HPS Ltd can help steer your company or government department in the right direction when it comes to any matter concerning modern airships (Blimps and Zeppelins) or the new hybrid air vehicles.
  There have been a surprising number of legal and financial difficulties encountered in the past, both by the customers of some airship companies and with investors in future airship development projects.
   Very few people fully understand the complexities involved with airship operations or the practical possibilities for the development of airships in the future. This lack of understanding is also complicated by the ability of many airship companies to overstate the performance and limitations of their product or project. 
  
Picture with top of page header: Hybrid air vehicle scale demonstrator landing on test pond at Cardington a few years ago. Copyright: Hybrid Air Vehicles, Cranfield England.

UK group secures commercial airship deal.
A British company will take a big step towards returning airships to commercial service after more than 70 years on Wednesday when it announces its first customer in a deal that could lead to orders for up to 45 air vehicles worth more than £2bn ($3.3bn).
  Hybrid Air Vehicles, a privately owned company based in Cranfield, will announce that it has signed an agreement with Canada’s Discovery Air, a Toronto-listed specialist aviation company, to develop an airship capable of  carrying a 50 tonne payload, which can operate without the need of an airstrip and land almost anywhere, including
on water.
  Discovery Air, whose customers include mining and oil and gas companies exploring in some of the world’s most
inhospitable and remote regions, will partner with HAV on the project to develop the airship and get it through the
certification process that any new aircraft must undergo. Stephen “Fig” Newton, director of business development at Discovery Air, said that, pending the successful certification of the airship, the company was planning to place
an order for between 10 and 45 vehicles. “We already have more than 130 operational aircraft so we look at the airship as a natural extension of our fleet,” he told the Financial Times.
  Gary Elliot, chief executive of HAV, described the deal with Discovery Air as “absolutely huge for us. It means we have our first commercial client and one that shares the same outlook and philosophy”. He said each airship would cost between $30m and $50m. HAV aims to have the first airship in commercial cargo service in 2014, 77 years
after the Hindenburg disaster in New Jersey that ended the era of passenger-carrying airships. HAV is already building a smaller version of its airship as part of a $517m contract it won in partnership with Northrop Grumman, the US defence contractor, to supply three lighter than air  vehicles to the US  army for battlefield surveillance. 
  Most of the rigid structures for the first hybrid air vehicle are being manufactured in  one of the big hangars at Cardington in Bedfordshire, which was where the UK’s airship industry started early last century. The HAV design looks nothing like the cigar-shaped early airships and is more like a large flying wing, hence the term “hybrid”, since the shape of the vehicle helps generate lift along with the mixture of non-flammable helium and  air that produces buoyancy. The hybrids are powered by four engines that rotate to help it manoeuvre and are also fitted with hover cushions that allow it to take off and land almost anywhere.
By Mark Odell in London

Although this web site is still under construction, it is now in use in the search for a major sponsor in the form of a large international marketing company, major international company or significant private individual, interested in supporting the proposal for a trans Atlantic crossing and first true circumnavigation by airship.
   The Graf Zeppelin did a world tour in 1929, but as you can see from the map, it stayed in the Northern hemisphere and failed to complete the required distance.

  SEE:  www.blimpingaround.com

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