Airship/External Links

Please sort and annotate in a user-friendly manner and consider archiving the URLs behind the links you provide. See also related web sources.

General

• Airship Home Page - Provides a list of airship related websites. Also contains airship mailing list.
• Hot Air Airship Reference - Listing and gallery of hot air airships
• Airship and Blimp Resources - This site focuses more on how to build your own airship with a particular focus on hot air airships.
• Airship: DJ's Zeppelin Page - Provides photographs of and ephemera from airships
• Blimp-N2A.com - Compendium site inspired by the visit of Goodyear Blimp N2A to Europe from 1972 to 1986. Includes a very complete list of helium airship (i.e. does not include hot air airships) here.
• Airshipworld blog - News blog of airships in general with a particular focus on their planned conference in 2008.
• Worldwide Hot Air Airship Reference - devoted to thermal airships
• Blimp-operations.us - fan site for blimps in the US

Associations

• The Airship Association - British based association for people interested in all things to do with airships.
• Lighter than Air Society - US based association for people interested in all things to do with airships.

Conferences

• Airships to the Arctic - A series of conferences focused on the problem of cargo transport to northern Canada. (Climate change is making the use of Winter "ice roads" problematic.) Proceedings are available (in PDF form) for the first, second, and third conferences.

Historical

• Navy Lakehurst Historical Society - airship history with a focus on activities at the historically most active airship base in the US.
• Airships Online - website of the Airships Heritage Trust. It contains an extensive history relating British Airships from 1900 to the present day.
• US Navy Airship History- Site containing full text of retrospective of US airship program.
• The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships: The Collection of Harold G. Dick - Documents collected by one of the first employees of the Goodyear-Zeppelin company and longtime airship engineer.
• US Centennial of Flight Commission
• Simine's U.S. Aviation Patent Database US Aviation Patent Database, 1799-1909
• Zeppelin in Brazil - Images

Manufacturers and commercial operators

• Airship Association Net Links Page for a comprehensive list of companies throughout the world focusing on the development of airships.
• Airship Management Services — Operators of several type-certified airships including the Fuji Blimp. These aircraft were originally built by the Westinghouse Corporation with the designation Skyship 600.
• Airship Ventures -- Operates a Zeppelin NT on tourist flights over San Francisco, CA.
• American Blimp Corporation In association with The Lightships Group, this company builds and operates the world's largest fleet of airships.
• Aria International Company operating an Aeros 40D in Thailand
• Augur Aerostatic Systems — Russian company making both gas and hot air airships
• Cameron Airships — Hot air airships manufactured by Cameron Balloon - the world's largest manufacturer of hot air balloons.
• GEFA-FLUG GmbH - The Air Company — makers of hot air airships
• The Goodyear Blimps — The most famous modern airships, owned and operated by The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.
• Lindstrand Airships — Hot air airships manufactured by hot air balloon company Lindsrand, a subsidiary of Cameron Balloon.
• Nippon Airship Corporation - Operators of a Zeppelin NT giving sightseeing flights in Japan
• RosAero — Russian airship company that makes both Helium and hot air airships
• WDL -- a German airship that also operates heavier-than-air aircraft
• Worldwide Aeros Corp. — Aeros is an lighter-than-air (LTA) aircraft manufacturing company. The company's operations involve the research, development, production, operation and marketing of a family of Aeros-branded air vehicles used in government and commercial applications. These include non-rigid FAA Type Certified Aeros 40D Sky Dragon Airship (blimp), Advanced Tethered Aerostats and New Type Rigid Air Vehicle - Aeroscraft.
• Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH — The Zeppelin Company and the Zeppelin NT.

High-profile flights

• Total Pole Airship Planned expedition over the polar ice cap in a RosAero Au 30. The airship was destroyed on the ground in January of 2008. The future of this project is unclear.

