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When Britain and then Germany abandoned airship development after the R101 and Hindenburg disasters in the 1930s, most thought the age of airships had reached its end. Heavier-than-air flight developed much more quickly than had been envisaged, and airliners soon took on the long-haul passenger-transport role airships had been expected to fulfil.
Now, in a corner of the shed once used to house the R100 in Cardington, near Bedford, a British firm is preparing for the dawn of a new airship era.
Airship Technologies hopes to have the first of its latest design, the AT-04, flying in a year's time. It will be 82m long with an envelope of 14,200m3, and will be capable of carrying 50 passengers plus 4 crew or a 6-tonne payload. Its top speed will be more than 130km/h.
In June, the company won a #230,000 cash injection under the DTI's Civil Aircraft Research and Technology Demonstration programme.
The airship's prospects have been transformed by technological developments, beginning with the availability of inert helium to replace the inflammable hydrogen gas formerly used to provide lift, and culminating in...