New AT10

THE NEW AT10 FROM HYBRID AIR VEHICLES Ltd.

The AT10 was designed by Roger Munk to be used for training new airship pilots for the much larger HAV series and for other applications like advertising and security patrol work. Roger had more than 20 years of designing successful airships when he designed the AT 10 and the performance and handling characteristics of this amazing small economic airship, demonstrate just how far he had developed his skills as an airship designer since designing the first Skyship 500. The AT10 was first built and test flown by the Advanced Technologies Group with 100hp Diesel Air Engines some years ago, but the difficulties of trying to certify a new type of diesel engine to full public transport standards with a good time before overhaul, were a big factor in the failure of that company.
The new AT10 will use fully certified 155hp Centurion 2.0 or 170hp Austroair diesels, a slightly larger envelope to give more lift and will carry one pilot and 5 passengers, with a small toilet in the very rear of the cabin. It will be required in the near future to train pilots for the civil hybrid air vehicle series. The AT10 may look like a simple blimp, but it most certainly does not fly like one, as it is very stable with incredible slow speed control response and very modern side stick controls. The diesel engines give this new airship an endurance of about 30 hours and a range of about 1000 nm. This means the new AT10 with a crew of 2 pilots and 2 camera operators with a modern FLIR camera system, can do a far better job at surveillance duties than a helicopter and it will use less than 10% of the fuel of a small twin engine helicopter.
There is already great interest in the new AT10 from the US Coastguard and Navy, partly due to the increasing use of small submarines to smuggle drugs from Columbia and Mexico into the US. It is far too expensive to use large helicopters or surface vessels to detect or loiter around an area where a smugglers submarine has been spotted waiting for it to surface. The solution is a much cheaper to operate blimp, that has enough endurance to wait until the small U boats that are currently in use run out of air or battery power and surface.
More information on narco subs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco_submarine
The reason why the new AT10 is going to be the main training airship for the bigger HAV series, is that it has both stability and control characteristics, that are as good as or better than the bigger hybrids. This allows the flight control and electronic engine throttle control system to have an optional small computer fitted to allow the small AT10 to simulate the control response and momentum of a much bigger airship or hybrid. A bow thruster will also be fitted to the new AT10, to both better simulate a bigger hybrid and to reduce the ground crew to a minimal level. The training course for the captains of the big hybrids, will be a CAA approved course done to a very high standard and the CAA will not allow this type of serious training to be done in any other type of airship, as they do not fly in the same way as a modern hybrid. The new AT10 is one incredible blimp to fly and you will see quite a number flying in different countries within the next few years and most will be busy doing pilot training for the new big hybrid air vehicles.
SPECIAL NOTE: Some of the information above has yet to be fully confirmed by Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd, who are at present very busy with the first flight preparation of the LEMV and the final designation of the new AT 10 has yet to be confirmed. This page is also still under construction.