Will zeppelins return? Hybrid airship aircraft successfully passed the first tests Airship airship

23.07.2020

On November 16, 2012, TsAGI considered the project "Non-aerodrome aircraft with aerostatic unloading" (BARS). Attention to the project arose after a meeting of representatives of the transport community with President Putin, held on October 30, 2012 in Novo-Ogaryovo. This was followed by an instruction from the President of Russia to the Minister of Industry and Trade to deal with this issue and report back.

The aircraft is made according to the "flying wing" scheme with a developed tail and a pilot-passenger cabin in front. The airframe is made almost entirely of composite materials using three-layer shells with foam and honeycomb fillers, which reduces the weight of the structure by 1.5-2.0 times compared to metal structures. The combined takeoff and landing device (TLU) allows non-aerodrome operation from water, swampy and snowy surfaces, any soil and thus excludes the re-equipment of the aircraft TLU depending on the season. Propulsion propeller units located on the rear of the center section provide full blowing of the tail surfaces, increasing reliability and safety in various flight modes. The presence of a lifting propeller installation, located in the channel of the disk-shaped center section, provides vertical or shortened takeoff and landing.

BARS is a combination of three well-known aircraft: an airship, an airplane, a helicopter, and a hovercraft (Hovercraft). It was possible to create a combined aircraft, eliminating the shortcomings of the airship, aircraft, helicopter and SVP, but retaining them positive traits. So, for example, such shortcomings were excluded: the airship has windage, the need to have complex system service; the aircraft - the need to have an airfield; a helicopter has a short range and high cost of transportation.

The use of elements of the SVP and the main rotor of the helicopter made it possible to ensure the absence of an aerodrome of basing and operation from any flat surface (water, swamps, snow, soil, etc.), to exclude the complex infrastructure of airships and airships (it has an onboard self-service system). The preservation of the elements of the aircraft (bearing surfaces) and the airship (lifting gas) made it possible to obtain a greater carrying capacity, range and high efficiency of transportation.

The combined takeoff and landing device (TLU) allows non-aerodrome operation from water, swampy and snowy surfaces, any soil and thus excludes the re-equipment of the aircraft TLU depending on the season. Propulsion propeller units located on the rear of the center section provide full blowing of the tail surfaces, increasing reliability and safety in various flight modes. The presence of a lifting propeller installation, located in the channel of the disk-shaped center section, provides vertical or shortened takeoff and landing.

Great opportunities open up if you use BARS as a carrier technological equipment with delivery to hard-to-reach regions of Russia, as part of the so-called air transport and technological complex.

The device has three cargo compartments: bow, center and tail compartments with the ability to load both from the air and from the ground. The central cargo compartment with a retractable or removable platform allows you to create air transport and technological complexes for various purposes. The innovativeness of the project is confirmed by patents for the invention of Russia, Germany and the USA.

On the basis of the prototype, which, however, lacks aerostatic unloading, more than 15 years ago, the BELLA non-airfield aircraft was built at the Tyumen research company Tyumenekotrans, which, with the participation of the Moscow Aviation Institute and the Siberian Research Institute of Aviation Engineering, successfully passed preliminary flight tests.

At the same time, there are still a lot of questions about such a complex machine, where three base engines are combined.

Take-off weight of the first modification - "Violet 15" - 81 tons. Of this weight, 60 tons is the commercial load. The flight range with a load is 3 thousand kilometers, the height is 500 meters, the speed is 180 km / h. The power plant capacity is 8,180 kW. Wingspan - 70.5 meters, length - 72 meters, height - 20 meters.

Lack of a clear public policy in the field of the aviation industry, an outdated system of expertise and a closed decision-making procedure for new aircraft hinder the development of the project. Thus, the participants of the above-mentioned meeting at TsAGI were not familiar with the scientific and technical materials and the results of experimental studies in advance, so they could not understand the concept of the project from the author's report in more than two hours. This project was discussed at TsAGI in the same way four years ago. At that time, the matter did not go further than an agreement to conduct research on the project. Over the years of the project's existence, dozens of responses have been received from firms and departments expressing their readiness to use such aircraft, but only in their serial execution.

