14 minute read
FAMILY OFFICES
THEWORLD SKY RACE A Race for the Planet, A Race for Humanity
BY ALAN FARNHAM AND DON HARTSELL
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Alan Farnham is a former editor for Forbes Magazine and Fortune Magazine, member of the American Institute Aeronautics and Astronautics Committee for Lighter-than Air, and airship historian.
“We are excited by our being a new member of the Family Office Network. We are in the midst of an epic challenge and adventure which will impact the future course of all and chart a new sustainable path for thriving on Planet Earth. We are inviting Family Offices to become involved in developing and promoting the World Sky Race by adding their experience, resources, and impact investment to the race. The World Air League will connect Family Offices with influential and strategic partners around the world.”
Don Hartsell
World Air League Commissioner, Managing Director, Member of the Explorers Club
The World Air League® (WAL) is organizing the World Sky Race® (Race), the historic first race of airships to circle the planet, starting on the London Greenwich Prime Meridian September 2023 and finishing in Paris at the Palace of Versailles May 2024.
At the ground floor, visionary Family Offices will support and engage in the creation of an uplifting event for our entire world and amplify its impact by leveraging their global networking connections and resources. Beyond the headlines of today, the journey and purpose of the World Sky Race is to chart a new horizon, by providing the world with reasons to Look-Up. Family Office Networks will be active in their elite involvement from airship team ownership to branding for legacy to fulfilling philanthropic environmental and educational missions.
The Race will consist of sixteen legs with sensational stops and fly-overs of important, select and exotic destinations of the world. The Race Summit Host Sites will include the opulent panoramas of London, Berlin, Monaco, Rome, Cairo, Delhi, Singapore, Kyoto, San Francisco, New York, and Paris. Each will be the center stage of the world’s attention. Family Offices around the world will be seen on the red-carpet at each of the Summit Host Sites along with heads of state, airship team owners, A-listers, and elite press in attendance. Entering the Tour de France of the skies, the competing airships and their teams representing the pride of nations will be chasing the $5,000,000 World Sky Champions Prize. The Race route will fly over more than two billion people, making the Race the most connective event experienced and seen by the largest live audience in all of history. And, on the top of that, the Race will be internationally televised and the center of global viral social media. More than just diamonds and gold, the winners will gain world-wide iconic celebrity-status and make history by being the first ever to circumnavigate the planet in an airship. No one remembers second place.
Governments around the world are involved in Race logistics and permissions. Ministries of Tourism are the white knight champions for their country, each vying for the prestige of being included on the Race route. Egypt has given permission to land at the Great Pyramids. Italy will allow flying over the Roman Coliseum. The Portuguese Navy has offered two frigates with helicopter decks to be a part of the escort and safety net for crossing the Atlantic Ocean. We have a Navy!
THE FUTURE OF AIRSHIP TRAVEL - AEROCAT R12 BY AEROVEHICLES
A Race for the Planet
The World Sky Champions Prize will be an agent of change as a positive technology and commerce disrupter. The power of prizes is proven. The 1994, $10,000,000 XPrize for civilian space flight produced a space industry that will create fortunes measured in trillions of dollars. The 1919, $25,000 Orteig Prize awarded to Charles Lindbergh for his historic non-stop New York City to Paris flight ushered in the global aviation industry that we enjoy today. The 1714, £20,000 Longitude Prize, awarded John Harrison for developing synchronized time navigation yielded the technology edge enabling the United Kingdom to be the world’s leading naval and commercial power for several centuries.
Encouraging a future green and sustainable evolution in aviation, the World Sky Champions Prize is currently funded with $1,000,000. The prize is an incubator for advanced lighter-thanair (LTA) aviation technologies. The prize will inspire inventors to invent, investors to invest, and adventurers to compete. This will modernize LTA flight, which until now has used technology dating from the 1920s and 1930s. Right out of the box, the Race will demonstrate a new kind of flight with greater fuel efficiency, less pollution, and less destruction to the environment than the kind we know today.
Airships fly because, like balloons, they are naturally buoyant, getting most of their lift from safe, inert helium gas. They use motors to go forward in the air, but don’t need runways to taxi to take off—they just float up! Nor do they need airports to land. Result? Compared to planes, their energy needs and infrastructure costs are small.