Experiments, prototypes and one-offs

• 21st Century Airships Inc. Developers of spherical, finless airships. Flight video of one of the spherical ships. In 2007, the company started flying a more conventionally shaped airship named Voyager. Voyager uses differential/vectored thrust from four envelope mounted engines rather than hinged surfaces to control the ship in both pitch and yaw.
• P-791 - Lockheed-Martin aerodynamic/aerostatic hybrid.
• USA Airships - Small helium airship with vectored thrust
• White Dwarf — A small, human-powered airship. In 2007 envelope failed during on-the-ground pressure test. Future prospects uncertain.
• Zeppy — Human powered airship. Website in French.
• Voliris — French company that has built a small 2 person ship.
• Electroplume 250 — a small, one person electrically driven airship. Website in French.
• Dendronautics — This group, led by Graham Dorrington, has developed several 1 and 2 person electric-motor-powered airships specifically focused on rain forest canopy access. One of these ships was the subject of the Werner Herzog documentary "The White Diamond" in 2004.
• Operation L’Alize — A lenticularly shaped airship
• Personal Blimp — A hot air airship with a "double-umbrella" tension-membrane envelope structure and tail-mounted steerable engine.
• Santo2006 - A Roziere (helium and hot air) airship used for rain forest canopy access. There is also a technical write-up in English.
• Thermoplane - Russian lenticularly shaped Rozier (helium and hot air hybrid) developed in the 1990's. Made one low-altitude (possibly tethered) flight. Current status unknown.
• Dynabulle/Cinebulle - Hot air airship made using hot air balloon with a "chariot" underneath and a "backpack" style motor/propeller arrangement. Used for forest canopy access.

Designs under development

• Aeroscraft - heavy lift air vehicle by the Worldwide Aeros Corp.
• ISIS - DARPA funded high altitude airship with sensors integrated into the envelope. The project received $400 million in funding in 2009 to produce a one-third scale prototype.
• Lockheed-Martin HAA Project - Department of Defense Missle Defense Agency funded stratospheric airship project. The project received nearly $150 million in funding in 2005 to build a prototype to be flown in 2009.
• Dynalifter - Hybrid airship under development from 2003 thru 2006. Prototype developed through the point of taxi tests. The prototype was destroyed when its hanger collapsed during a windstorm in Spring of 2007.
• JP Aerospace - Building very large V-shaped airships to fly to 140,000 feet

Proposed designs

• Vertical Airships
• Airship Holland
• Nagy High Speed Airship
• Millennium Airship
• Quantum Aerostatics
• Hybrid Aircraft Corporation
• Advanced Hybrid Aircraft
• Zeppelin Europe Tours — Group proposing airship tours in Europe. Despite the similar name, the group has no direct connection with the present day Zeppelin company.
• Airship based telescopes — New Scientist magazine article proposing airship mounted stratospheric telescopes.
• Stratxx — proposed high altitude airship
• air genie - proposed spherical airships covered with LED video displays
• Varialift - proposed "variable lift" airship. The lift control mechanism is involves the compression of Helium. The company was issued European Patent 1591356 in November of 2006.
• StratoStar - proposed high altitude communications platform

Remote-controlled designs

• Airship Surveillance - Nevada based remote controlled non-rigid
• Blackwater Polar 400 - The self-described "private military" company recently began development of a remote controlled design for surveillance. The prototype was wrecked while on the ground in February of 2008. The future of the project is not clear.

Recently defunct projects

• World Skycat Ltd. - A company marketing the Skycat aircraft being developed by Advanced Technologies Group (see next item.)
• Advanced Technologies Group Until August of 2005, when it went into receivership, this company was developing a range of products such as UAV's - Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, heavier-than-air airships and HAPS' - High Altitude Platform Stations for telecommunication. The assets of the company were purchased by an unnamed Italian group in Spring of 2006. The future of the company remains uncertain.
• Sanswire Stratellite - Stratospheric airship project put forward by Globetel Communications in 2006. Globetel went out of business after the company was investigated by the US Securities and Exchange commission in 2007.