mode of travel. (A zeppelin is basically a blimp but with a rigid skeleton.)

Worldwide Aeros, which is building a cargo-carrying zeppelin in Tustin, above, got its start building small blimps that were used as flying billboards. They cost about $3 million each and were soon in demand.

By: W.J. Hennigan Not long after arriving in Southern California — far from his native Ukraine — Igor Pasternak walked into an office building wearing a cheap pinstripe suit, an interpreter in tow. He wanted to fly a small blimp he was building but needed approval from the U.S. government.

Federal Aviation Administration engineer Maureen Moreland was dubious when the cigar-chomping, wild-haired Pasternak came to her desk. There weren't many airship makers in this country, and she wondered whether he was for real.

He had set up his Worldwide Aeros Corp. in Chatsworth at a former porn studio. He had only six employees, half of them family members.

"I didn't believe there was any chance he would make it through the

With the Aeroscraft, Pasternak may realize his goal to erase the longcertification process," said Moreland, standing stigma. His life's work who reviewed his application. comes in the shape of a silver balloon A few years later, in 2000, nearly the size of a football field.

Pasternak's intricate engineering "It's beautiful," he said. "Just work passed muster, and he got wait until you see it fly." permission to take the blimp airborne.

Pasternak, 49, was born in what is He eventually turned to a more now Kazakhstan, and grew up in Lviv, ambitious feat: a massive cargo- a Ukrainian city of 700,000 near the carrying zeppelin that can take off and Polish border in the former Soviet Union. land with the precision of a helicopter.

His Aeroscraft project was funded in part As a child, he became enamored with by the Pentagon, which saw it as a way blimps after being captivated by pictures to move supplies to remote battlefields. in a magazine. He earned a degree in civil engineering like his father, and In the coming days, Pasternak will worked for a Ukrainian university strap himself into a seat next to the that designed a giant airship for the pilot in the zeppelin's glass cockpit logging industry, but it was never built. when it makes its maiden flight above As a Jew, Pasternak said, he faced Tustin. His odyssey, which began discrimination and had a limited during the Cold War, is about to reach future working in the Soviet Union's a milestone few could have foreseen. state-run aviation industry. When People have been wary of airships since then-President Mikhail S. Gorbachev

initiated perestroika reforms in 1986 that allowed free enterprise, Pasternak formed his own company. With a small crew, he worked on the production of airships for use by advertisers and scientists. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and Pasternak's investment capital dried up. In 1993, he fled Russia and emigrated to the U.S. to start a blimp-making company.

promoting brands such as MasterCard and Spalding sporting goods.

Pilot Corky Belanger says he has flown almost every airship built in the last 40 years. He calls Pasternak's Aeroscraft project "the culmination" of his career.

Tragedy struck in 2000, when Pasternak's sister Marina, 32, and Levon Samamyam, 35, an employee Pasternak landed in Southern California and friend, died repairing an airship for the same reasons that aerospace at San Bernardino International innovators have come here for more Airport. Helium leaked into the than a century: 300 days a year of blue balloon, suffocating the workers. skies and a pool of talented engineers. Worldwide Aeros moved to Montebello, He learned English by watching Arnold where Pasternak continued working to Schwarzenegger movies — he said find a way to keep airships grounded they were easier to understand — and once the cargo is unloaded. Because became proficient enough to attract a the vessels are lighter than air, they handful of investors and customers. tend to float away. Taking cargo on and off is difficult; every pound unloaded The small blimps he first built cost about has to be replaced by another $3 million each and were soon in demand. pound of ballast. Then it hit him.

They were used as flying billboards "I woke up in the middle of the night to

start writing down equations to support the idea, and the solution started to make sense," Pasternak said.

The buoyancy system would use air just as a submarine uses water to submerge and surface at will.

When a submarine needs to dive, it takes on water to make it heavier.

When the submarine needs to surface, it releases that water to become lighter. Certainly, then, Pasternak thought, an airship can control its weight by releasing and taking on air, controlling its heaviness or lightness.

When cargo is delivered, the Aeroscraft stays grounded by taking on air in its chambers and pressurizing helium.

After the zeppelin is loaded, it rises by releasing the air and the helium.

In 2005, Pasternak's company was one of two to land a $3-million

contract from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to do preliminary design work on a cargo-carrying airship.

It could fundamentally change the way airships operate." — Tony Tether, retired DARPA director The other company? The world's largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp.

Although Lockheed's design is a work in progress, Aeros went on to win an additional $50 million in funding from the Pentagon and NASA. The money enabled the company to grow to more than 100 employees.

making deliveries to oil rigs in the middle of the ocean and carrying merchandise to big-box retailers.