In May of this year, the European Commission allocated a grant for the study of the project. In order to prepare an appropriate application for a European grant, three consulting structures have combined their efforts - Russian company PREFISH, Agentur Kronstadt GMBX (Germany) and Oxford Progress LTD (Great Britain). In the conditions of the highest competition of applications for a grant within the framework of the European Commission's program to support innovative developments, this application won from the first run, and four European contractors - English and Riga universities and two German companies - received about 700 thousand euros to analyze the concept of a combined airfield-based aircraft designer Alexander Filimonov.

In the US, the Pentagon has allocated multi-million grants for the construction of prototypes of such aircraft, and research is underway in the UK and Canada. This is done by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DARPA (USA), Lockheed Martin (USA), Aviation Capital Enterprises, Inc. (Canada), Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd (Great Britain).

Since May 2012, intensive research work on the project has been carried out in three research centers in England, Germany and Latvia on the basis of the above-mentioned grant.

There is no doubt that in the very near future a non-aerodrome aircraft of both small and large payload capacity will be built. Would the best option, if Russia and Europe joined forces in the implementation of a project that is beneficial to both parties.

A group of European experts proposed the concept of an unusual aircraft that combines the capabilities of an airplane, helicopter and airship. The hybrid has a short length, while it is equipped with screw engines located at the rear. In the center of ESTOLAS there is a propeller that looks like a helicopter propeller. The body is built almost entirely using lightweight composite materials, and the insides are filled with helium, according to Gizmag.

This design allows it to take off and land at low speed on a short runway. Moreover, even if there is no appropriate runway, the hybrid can create an air cushion by landing using a wheeled ski chassis on any natural surface: fields, swamps, ponds and snow.

Engineers are working on four hybrids of various sizes. Their carrying capacity will be from 3 to 400 tons.

ESTOLAS is planned to be used in various fields. It can be used in the military, rescue operations, cargo transportation, tourism, etc. In addition, the hybrid will be an alternative to conventional aircraft in areas where there are no runways.

The ESTOLAS prototype has already been created. In the near future it will be tested in a wind tunnel.

The project of one of the largest hybrid airships and aircraft in general, the Airlander 10, is successfully moving towards completion. Within a few days, the first test flight of the aircraft of the British company Hybrid Air Vehicles will take place. One of the main enthusiasts and investors of the project is Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden.

The construction of the airship Airlander 10 was launched in 2009 by order of the US military. A British company has won a half-million dollar contract to build a hybrid aircraft for aerial surveillance. After the military ran out of money, Hybrid Air Vehicles bought the prototype and flew it back to England in the spring of 2015.

In the same year, the project successfully received public funding of £2.5 million. In total, the construction of a test sample cost £60 million ($100 million).

The airship has a length of 92 meters (which is approximately equal to the length of a football field), is capable of carrying a payload weighing up to 10 tons and flying without landing for up to 5 days in a row with a team on board. The manufacturer claims that in unmanned mode, the device can stay in the air for up to three weeks.

Airlander 10 can land even in places unprepared for this, up to landing on water. The airship is filled with helium, its maximum speed is 150 km/h.

Airlander 10 uses a hybrid system to fly - it rises into the air thanks to the lift that arises from its special shape. An airship of this type spends a little more fuel per unit of travel than a classic one, but it has a higher speed of movement, while retaining the advantages of lighter-than-air vehicles - in particular, the ability to land on any fairly flat place. As a company representative describes his device, it is “a mixture of an airplane, an airship and a little bit of a helicopter.”

Initially, the Airlander 10 will be used as entertainment for tourists, and to deliver oversized and heavy cargo to hard-to-reach places. The company plans to build an even larger airship capable of carrying up to 50 tons of payload.

Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson is a co-investor and active participant in the project. Despite the fight against a terrible disease, he took part in the revival of Airlander 10 and the search for additional investors for the project. Bruce is very fond of the sky, and part-time is also a civil aviation pilot.

Unfortunately, for some reason, only 13 airships have been built in Russia since the disappearance of the USSR. I think that many readers will be interested to know the details of ongoing and planned projects in this area, in connection with which we invite people associated with the airship industry not to conceal interesting information, but to share it with us.

Image copyright sbna Image caption

A unique aircraft crashed at a training ground in England just a day after a successful test flight.

The world's longest aircraft, the Airlander 10, which is a hybrid between an airplane and an airship, suddenly broke in half and crashed to the ground at Cardington Airfield in Derbyshire.

The world's longest aircraft makes its first flight
The airship Airlander 10 was damaged during landing

Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd, which owns the craft, said it was apparently blown off its docking mast by a gust of wind, after which an emergency system depressurized the helium tanks that provide it with lift.

Image copyright sbna

There were no people on board the device at that moment, but two people on the ground received minor injuries.

At the time of the accident, the device had to be attached to the landing mast.

Image copyright Hybrid Air Vehicles Image caption Hybrid devices of this type are now being developed in several countries around the world, including the United States and Britain.

"The alarm system is designed to prevent damage environment in similar circumstances, the company said in a statement. - Currently, the shell of the apparatus lies on the ground and is fixed on the edge of the airfield. Stocks of helium and fuel on board the vehicle are not dangerous."

"We are testing a completely new type of aircraft, and similar incidents can occur during development."

"We will investigate the causes of the accident and assess the amount of necessary restoration work that will be carried out in the coming weeks," the statement said.

On Friday, the day before the accident, the Airlander 10 took off from Cardington Airfield at 15.11 GMT and landed there an hour later after a successful test flight.

After that, Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd announced that it was embarking on a new phase of longer test flights. Such devices, the company said in a statement, will soon fly higher, faster and farther.

In August 2016, during one of the first test flights, the same device climbed too high, and its landing rope became tangled in a high-voltage transmission line. The device, 92 meters long, fell at a peak and hit the ground. Nobody got hurt.

Image copyright Beds Cambs Herts Road Policing Image caption The hybrid craft now lies on the edge of the old Cardington Airport.

The British Air Service, investigating incidents of this kind, later reported that the landing rope remained unretracted after the first unsuccessful attempt to land the device.

Flying machines of this type are usually a combination of the positive aspects of two types of vehicles - an airplane and a balloon, using aerodynamic lift when lifting and then being in the air due to helium tanks located in the body and wings.

Airlander 10, which is a hybrid of an airplane, an airship and a helicopter, weighs 20 tons. Its developer, Hybrid Air Vehicles, claims that the ship is capable of climbing to a height of six kilometers, accelerating to 148 kilometers per hour, staying in the sky for up to five days, carrying loads of up to 10 tons and landing on water.

Airlander 10 is planned to be used for reconnaissance, communications, delivery of humanitarian aid and passenger transportation.

04.12.2002, Wed, 14:12, Moscow time

Airships are already ready to "take on" a whole range of special tasks, such as exploration of natural resources or monitoring the ecological state of territories. In a more distant - but still foreseeable - perspective, one can expect the appearance of very large vehicles for transporting super-heavy cargoes and even "aircraft carriers" and "sky hotels" based on airship technologies. And the kilometer length of the shell of such inventions, according to the assurances of the developers, is quite justified.

Forest fires, natural disasters and local armed conflicts, which have shaken many countries in the last year or two, have forced them to turn to the search for the most effective means warning and localization of critical situations. These systems should not only be cheap in operation and production, but also meet such modern requirements as multifunctionality, multilevel security.

