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Aviation History
1977
1977 - 0140.PDF
130 FLIGHT International, IS January 1977 Britain's export airship Reassessment of the airship continues worldwide, but at present there is only one type of commercial craft on the stocks, being built by a London company for a Venezuelan operator. The bulk order for 22, together with publication by Britain's Civil Aviation Authority of the world's first modern set of formal airworthiness standards for commercial air ships, brings a new level of credibility to lighter-than-air craft. The TECHNICAL EDITOR looks at progress with the first airship, due to fly later this year. CHANGE OF ENVELOPE supplier, substitution of a ducted fan for the ducted propeller, a rethink on the engine, but principally the unavoidably slow pace of setting up from scratch new certification procedures, have combined to delay rollout of the first airship being built in Britain for Venezuela. John Wood, joint managing director of the London company Aerospace Developments which is to build 22 non-rigid airships for South American adver tising firm Aerovision, tells Flight that rollout of the initial ship at Cardington in Bedfordshire is now set for July or August. Pre-flight inspection, fitting-out and ground-testing will occupy two or three weeks and the first flight is due at the end of the year. Development and certi fication flying will take about a month, and the craft will probably be required by Britain's CAA to carry out a number of local route-proving flights before being dis assembled for shipping to South America. The first ship will be delivered early next year, and will be followed five months later by the second. Delivery of the remaining airships will be spread over ten years beginning last April, a relatively slow rate allow ing them to be absorbed efficiently into the company's operation. Four of the craft will be transferred to Brazil, where Aerovision is setting up an offshoot of its aerial- advertising business. The airships will be certificated in the public-transport category for a crew of two and eight passengers, though the initial task will be to support the company's advertising campaigns and at first no fare- paying passengers will be carried. Test pilot in charge of the trials wilf be Boy Belotti, an ex-US INavy airship pilot who subsequently joined Good year to fly its publicity airships and who is now con sultant to Aerospace Developments. He will also be re sponsible for initial operations in South America. The Goodyear publicity airships have become a familiar sight in the skies of America and Western Europe. This particular machine, the 300th such ship to be built by the company, was assembled at Cardington and was the first to take shape outside the USA. She carries a pilot and six passengers on joy rides. (Flight photograph) H257 The similarity in shape and size of the Goodyear ship (above) and the Aerospace craft are evident in these two views drawn to the same scale. The British airship is actually 28ft shorter and 4ft smaller in diameter than its US counterpart The British airships will be slightly smaller than the Goodyears but will carry a rather heavier, 2!2-ton payload. In addition to the crew and passengers, they will incor porate a computer-controlled display-lighting system for night advertising flights around Venezuela. As experience grows they will be used in pilot experiments by day to communicate with backwoods towns and villages which are isolated by lack of rail or river access. Communication may later become a task in its own right, so increasing utilisation. The last commercial airships to be built in Britain came to a disastrous end 40 years ago, as did others in America and Germany. The United States Navy used them effec tively during the war for patrolling America's Atlantic and Gulf Coast waters, but phased them out of service in 1962 after the advent of long-endurance fixed-wing aircraft. Apart from the publicity airships of Wullenkemper in West Germany and Goodyear in America, there has been no continuity of experience, and the recent resurgence of interest around the world is calling for a lot of funda mental research. In particular, the CAA, charged with the certification of the first commercial airships to be built anywhere for
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