But selling companies on the idea of packing valuable cargo into a lumbering airship isn't going to be easy, said Jon DeCesare, chief executive of World Class Logistics Consulting Inc., a global supply chain advisory service in Long Beach.

"Shippers are risk-averse," he said.

"They're not going to be signing up for something like this without seeing a record of reliability first."

Pasternak says his zeppelin would save money for clients — the cost "No one believed Igor could do what he of fuel and maintenance is about did," said Tony Tether, retired DARPA one-third that of other aircraft. director. "It could fundamentally "The concept of t change the way airships operate." ransporting containers without using the existing transport network that is As the wars in the Middle East have already congested is obviously very waned, the chances of the Pentagon appealing, and such concepts are deploying an Aeroscraft any time desperately needed," said Petros soon are slim. Pasternak is now more Ioannou, director of the USC Center for focused on the commercial market. Advanced Transportation Technologies.

He predicts that within a decade, there will be a fleet of these zeppelins

An important issue, though, he said, "is safety and perception of safety by

people when the blimp-like Aeroscraft is flying over them" with a heavy load.

The prototype in Tustin will lift just 2,000 pounds in test flight, but ultimately the company will build a larger Aeroscraft with the capacity to carry 66 tons of cargo.

Pasternak knows there's a long way to go but is confident that the Aeroscraft will be a success.

"I've been waiting for this moment all 49 years of my life," he said.

When flights begin, a crew will test the aircraft's new technology, particularly during takeoffs and landings.

The maiden flight will be the biggest event in company history, and most of the company's employees are expected to gather on the tarmac to celebrate.

When the Aeroscraft returns, Pasternak plans to hand out victory cigars.

September 11, 2013

Zeppelins Making A Comeback? Aeroscraft Airship Is Future Of Air Transportation, Says California Company

By: Ryan W. Neal Seventy-five years after the Hindenburg disaster eliminated zeppelins from the skies, a southern California company wants to bring them back. The Aeroscraft airship from Montebello, Calif.-based Worldwide Aeros Corp. utilizes new technology to avoid the problems of old zeppelins and become the future of air transportation.

Worldwide Aeros says the zeppelin isn’t trying to replace the aircraft and the airplane, but that the Aeroscraft it can provide a new, environmentally friendly and low-cost solution for businesses and the military.

excellent option for delivering cargo to disaster areas, war zones, marine locations and anywhere else that doesn’t have a designated airstrip.

A key to the Aeroscraft zeppelin is the Control of Static Heaviness, or COSH, system developed by Worldwide Aeros. COSH controls the zeppelin’s buoyancy with nonflammable, compressed helium. This system makes the zeppelin safer and allows it to offload heavy cargo.

The Aeroscraft zeppelin uses less than one-third of the fuel of a traditional cargo plane, meaning it can fly further with a smaller carbon The Aeroscraft zeppelin has an footprint. Worldwide Aeros said it oversized cargo bay and can on- can travel more than 3,000 nautical load and off-load while hovering in miles without needing to refuel. one place without the need for a Unlike the old zeppelin model, the ground crew. It can also take off and Aeroscraft isn’t just a balloon. It has land vertically, making it a potentially a rigid structure made from ultra-light,

bullet-proof aluminum and carbon fiber, so it isn’t dependent on gas to keep its shape.The Aeroscraft was designed to movie heavy and oversized, and the firm is building models capable of carrying 66 tons and 250 tons. This could be invaluable for companies trying to build traditional and newage energy plants in remote areas without transportation infrastructure.

It also sees applications for better delivery of perishable foods and even the possibility of a sky cruise.

There are also military applications, including resupply and mobility, emergency response and humanitarian aid, fire containment and medical treatment.

The U.S. government has already invested $3 million into the project.

The U.S. government has invested $3 million in the development of the Aeroscraft zeppelin. Worldwide Aeros “The U.S. Department of Defense and U.S.A.F. desire enabling the movement of large payloads and brigade-sized units to virtually any point of need, quickly, and with route flexibility,” Worldwide Aeros said on its website. “Fortunately, the Aeroscraft offers U.S. and allied militaries empowerment in every scenario.”

Of course, the Aeroscraft can only travel at about 115 mph, much slower than a standard jet aeroplane. It most likely will never be popular as a travel option, as illustrated by the cartoon spy, Archer.

Worldwide Aeros said that the first of the airships will hit the market in 2015.

September 17, 2013

Airship 2.0: Inside the Lighter-Than-Air Revival By: Ryan W. Neal On a Thursday morning last January, a team of engineers gathered in a hulking concrete hangar in the Orange County suburb of Tustin, Calif. The hangar—once used to build and store massive blimps that patrolled the coast during World War II—was an imposing sight, an anachronism amid the manicured pods of suburban town homes and outdoor malls nearby.

