Public/private partnership designed to create a civilian industry and spread risk
US defence planners are proposing a radical new business strategy to create a civilian cargo airship industry from scratch. The plan is aimed at the commercial market, but the private airship fleet would be made available to the US military for special mobility needs.
Dubbed the Mobilus Initiative, the business plan is the brainchild of the Office of Force Transformation (OFT), which reports to defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Center for Army Analysis is also participating in early market and engineering studies.The heart of the strategy is the formation of a public/private partnership, linking a range of government and private customers, along with a distributed supply chain, says Lt Col Michael Woodgerd, OFT analyst and author of the Mobilus plan. "Somebody has got to get the ball rolling," he says.
Mobilus's goal is to avoid the mistakes that arose from a series of flawed attempts to establish a cargo airship manufacturing base, which most recently claimed Germany's CargoLifter. While the new plan would rely on much the same customer base as CargoLifter - heavy construction projects in remote areas and produce suppliers - it removes the responsibility for manufacturing and engineering decisions from a single company.
Instead, the OFT initiative would seek to recruit a large and diverse supply chain involving airship companies and traditional aerospace suppliers, says Woodgerd.
The premise of the Mobilus strategy is that the technical and business challenges of creating the large-airship manufacturing base exceed the abilities of any one company.
The concept of a large airship that can haul loads weighing hundreds or even thousands of tonnes across oceans and continents is not without detractors. Military strategists question the survivability and vulnerability of a massive floating object, but supporters of the project argue that the airship could be defended by installing radars and air-defence missiles.
Cargo airships also pose a difficult logistical problem when they are unloaded. Buoyancy requires the airships to be reloaded with an equal amount of ballast - a potential challenge at remote construction sites.
Woodgerd counters that systems could be developed to control the buoyancy of the airship and, if that fails, the vehicle could be reloaded with water, provided there is a source nearby.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International