World's largest aircraft prepares to take-off

[Still Waters]

Three years since work began on the Airlander 10, engineers are putting the final touches on the giant aircraft described as 'part plane, part helicopter.'

The 300ft-long (93 metres) Airlander was originally developed as part of a US Army project but was scrapped by military bosses. It is now being converted to provide business and leisure flights in a hangar in Cardington, Bedfordshire.

The vessel was filled with 1.3million cubic feet of helium - enough to fill 15 Olympic-sized swimming pools -in a test run last October and now the engines and fins are being fitted ahead of next month's flight.

http://www.dailymail...h-s-flight.html

[+and-then]

I predict this thing will become a floating cruise ship. The cost will be outrageous though

[Goodnite]

This airship and its military cousin account for a lot of the sightings identified as a flying triangle IMO.

[paperdyer]

At speeds of 90 mph would make a coast to coast flight a cruise ship experience.

[fred_mc]

It's pretty cool with airships I think. I wonder why the US Army want to have their name on it though, it's like they are saying "We've designed this to make it really easy for our enemies to destroy it, it is quite slow so it is easy to hit, and one shot is enough to take it out/deflate it.".

Edited February 28, 2016 by fred_mc

[Hawken]

The side view at a distance would look like a cigar shaped UFO. I bet it will generate reports.

[grimsituation6]

umm i saw one of these in Key West about 3 years ago, it was huge and was flying, and had it not said U.S. Navy on the side i would have gotten very scared. and it was surprisingly fast, it flew parallel to us on the highway, and we were doing about 75 mph, and it kept up with us for a while, i remember thinking, "really 100 years and we regress back to balloons?"

Edited February 29, 2016 by grimsituation6

[grimsituation6]

def bullcrap about the maiden voyage, maybe this particular model, but i saw the exact same thing 3 years ago, duel exhaust and the 4 fins and all.

Edited February 29, 2016 by grimsituation6

[grimsituation6]

and no its not the triangle that people see, i was out one night walking my dog with my girlfriend and we looked up because it was a clear night, and we saw the triangle, it was black had three "exhaust" looking vents at the tips and in the center it emitted what looked like an energy bubble (only way to describe it), we live in NYC we know what helicopters or drones or planes look like, this thing was none of those. it was silent and hovered slowly while rotating, it then went out of our view for about 30 seconds behind our building, which is on the highest hill in NYC, when we ran around to other side we had a complete view of the sky and there was nothing, not even any airliners/planes, which was weird. also as far as size goes, the triangle was bigger, although i will admit something about the exhaust made me think it was manmade. but the energy bubble thing was out of this world, it pulsate, and change size, almost looked like those videos of the hydrogen bombs and the atomic bubble they would make. we are in northern NYC, in the bronx, it came from a southwestern position and was moving northeast.

Edited February 29, 2016 by grimsituation6

[grimsituation6]

i also saw another triangle, this was smaller (my guess and i am good at size approximation is that it was about 20ft across) and at first i thought it was a drone, but it went the distance of about 3 miles (i measured from the building it was floating over to my building) in less than a second, and acted as if it knew i was watching it, because it came right to my window, it also had 3 lights that pulsated at the tips, and it would just float there about 200-300 ft away from my window on the third floor. it would shoot up and down 100ft at a time in an instance and then it shot straight up into the sky like a beam of light. never saw that one again, that was not manmade, any material on earth would break up at the speeds it was shooting around at. also they are always doing blackhawk helicopter training along the hudson river where i live, but right after the craft left there were 5 blackhawks with only their green lights on (which i think means they are in combat mode) and they were scanning over exactly where the craft had been, even making a very low pass over my building. there was also another helicopter with them that looked like a regular bell helicopter but had that radar thingy on top of it, the giant ball thing, they were def looking for something.

Edited February 29, 2016 by grimsituation6

[grimsituation6]

this is the first time i reported any of this, if i die you know who did it...

[Calibeliever]

The ability to stay aloft indefinitely seems to be the only real advantage to this aircraft. 90mph is impressive for a dirigible but it only has a payload of 7 tons. Other than a communications or data platform I don't see any military application that would justify the cost / maintenance. Deployment would be a problem too. Are you going to cart this halfway around the world on the deck of a destroyer? I can see why the Army scrapped it. I'm sure it was a logistical nightmare.