The vehicle inside, a prototype airship known as the Aeroscraft, was just as much of a spectacle: 266 feet long and 96 feet wide, with a rigid aluminum and carbon-fiber skeleton covered by a thin skin of shimmery silver Mylar.

Squat and bulbous, the craft looked like one of those massive, gentle whale sharks, a giant willing to share the seas with less majestic creatures.

A couple of the engineers crowded into the compact glass cockpit suspended from the belly of the ship, sat down at the controls, and the massive airship lifted slowly from the concrete. It was 10, 20, and finally 30 feet in the air. Then, with the push of a button, the ship's innovative buoyancy system went into descent mode and the Aeroscraft fell to the ground.

The January test was modest. The engineers called it a first float, as opposed to a first flight. The first test outside the hangar, performed earlier this month after a necessary FAA certification was granted, was only slightly more ambitious. But the dream behind the airship is expansive.

Its inventor, Ukrainian-born engineer

Igor Pasternak, has dreamed since childhood of building huge airships that would crisscross the skies ferrying freight. He is just one in a long line of believers, stretching back at least as far as the German count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who built the first rigid airship in the 1890s. "The idea has been around for over a hundred years," says John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics at MIT and director of the university's International Center for Air Transportation. By the mid-20th century, lighter-than-air craft had completed more than 150 transatlantic passenger trips. During World War II, American airships carried supplies, bombs, even planes capable of being launched and retrieved from the air. But then the technology stalled—for good reason, Hansman says. "Once you started having airplanes that could make the long-range flight and carry a lot of payload, the market quickly shifted."

Today, most lighter-than-air ships are blimps—basically oversize balloons acting as billboards. Still, the dream of rigid airships carrying freight has been resurrected. In the past decade, no fewer than half a dozen companies have invested millions toward the goal.

So far, they have little to show for it.

But Pasternak and his partners believe they will succeed where others have failed, thanks mainly to the Aeroscraft's buoyancy system, a technology that has been decades in development.

Tony Tether ran the military's DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) program from 2001 to 2009 and now serves on Aeros's advisory board. "It's as big a deal as Kitty Hawk," he says with confidence. "This will change the way we deliver cargo, and maybe people, around the world."

When I visited the Tustin hangar in May, the Aeroscraft was skinned like a

carbon-fiber-and-aluminum truss, the material that makes up the airship's skeleton. It was disconcertingly light.

Even Hansman, who remains skeptical of the airship industry's future, believes the technology could work. "It's definitely possible. There's no physics that would prevent them from doing what they want to do. It's just hard—hard technically, in terms of financing, and having the persistence to get there." fish. The Mylar exterior draped off the lower frame, while above the complex skeleton and a row of watermelonshaped bladders were left exposed. The huge car-sized bladders, which store compressed helium, lie at the heart of the Aeroscraft's buoyancy system, which is based on submarine technology.

the main envelope, the expansion tanks deflate to neutralize the internal pressure of the airship and force the air—the ballast—outside the aircraft," he said. More of the ship's volume is occupied by helium and the ship rises.

Conventional airships need to take on ballast (typically water) to compensate One of the lead engineers, 32-year- for the weight of cargo once it is old Tim Kenny, walked me through the delivered. They need ground crews, and system. Submarines draw in seawater many need runways, though admittedly to descend deeper, then pump it out much shorter ones than an airplane. An to increase buoyancy and rise toward operating Aeros would require none of the surface. The Aeroscraft works the that—nor really any infrastructure at all. same way, he explained, using air as The machine could fly to a roadless track a substitute for water. Kenny walked of Arctic wilderness, settle down to the me over to one of the helium bladders. tundra to unload mining equipment, and Empty, it weighed 500 pounds. Right take off again on its own. It could deliver now, filled with helium the same way a immense wind turbines, hovering like a child's balloon might be, it needed an helicopter yet bearing loads normally anchor. I was able to push the car-sized associated with ocean freighters, and melon out of place with two fingers. do it at faster-than-railroad speeds.

But once it is pumped full of highly compressed helium, Kenny explained, The biggest challenge in achieving each bladder becomes boulder-like, like that capability has been the system's a full propane tank for a backyard grill. weight—the heavy tanks, pumps, and hull structure. "People did not Next, Kenny pointed out several large, believe that you could do all of that white expansion tanks. When the and end up with something which airship's helium is compressed inside could float," Tether says. To solve that of the bladders, a partial vacuum problem, Aeros engineers became develops around the expansion tanks obsessive ounce watchers. The first and they fill up with air from outside skeleton they made was constructed of the craft. Buoyancy drops and the fiberglass and aluminum and collapsed ship descends. "Once the bladders under a small load. During my tour release that stored helium back into Kenny handed me a 6-foot piece of

"It's as big a deal as Kitty Hawk. This will change the way we deliver cargo, and maybe people, around the world."