For governments around the world, infrastructure construction and maintenance costs are among the biggest items in their budgets. Additionally, building infrastructure entails destroying
the environment: Paving roads, building bridges, dredging harbors and waterways all destroy everything that gets in their right-of-way. Essentially, LTA reduces and, in many instances, will eliminate the need for massive new infrastructure. In this jet age, airships may seem antique. But the reverse is true. Environmentally, their time is now. LTA fuel and pollution savings are greater than 80% compared with other aircraft.
The development of LTA based aviation will open trade, commerce, and tourism by connecting all of humanity. Peter Bakker, CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said, “Humanity is divided into two halves. Sixty percent of us have roads, railroads, runways and harbors. Forty percent have cow paths, jungle trails and tundra crossings.” LTA aviation will connect both of these halves without imposing an environmental cost. Building roads through pristine environments disrupts local cultures of indigenous peoples—and it’s expensive. It is said, “The wireless cellular revolution eliminated the last mile of copper lines, the most expensive mile.” The LTA revolution will eliminate the last 1,000 miles of roads. World-wide, governments will calculate the savings.
The World Sky Race Prize will have an impact that is positive, profound, and sustainable.
A Race for the Humanity
The Race route will take the airships over more than 130 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the most iconic monuments to humanity’s cultural achievements. Imagine the photo ops and social media possibilities.
Differing from other sporting and entertainment events, the World Sky Race will be dedicated to a work that will always be in progress—educating the next generation. The United Nations estimates there are 59,000,000 teachers in the world. With the support and guidance of our Family Office educational partners and sponsors, the Race will reaffirm the universal truth that education—foundation of civilization—is based on story telling. For teachers to be inspiring, they need to connect subjects with story-telling. The stories need to be inter-active and live. They need to be provocative and relevant.. For an entire school year, classroom discussions around the world will start with the fun question, “Where are the airships today?” – inviting discussion of geography, history, science, math, and more. Telling the story of the Race will weave diverse threads into a virtual tapestry spanning the globe. Classrooms connected by the internet will explore horizons near and far. As the airships are traveling over them, classrooms will be selected to present the day’s internet lessons. On that day, the students presenting will be global leaders with 2-3 million fellow students watching their smiles, listening to their stories of who they are and where they are, and learning. The lives of the students who present will be forever changed, as they become true citizens of the world. With our Family Office Network partners, we can reach the world’s next generation while they are still in their classrooms, preparing for their missions in life. The shared bond and dividends of this unique educational experience and investment will last a lifetime.
Branding and Legacy
The 1920s and 1930s are described as the golden age of airships. Long before planes had evolved, Zeppelins were the first craft servicing as international airliners, with scheduled operations between Europe, North America, and South America. They were huge domineering ships of exploration that inspired awe in everyone who saw them. They commanded the skies. And they offered, too, the height in luxury, with fine wines, champagne, and caviar served in an elegant lounge furnished with a grand piano. Delivering passengers over the oceans, they were the Concorde of their day. By the time the Zeppelins retired from service they had logged more than 50,000,000 passenger miles. In 1998, Richard Branson sealed his status as a social media celebrity adventurer when he, Steve Fossett, and Per Lindstrand attempted to circle the world in a balloon. Seven days after its launch from the Moroccan desert, the enormous balloon with its intrepid explorers ditched into the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii on Christmas Day, nearly 9,000 miles short of their goal of being the first to circle the globe in a balloon. Branson was fined $150 by U.S. Customs for entering the United States without a passport. That was just small change out of his funding $8.25 million for the effort. According to Virgin, the branding value of the publicity for this seven-day effort exceeded $240,000,000. Branson’s expedition was pre-internet. There was no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, and no social media. There were no international competitive sports, no educational programming, no environmental recognition, and no entertainment. Today, now, each World Sky Race Airship Team will have a greater
Back to the Future
branding value than Branson’s 1998 flight.