The issue of the expediency of using the airship transport system as an effective addition to the existing air transport has been put on the agenda. For example, how long does it take to, say, transport a multi-ton turbine from Germany to Kazakhstan? By railway such an operation will take at least two months, and the unit itself will first have to be disassembled and then reassembled on site. Such an enterprise will cost $230,000. But transportation by airship will already cost less today - somewhere around $ 200,000, and as the aeronautical fleet develops, the price will fall even lower.

However, airships have a "minus" - this is its low, by modern standards, speed. But high-speed transportation in some industries is not so important. This applies to the development of regions located at a considerable distance from economic centers, the transfer of large-capacity cargo over short distances, the implementation of special operations, including humanitarian ones.

In this market segment, the potential demand for heavy airships is already quite high today. According to marketers from the German company CargoLifter, the market for airships with a carrying capacity of 100 tons and a length of more than 25 meters for America alone is estimated at $1 billion a year. The annual growth in demand for such devices will be about 12%. For the freight transportation market, such indicators can be considered dynamic and promising. In other words, airships can easily win at least 10% of this market. Airship projects from different countries world - English SkyCat 200 (200 tons), Russian DC-H1 (180 tons), German CL160 (160 tons), American Eros ML.

MD-900

The aircraft is an aircraft similar to a "flying wing", which is filled with light gas. This "wing", being, in fact, the "balloon" of the balloon, provides for the rise of a quarter of the payload. The Stingray takes off and lands with a short run and run. In the foreseeable future, the developers promise to equip the device with a pneumatic catapult, which will make it possible to start without acceleration, that is, from a standstill.

Firefighting and "Flying Aircraft Carriers"

Summer fires in the United States, Russia and a number of other regions of the planet brought enormous economic and environmental damage. In the United States alone, losses from wildfires reach $2 billion annually. Moreover, the budget of the fire department of this country is $1 billion dollars. For Russia, with its vast forest areas, this problem is no less relevant. In addition, timber has become one of the main items of Russian export. Moreover, the situation with summer fires from time to time exacerbates catastrophically in areas that have undergone reclamation. So it was in the current, 2002, in the Moscow region and adjacent areas.

Ralph Pope of the California design firm Wetzone Engineering believes that to fight wildfires, you need to create an aircraft with a length of three hundred meters. According to his calculations, it will be able to take on board a million liters of water.

Such an airship is able to bring down a stream of water from 10 to 200 tons per hour to the ground. Its size will make it possible to flood the fire with a wide front, and water cannons will serve to combat individual outbreaks. However, the apparatus has wider possibilities of use, including for fighting large local fires, for example, on oil rigs. Skeptics, commenting on this project, cite a counterargument from the field of economic feasibility. After all, the pop-up force of the airship increases sharply after the release of the water mass. To continue a normal flight, helium will have to be released into the atmosphere, which costs from 1.5 to 2 dollars per cubic meter. However, in a number of countries, including Russia, the idea of using airships for fire purposes has found support. It is possible that a fire-fighting aeronautical vessel will be created faster not even in the USA, but here.

Another American project looks no less impressive. According to the Washington ProFile, by 2015 it is planned to create fundamentally new modes of transport, among which a giant transport platform, or "floating island", stands out. This "island" can be used instead of modern aircraft carriers and transport ships, providing the transfer of military equipment and equipment to their destination. Comments seem redundant

Although the global airship industry is not yet able to implement large-scale projects on its own, since it is limited by the capabilities of medium-sized businesses, however, the emerging trend of the widespread introduction of airships allows us to hope that private and public investments in this high-tech industry will increase, and the aeronautic fleet will become an integral part of our life.

Sergey Bendin
Russian Aeronautical Society

In the next issue of the "Communication" and "Transport" sections of the site, the publication of materials on modern airships and balloons and their application will be completed with a material on projects and solutions for the creation of telecommunication systems based on lighter-than-air aircraft - stratospheric remotely controlled platforms.