Tony Tether, Former Director of DARPA Igor Pasternak was wearing a pinstriped suit, a pink tie, and sunburstpatterned suspenders beneath a wild mop of gray hair when we met at his office at the headquarters of Worldwide Aeros—two buildings tucked into an office park in suburban Montebello, Calif. He says he has been was obsessed with airships from the time he was 10 years old. "I've been doing this all my life, just nothing else," he said.

Pasternak was born in what is today Kazakstan and grew up in Ukraine, the son of Soviet civil engineers.

After graduating with an advanced engineering degree, he started building aerostats for advertising and environmental monitoring in the 1980s, as Gorbachev's perestroika got started.

By the early 1990s Pasternak had 60 employees and was selling and leasing his 3000 oversize, unmanned balloons throughout the Soviet bloc and beyond.

Everything, he says, came from his own imagination and experimentation. "I was creating technology. You don't have textbooks, you don't have any examples."

Then the Soviet Union collapsed.

"There was only one decision," Pasternak says. "To build something like the Aeroscraft, you need to be in America."

He immigrated in 1994 and spend his first few months in New York. One day he saw then-president Clinton on the news, announcing the closure of California's Castle Air Force Base, a former B-52 testing site. By the next year Pasternak and a handful of employees with heavy accents were building balloons in a facility that still smelled of the Cold War. "It was a bunch of Russians and B-52s—same hangar!"

Pasternak built manned airships for advertisers: for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games, for MasterCard, for tourism boards. After Sept. 11, the in-sky advertising market dried up, but the Department of Defense was looking into blimps for monitoring and missile defense. Pasternak eventually secured $35 million to build his Aeroscraft, a process that took close to five years and involved building a team of engineers who share Pasternak's scrappy style. "You need to know how to hold a screwdriver," he says—not just how to run computer modeling programs. "It's mechanics. Mechanics is part of the engineering." As a second requirement Pasternak only hires employees who have virtually no

experience with airships. "We are not hiring anyone from mainstream industry," Pasternak says. "We are grabbing the people who don't already know what is impossible."

The Aeroscraft that sits in Pasternak's hangar is the biggest rigid-hulled airship built in the United States since the 1940s. But it's tiny compared with the full-scale transport vehicle that Pasternak imagines. He sees a fleet of 555-foot-long airships with a 66-ton cargo capacity.

Eventually Pasternak wants a 250-ton version that would be 770 feet long—three times the length of a Boeing 747.

With airships, bigger is better. The reason is what's called the cube–square law, says aerospace engineer Robert Boyd, head of the hybrid airship program at Lockheed Martin. "If you take a ship—or an airship—and you double its length,

that makes the surface area go up by roughly four, that's the square," Boyd explains. "And it makes the volume go up by roughly eight, which is the cube." The square represents the bad things—drag and weight. The cube represents the good: primarily, lift. "So as you get larger, the good things grow much faster than the bad things," Boyd says. That has a huge impact on efficiency, and Lockheed knows it: In January 2006, the company flew a 120-foot prototype called the P-791. Lockheed's largest proposed version of the airship would be 800 to 900 feet long and haul about 100 tons.

Airships have some widely accepted advantages over fixed-wing planes. The Pentagon's U.S. Transportation Command published a study about a decade ago that concluded that large airships could transport goods long distances at one-third the cost of fixed-wing cargo aircraft. They would ultimately cost about a third as much to build as a 747, and would use a third as much fuel.

Of course, they have weaknesses, as well. The Aeroscraft's top cruising speed is predicted to be about 115 mph, versus more than 500 mph for a fixed-wing airplane such as the Boeing 747. And bad weather presents unique challenges.

A big airship of any design is "probably less sensitive [than airplanes] to things like turbulence because it's so big— kind of like an ocean liner as compared with a rowboat," MIT's Hansman says. "But it's got a much more difficult time dealing with wind and turbulence on takeoff and landing." The full-scale Aeroscraft is designed to operate in winds of up to 40 knots, according to the company, but it can't outrun bad weather the way an airplane often can— the operators would have to rely on weather forecasts and conservative planning. That would be a challenge especially in extreme environments such as the Arctic, where hurricane-force winds are often sustained for days at a time.

The technical challenges, however, are probably easier to manage than the financial ones. After the P-791's successful test flight, there was talk of commercial development for cargo use in the Arctic. Today it sits, waiting for a suitor, in a hangar at Lockheed’s Skunkworks facility in Palmdale, Calif.

The Aeroscraft that sits in Pasternak's hangar is the biggest rigid-hulled airship built in the United States since the 1940s. But it's tiny compared with the full-scale transport vehicle that Pasternak imagines. He sees a fleet of 555-foot-long airships with a 66-ton cargo capacity.