HINDENBURG (LZ-129) OVER NEW YORK CITY
THE HINDENBURG’S BLÜTHNER — A GRAND PIANO IN THE AIR
AEROCAT R12 PANORAMIC SOCIAL OBSERVATION LOUNGE
The iconic 1937 “Oh, the Humanity” crash of the Hindenburg has created the impression that Zeppelins were not safe, and that that accident stopped their usage and development. Instead, it was improvements in airplanes that made Zeppelins obsolete. The availability of helium also was an issue: At the time, helium was produced only in the United States, and was thus considered a strategic asset. It was withheld from other nations, which was why the Hindenburg was filled with flammable hydrogen. Another issue with airships was their handling: Landing was labor-intensive, requiring hundreds of men to pull down a motorized flying balloon that would otherwise float away. In the aviation technology race, the airplane won—at least, back then. Today, the aviation technology race has a new chapter being written. Airships are now the safest form of aviation travel. Airships are sustainably green and commercially profitable. As an agent of change, the World Sky Race will usher in a new golden age for airships. It will be this century. Prior technical disabilities have been resolved, with point A to point B speeds faster than trucks, ships, and rail. Airships are second in speed only to airplanes, but consume far less fuel and have a minimal carbon footprint. The Race will encourage a fresh start with modernized materials and engineering. Savvy Family Offices participating in the Race will observe first-hand engineering proofs that will disrupt global logistics and air freight commerce. They also will
AEROCAT R12 PRIVATE ADVENTURERS’ SUITE
be at the starting line of the race to build the luxury sky-yachts of tomorrow, for travel and entertaining business connections around the world. The World Sky Race will start that race as well.
Learning from the past to create a new future in luxury air travel, the Aerocat R12 was designed by Aerovehicles. Aerovehicles is also the manager of the official South America Airship Team for the Race.
The Race is about making connections. Among the esteemed friends, supporters and advisory directors for the Race are distinguished members of the Explorers Club, including: Zahi Hawass, Ph.D., former Egypt Minister of State for Antiquities; Bertrand Piccard, Ph.D., first to circumnavigate world in balloon, first to circumnavigate the world in solar- powered plane; Sylvia Earle, Ph.D., Time Magazine‘s First Hero for the Planet, National Geographic explorer-in-residence; Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D., first American woman to walk in space, former Under Secretary Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere; Erik Lindbergh, Chairman Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, member XPrize Board of Directors; John and Martha King, National Aviation Hall of Fame, Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Awardees; and, Norman Augustine, Ph.D., retired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, former Chairman American Red Cross, US National Medal of Technology.
DR. BERTRAND PICCARD FELLOW MEMBER OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB
“ When I set out to build a solar-powered airplane capable of flying around the world, I wanted to send a message that clean technologies could do more than we ever thought possible, if only we let go of our assumptions and certitudes and thought about how we do things in a different way.
I am pleased to be involved with the World Air League as they are embracing the idea that we must find new ways of doing things to move toward sustainable aviation. The World Sky Race is an opportunity to release ingenuity from its usual constraints and enable us to think in every direction, developing new technologies and solutions to aviation challenges.”
“I have had the privilege of seeing Earth from the extraordinary perspective of outer space. That perspective reinforced for me the uniqueness and unity of our home planet. The World Sky Race aims to rekindle the spirit of innovation and exploration in youth around the globe, remind them of our common fate, and equip them to develop solutions that will allow humankind and nature to thrive on our changing planet.”
DR. SYLVIA EARLE HONORARY PRESIDENT FOR THE EXPLORERS CLUB
The Explorers Club was founded in 1904 to organize the first expedition to the North Pole. ‘Firsts’ by Explorers Club members include: First to the North Pole; First to the South Pole; First to the summit of Mount Everest; First to the deepest point in the ocean; and First to the Moon.
Airship Team Ownership: an adventure befitting a largerthan-lifetime of accomplishments For Family Offices with operations domiciled outside of the United States, the World Air League has been advised that structured financing for starting a Race airship team is potentially feasible and available. This would be backed by U.S. government 85% guarantees through the EXIM Bank under their program for encouraging exports of U.S. manufactured aircraft. Ownership of an Airship Team representing a nation in the World Sky Race will generate the highest acclaim and will facilitate the most unique connections for hospitality, business, government relations, philanthropy, research, and entertainment.
Do you want to know more?
communications@worldskyrace.com www.worldskyrace.com
