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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 2934.PDF
NEWS ANALYSIS BY IAN GOOLD Airship Industries (AI), which went into full-blown receivership earlier this month, has fought hard to prove that lighter-than-air craft could play a useful role in the late 20th Century. While Goodyear in the USA has kept the airship flag flying for years and West Germany's WDL has contributed to keep ing the spirit alive, AI has been the most forward in promoting airship principles. The belief won US defence department support when, with Westinghouse, AI won an al most $120 million contract to design and develop the Sentinel 5000 airborne early warning air ship, the radar to be carried inside its giant helium-filled en velope. Marketing airships has proved costly, however, as has funding the necessary research and development. Airships are not excluded from the general principle that to make a small fortune from aviation you must first start with a large one. Millions have been devoted to bringing the Skyship 500, which flew in 1981, and the later and larger 600, to full public- transport certificates of air worthiness. Many more will be needed to develop the massive Sentinel 5000 for the US Gov ernment, and even to build the half-scale Sentinel 1000/Skyship 600S. Between 1978 and 1983 Air- Canadian plans were put on ice Airship Industries looks for a financial safety net IN NEED OF A LIFT ship Industries absorbed some £10 million of investment. Modifications to the Skyship 500 needed more engineering and flight testing than expected, certification took longer than planned and held up initial revenue-earning operations, while plans to set up shop in Canada went awry. Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond's rescue of Airship Indus tries in 1984 coincided with the first flight of the Skyship 600, a larger development of the 500. A 1983 £5.5 million rights issue was followed by another for £7 million just months later as Bond sought to provide the funds to establish a major pro duction programme. The issue was necessary "...to ensure that the previous eight years' [work] is not jeopardised at a time when commercial via bility, despite considerable con tinuing risks, has never been closer", the February 1984 rights issue document said, re peating the chairman's warning to shareholders of just three months earlier. Sales have not been easy to come by. Alan Bond adopted a policy of stimulating demand by letting operating leases to im prove airship visibility. Support has been sought and found in unlikely places. In 1982 some £400,000 came from a Belgian Government enter prise agency in exchange for a 5% stake. Britain's Department of Trade & Industry bought and leased back a Skyship 500. Once a full certificate of airworthiness was obtained, however, sight seeing trips began generating income. In the year to 30 June, 1989, AI lost some £15 million com pared with losses of £3.7 mil- "Airship Industries' records show that almost 20 Sky ships have been prepared for service. Just seven are in use" lion and £5.2 million in the preceding two finanical years. In the 1989 company report, Bond said that AI had intended to refinance and recapitalise to reduce debts. "Unfortunately, our penetration of markets did 26 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 26 September - 2 October, 1990
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