Eventually Pasternak wants a 250-ton version that would be 770 feet long—three times the length of a Boeing 747.

With airships, bigger is better. The reason is what's called the cube– square law, says aerospace engineer Robert Boyd, head of the hybrid airship program at Lockheed Martin. "If you take a ship—or an airship—and you double its length, that makes the surface area go up by roughly four, that's the square," Boyd explains. "And it makes the volume go up by roughly eight, which is the cube." The square represents the bad things—drag and weight. The cube represents the good: primarily, lift. "So as you get larger, the good things grow much faster than the bad things," Boyd says. That has a huge impact on efficiency, and Lockheed knows it: In January 2006, the company flew a 120-foot prototype called the P-791. Lockheed's largest proposed version of the airship would be 800 to 900 feet long and haul about 100 tons.

Airships have some widely accepted

advantages over fixed-wing planes.

The Pentagon's U.S. Transportation Command published a study about a decade ago that concluded that large airships could transport goods long distances at one-third the cost of fixedwing cargo aircraft. They would ultimately cost about a third as much to build as a 747, and would use a third as much fuel.

Of course, they have weaknesses, as well. The Aeroscraft's top cruising speed is predicted to be about 115 mph, versus more than 500 mph for a fixed-wing airplane such as the Boeing 747. And bad weather presents unique challenges. A big airship of any design is "probably less sensitive [than airplanes] to things like turbulence because it's so big—kind of like an ocean liner as compared with a rowboat," MIT's Hansman says. "But it's got a much more difficult time dealing with wind and turbulence on takeoff

and landing." The full-scale Aeroscraft is designed to operate in winds of up to 40 knots, according to the company, but it can't outrun bad weather the way an airplane often can—the operators would have to rely on weather forecasts and conservative planning.

That would be a challenge especially in extreme environments such as the Arctic, where hurricane-force winds are often sustained for days at a time.

The technical challenges, however, are probably easier to manage than the financial ones. After the P-791's successful test flight, there was talk of commercial development for cargo use in the Arctic. Today it sits, waiting for a suitor, in a hangar at Lockheed’s Skunkworks facility in Palmdale, Calif.

November 05, 2013

Aeroscraft Hopes to be Ready for Market by 2016 issues with fuel efficiency, freighters usually go to passenger airports.

“It’s kind of a not-welcome animal in a passenger airport,” Pasternak says.

The first Aeroscraft of the initial fleet of 22 will be ready for operation in two to three years. The fleet will operate on an ACMI lease. There are two Aeroscraft models: one that holds 66 tonnes of cargo and a larger one that holds 250 tonnes.

By: Adina Solomon The Aeroscraft, a dirigible designed to carry cargo around the world, is being developed by aircraft manufacturer Aeros. The prototype was successfully tested at the company’s headquarters in Los Angeles.

deliver the cargo to a remote area if there’s no airport. We cannot leave the airport sometimes if there’s a question of what we will do with the cargo after it’s delivered to the airport.”

That’s why Pasternak believes the Aeroscraft will succeed. With the dirigibles, the cargo does not have to go to an airport. It can be carried directly to a given location for takeoff and landing.

The numbers are colossal. The Aeroscraft has a length of 555 feet (169 meters), more than twice that of a B777F. Its range is 3,567 miles (5,741 kilometers), about the distance The Aeroscraft, which uses 1/3 the from New York City to London. fuel of a traditional freighter due to lighter-than-air technologies, can Pasternak, Aeros’ founder and CEO, also carry multi-modal containers, explains to Air Cargo World how shortening loading and unloading time. the company plans to turn a profit on the Aeroscraft in an airfreight “You’ve got the same cargo-handling market that has remained flat. case,” Pasternak says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re moving on the rail or from the He says the demand for delivering seaport or you put it on the truck. You’ve large cargo is constantly growing, but got the same container, which is secure.” the cost of delivery has grown high.

When asked about the air cargo industry’s “The demand for air delivery of the move away from freighters and toward cargo is absolutely huge,” Pasternak belly cargo, Pasternak says freighters says. “The problem is we cannot have a few problems. In addition to

Pasternak expects load factors to hover around 75 percent, 30 percentage points more than the air cargo industry’s load factor in September, according to the International Air Transport Association.

“It’s much faster than any multi-modal – much, much faster,” Pasternak says. “And it’s flying directly to the client location.”

Though the initial fleet will have 22 vehicles, he says there is a market for 2,500. NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Department of Defense are betting on the Aeroscraft’s success, having given development funding to Aeros.

“The demand’s so huge, and if we’ll be able to build today or bring to the market today 22 vehicles, it will be not enough,” Pasternak says. “It will be just not enough because people are so struggling with logistical issues.”

