Lockheed Martin’s New Airship Can Land On Anything

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What do you do when you’ve got an aircraft and payloads to deliver, but the receiving end hasn’t the infrastructure, say – roads, to receive it? Why, you build a brand new aircraft, of course.

A novel concept to end Africa’s logistics deficit is being proposed by the US defence company Lockheed Martin, which intends to use airships to deliver payloads of hundreds of tonnes into the interior.

Under the slogan “No Roads, No Problem”, the Hybrid Airships division of the group is building an airship that will pick up and deliver cargo where no formal airports exist. The first airship will be completed in 2018 and plans are underway for a 90 tonne-lift model, which would have similar lifting capacity to a cargo-configured Boeing 747. Eventually, a 500 tonne-lift model will be built, which would put it in the same category as an average cargo ship.

“Essentially Lockheed have taken the same technology they are putting into the F-35, and applied it to the problem of moving cargo around quickly and cheaply. The flight control system is basically straight out of the F-35, which will be used to plot course, navigate and fly,” said Rob Binns, the chief executive of Hybrid Airships.

The airship is designed to lift up to the air using helium gas bladders, but needs forward momentum to stay airborne. The design of the gasbag emulates that of an aircraft wing, giving lift when its four V6 diesel motors are running. It will have top speed of about 110 kilometres per hour, and a range of 2,600 kilometres.

During landing, the airship uses a hovercraft mechanism – three blowers where wheels should be – to suck the ground to hold it fast. The thrust on these can be reversed to manoeuvre it on the ground.

“It will land on water, sand, a field, even ice,” said Binns. The prototype had already proven itself in Alaska, in the wildest of conditions.