Aeroscraft Airship Construction Complete – First Flight Tests Planned

The video below shows the first movements of the massive cargo-carrying airship that has taken shape inside one of the 17-story wooden blimp hangars at the former military base in Tustin.

According to aircraft maker Worldwide Aeros Corp., construction is complete on a 36,000-pound blimp-like aircraft designed for the military to carry tons of cargo to remote areas around the world.

The Montebello company hopes to have a first flight in the coming months and to demonstrate cargo-carrying capability shortly thereafter.

“This is truly the beginning of a vertical global transportation solution for perhaps the next 100 years,” Chief Executive Igor Pasternak said in a statement.

Worldwide Aeros, a company of about 100 employees, built the prototype under a contract of about $35 million from the Pentagon and NASA.

The Aeroscraft is a zeppelin with a 230-foot rigid skeleton made of aluminum and carbon fiber. It’s a new type of hybrid aircraft that combines airplane and airship technologies and doesn’t need a long runway to take off or land because it has piston engines that allow it to move vertically and a new high-tech buoyancy control system.

Ultimately, the company wants to be able to carry up to 66 tons.

Source: LA Times

One comment

  1. I have created an idea/invention that when introduced to a large Zeppelin will extinguish Forest Fires in hours ,not days or weeks also saving the use of half the equipment ,manpower, lives and properties and our Forest’s and saving States billions of dollars and earning any company that creates/invests in this project would earn quite a financial benefit.
    Being I have no monies to make this happen I would be willing to sell this idea. If there is an interest please contact me. Thank you.

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