September 11, 2013

Zeppelin generasi baharu diperkenal Zeppelin digelar Aeroscraft, mampu merevolusi pengangkutan kargo udara jika perkhidmatannya diperkenalkan kelak.

Zeppelin pernah dianggap sebagai pengangkutan udara masa depan, namun setelah tragedi Hindenburg pada zaman Adolf Hitler, yang mengorbankan 35 nyawa, ia sudah tidak lagi digunakan lebih daripada 75 tahun.

Kini, firma perintis penerbangan, Worldwide Aeros Corp. (Aeros), berharap untuk memperkenalkan kembali kapal udara itu dalam usaha merevolusikan perang dan kawasan bencana. sistem kargo atau pengangkutan barangan pasaran global. Aeroscraft telah dibina hasil daripada sumbangan AS$3 juta (RM9.82 juta) Kapal udara digelar Aeroscraft daripada kerajaan Amerika Syarikat tersebut akan dibina menggunakan (AS) dan bersedia untuk melakukan teknologi inovatif supaya ia boleh penerbangan ujian pertamanya tidak terbang lebih baik, bagi mengelakkan lama lagi, menurut Business Insider. masalah yang dialami oleh generasi Aeros meramalkan bahawa kenderaan pertama zeppelin, berulang. udara tersebut akan mengubah cara bagaimana kargo bergerak di Ia hanya memerlukan satu pertiga seluruh dunia dengan menyediakan bahan api untuk mengangkut muatan satu cara pengangkutan yang dan boleh mendarat di mana-mana lebih murah dari kapal terbang, sahaja, walaupun tanpa landasan tetapi lebih cepat daripada kapal. kapal terbang termasuk di atas air, utama teknologi sekali gus menjadikannya amat Penemuan sesuai untuk digunakan di zon tersebut datang apabila pengasas

firma, Igor Pasternak menemui cara untuk memampatkan helium yang membolehkan kapal udara itu mengawal beratnya.

Ia mungkin kelihatan rapuh berbanding dengan jet logam, tetapi kapal udara itu mempunyai dinding kalis peluru dan walaupun bahagian luarannya pecah, ia tidak akan mengempis seperti belon.

Menurut Aeros, pihaknya menjangka Aeroscraft boleh digunakan pada pertengahan 2015. - AGENSI

September 16, 2013

Aeroscraft maakt eerste testvlucht

Tijdens de proefvluchten van het 81 m lange Aeroscraftprototype, die begin deze maand plaatsvonden, heeft fabrikant Aeros hoofdzakelijk het innovatieve ballastsysteem getest.

Anders dan conventionele zeppelins, waarvan de gemiddelde dichtheid net een fractie groter is dan die van lucht, en hierdoor alleen dankzij het voorstuwingssysteem en de vleugelvlakken in de lucht blijft, kan de Aeroscraft zijn gemiddelde dichtheid variĂŤren. Hiertoe beschikt het met helium gevulde luchtschip over een compressor, drukcilinders en een ballastreservoir.

Wanneer het vaartuig moet opstijgen wordt het reservoir gevuld met helium en wordt de lucht naar buiten gedreven.

Indien het schip moet dalen wordt het helium door de compressor onder hoge druk in de cilinders opgeslagen.

Dankzij dit Control of Static Heaviness (COSH) systeem kan de Aeroscraft volledige verticaal opstijgen en landen.

Igor Pasternak, de ondernemer achter de Aeroscraft,

wil uiteindelijk twee varianten van het luchtschip op de markt brengen. De ML866 krijgt een lengte van 169 m en moet maximaal 66 ton aan vracht mee kunnen voeren bij een snelheid van 220 km/h. De ML868 wordt met 230 m een forse slag groter en moet zo’n 200 ton kunnen liften.

October 11, 2013

Neuer Anlauf für ein Comeback der Luftschiffe Die Schlagworte lauten immer ähnlich.

Von der Rückkehr der Giganten der Lüfte ist die Rede. Von der Wiederauferstehung der Luftschifftechnik.

Von der Chance, große Lasten oder Hunderte Passagiere über Tausende Kilometer zu transportieren. Bislang ist es bei Versprechungen geblieben.

Obwohl in diverse Projekte Milliarden Dollar an Entwicklungsgeldern flossen, ist es 70 Jahre nach dem Ende der Ära der Großluftschiffe noch nicht wieder gelungen, ein einsatzfähiges Transport- oder Passagierluftschiff in der Dimension früherer Jahre zu bauen.

Was es gibt, sind kleinere Prototypen und unzählige Visionen. Der AirbusMutterkonzern EADS etwa hat auf der weltgrößten Luftfahrtmesse in Paris in diesem Jahr die Idee eines 90 Meter langen und 80 Meter breiten Beobachtungsluftschiffs mit Doppelrumpf vorgestellt. Doch wird der Entwurf auch gebaut? "Konkrete Planungen hierzu gibt es nicht", sagt eine Sprecherin auf Anfrage der "Welt".

Von allen, die mit den Gedanken an einen Luftschiff-Bau spielen, ist die Worldwide Aeros Corporation derzeit am weitesten vorangekommen. Das kalifornische Unternehmen kann immerhin den 81 Meter langen, fliegenden Prototypen namens "Dragon Dream" vorweisen. Diesmal werde der Durchbruch in eine moderne ZeppelinÄra gelingen, heißt es bei der Firma.

Das Projekt unterscheide sich von früheren Projekten – dadurch, dass

die neue Technologie entwickelt und getestet worden sei, bevor Geld von Investoren eingesammelt werde. Die Firma will aber noch keine Angaben zur Höhe der gesamten Entwicklungskosten bis zum ersten einsatzfähigen Aeroscraft-Modell für 66 Tonnen Nutzlast und 170 Meter Länge machen.

Helium wird komprimiert Kernstück des "Dragon Dream" ist eine besondere Technik für die Auftriebssteuerung, die es bei den früheren deutschen ZeppelinLuftschiffen nicht gegeben hat und die auch beim gescheiterten Riesentransportluftschiff Cargolifter – dem ehrgeizigsten Luftschiff-Projekt der jüngsten Zeit – nicht vorgesehen war.

Kalifornien erprobten Flugdemonstrator ist mit Geldern der PentagonForschungsbehörden Darpa und der Nasa bezahlt worden. Über 35 Millionen Dollar (etwa 26 Millionen Euro) flossen bislang in das Vorhaben.

Für den in der Ukraine aufgewachsenen Firmengründer und Chef-Ingenieur Igor Pasternak ist es ein Glücksfall, dass er sein Projekt realisieren kann. Seit Jahren präsentierte er diverse Visionen für Luftschiffe.

2016 soll das erste Luftschiff, das Aeroscraft ML866 mit 66 Tonnen Nutzlast, in Einsatz gehen. Eine Flotte aus 22 Luftschiffen, davon 18 in einer Großversion mit 250 Tonnen Nutzlast und 235 Meter Länge, wird Die neue Idee: Das Traggas Helium bis 2020 angestrebt. "Die Finanzierung wird komprimiert und verliert so zum Aufbau und der Entwicklung seine Auftriebskraft. Beim Cargolifer einer privaten Flotte haben wir mit war geplant, beim Entladen der einem global tätigen Finanzinstitut Fracht als Gewichtsausgleich vereinbart", erklärt ein Sprecher.

Tausende Liter Wasser zu tanken.

Details soll es bis Jahresende geben.

Die Auftriebstechnik in dem jetzt in Nicht veröffentlicht wird, wie hoch derzeit

der Prototyp Dragon Dream überhaupt fliegen darf, wenn er wieder abhebt.

Bisher hat er zwei Versuchsreihen absolviert, die zuständige Aufsichtsbehörde FAA hat aber noch keine generelle Flugerlaubnis erteilt.

Beschädigter Prototyp Der Prototyp wurde vor Kurzem zudem beschädigt, als von der Decke der Produktionshalle, in der das Luftschiffe entsteht, Teile herabfielen. Die Halle stammt noch aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.

Das bremse den Zeitplan aber nicht grundlegend, heißt es bei der Firma.

Die Militärs sind seit jeher Hauptfinanzier und Nutznießer der so genannten Leichter-als-Luft-Technik. So gab es in der Blütezeit der Großluftschiffe zwischen den Weltkriegen sogar US-Luftschiffe als Flugzeugträger in den Wolken. Doch nach der FeuerKatastrophe mit dem PassagierZeppelin Hindenburg 1937 und der Entwicklung schneller Flugzeuge fand die Ära der Giganten der Lüfte ein Ende.

Nur die Militärs nutzen nach wie vor Luftschiffe und Ballone für Überwachungsaufgaben und erwägen Transporteinsätze. Seit 2007 investierten die US-Militärs in 15 Projekte über sieben Milliarden Dollar. Das meiste Geld floss in die Idee für hochfliegende, unbemannte Luftschiffe mit Solarantrieb, die Raketenabschüsse erkennen sollten.

Luftschiffprojekte bringen aber die gleichen Schwierigkeiten mit sich wie der Bau neuer Flugzeuge: Die Fertigstellung verzögert sich und sie werden teurer als geplant. Hinzu kommen Technikprobleme, wenn etwa das Gewicht zu hoch gerät.

Aus diesem Grund stoppten die USMilitärs 2012 gleich mehrere Vorhaben, darunter Überwachungsluftschiffe von Northrop Grumman für Afghanistan und ein Projekt bei Lockheed Martin.

Boeing musste 2010 bereits einen

privatwirtschaftliche Auftrag für ein kanadisches Unternehmen aus Geldmangel einstellen. Es sollte ein Transport-Luftschiff mit Helikopterauftrieb entwickelt werden.

Auch die deutsche wissenschaftliche Denkfabrik "Bauhaus Luftfahrt" hat Überlegungen für neuartige Luftschiffe wieder eingestellt. "Dazu gibt es keine Planungen mehr", heißt es auf Anfrage.

Die Vision vom Atom-Luftschiff Das Scheitern der diversen Luftschiffideen ist so umfangreich, dass es 2002 im Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen dazu eine eigene Ausstellung gab. Zu den spektakulärsten Ansätzen zählte das Projekt vom USKonzern Goodyear aus dem Jahr 1959. Das Unternehmen wollte ein mit Atomkraft angetriebenes Luftschiff bauen.

Dieser Atom-Zeppelin sollte über 330 Meter lang sein. Auch andere Visionäre griffen die Ideen vom Atom-Luftschiffe für 500 Passagiere, plus 100 Personen Besatzung plus 100 Tonnen Nutzlast auf.

Zur Ironie der Geschichte gehört, dass die traditionsreiche Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH aus Friedrichshafen mit ihrem Zeppelin NT (Neue Technologie) das derzeit größte Passagierluftschiff baut. Es ist 75 Meter lang und bietet Platz für bis zu zwölf Passagiere.

zu 160 Tonnen Fracht transportieren und damit den weltgrößten fliegenden Kran bauen. Mit dieser Idee ging Cargolifter im Jahr 2000 an die Börse.

Nach Verzögerungen, Kostensteigerungen und Finanzproblemen kam 2002 die Pleite der AG mit 70.000 Kleinaktionären. Die von den Aktionären bezahlte, weltgrößte freitragende Produktionshalle südlich von Berlin wurde vom Insolvenzverwalter an einen Investor aus Malaysia verkauft. Der betreibt dort jetzt ein künstliches Freizeit-Tropenparadies mit Saunen und Schwimmbecken.

Nachfolgefirma für Cargolifter Doch Gablenz gab denTraum vom Fliegen nicht auf: Er gründete vor acht Jahren eine Cargolifter-Nachfolgefirma. Sie fing von vorne an, mit kleinen Vorhaben. Zur Produktpalette zählen derzeit Ballone mit acht bis 13 Meter Durchmesser, die als Minikräne mit 250, 350 Kilo oder gar einer Tonne Nutzlast eingesetzt werden können. Mittelfristig sollen bis zu 20 Tonnen im Kurzstreckenverkehr transportiert werden.

Das Cargolifter-Team zehrt in Erinnerungen noch immer von früheren Leistungen. So hob 2002 ein Lastenballon mit 61 Meter Durchmesser einen 60 Tonnen schweren Panzer der Bundeswehr, nach wie vor Weltrekord.

Die deutsche Firma produziert aktuell Nach Ansicht von Cargolifter-Chef im Auftrag des ehemals führenden US- Gablenz belegen die vor allem in den USA Luftschiffherstellers Goodyear für rund beworbenen Frachtluftschiffprojekte, 45 Millionen Euro drei Zeppeline, die in dass die frühere Idee der Punkt-zuden USA zusammengebaut werden. Punkt-Lastentransporte richtig war.

Der erste deutsch-amerikanische Zeppelin für 15 Passagiere soll im ersten "Der Markt war 2000 da und ist größer Halbjahr 2014 in den USA abheben. denn je. Unsere Erfahrung lehrt, eher technisch einfache Lösungen Mit Interesse verfolgt auch der anzustreben", sagt der 61-jährige mit Initiator des ehrgeizigen deutschen Blick auf die jüngsten Vorschläge.

Cargolifter-Projektes, Heinrich von Er weiß, wie schwierig es ist, große Gablenz, die Vorhaben. Er wollte Luftschiffe fristgerecht zu bauen.

Ende der 90er-Jahre mit einem 260 Meter langen Transportluftschiff bis

Reflecting back on what Team Aeros has accomplised in 2013 is truly inspirational.The Dragon Dream had its first float in January, and the Pentagon declared its success. In July, the Dragon Dream rolled out of the hangar for the first time and in September, the first flight occured.

Although we are so grateful for what we have accomplished in 2013, we are still eager to see what 2014 will have in store for us. For Team Aeros, innovation never stops. And with enhancements to our current systems and procedures, the team has big plans for 2014 and on.

To the media that wrote about us, to the Aeroscraft enthusiasts, and to the audiences just learning about the Aeroscraft, all of us at Aeros thank you for your support.

-IGOR PASTERNAK, CEO at Aeros