Aeroscraft's aluminum rigid airship will make its first test flight. Will Zeppelins return? Airports for airships

The American company Eros announced the successful first flight test of its hybrid aircraft-airship Aeroscraft. The aircraft is 64 meters long. It demonstrated vertical take-off and landing functionality, as well as the ability to reach a speed of 222 km/h. According to experts, the new airship could be put into operation within the next few years. It is planned to be used as an air cruise liner - the Aeroscraft design allows for a large number of comfortable cabins for passengers and more. However, the creators of the airship do not exclude other options for its use. In particular, their plans include creating a cargo version of the Aeroscraft, reaching a length of 137 meters and capable of carrying up to 60 tons of cargo.

The airship will be able to land on any flat surface and carry out instant unloading. It is planned to use the following technology: when approaching the ground, a transport container hidden in the body of the airship for better aerodynamics extends, and the moment it touches the earth’s surface, the container is uncoupled. Then the airship, having increased its buoyancy, sharply gains altitude, and the transport container remains on the ground.

Testing took place in Tustin, California. During the tests, the scaled-down prototype of the airship did not leave the World War II hangar. The purpose of the tests was to test the system for changing the lift force during loading and unloading.

The successful completion of the tests was announced by Igor Pasternak, head and founder of Eros. In the cockpit was Mounir Jojo-Verge, the company's engineer and test manager. According to him, the concern of the creators of the airship is the ability of the device to withstand strong winds.

The device will be able to take on board several times more cargo than modern transport aircraft, while consuming three times less fuel. The ability for vertical takeoff and landing will allow the use of small areas as airfields, and the flight range will be thousands of kilometers. This aircraft is considered a hybrid due to the shape of the body and wings, which create additional lift when moving.

The “golden age” of classic airships was the 20s and the first half of the 30s. last century. Despite their large carrying capacity and efficiency, they had two serious drawbacks - flammable hydrogen gas, which could destroy the apparatus in a few seconds, and the need for complex manipulations with ballast during loading and unloading operations.

If modern engineers dealt with the first drawback long ago by replacing hydrogen with the inert gas helium, the second problem turned out to be much more difficult to solve. Possessing enormous lifting power, an airship without cargo can spin out of control and fly into the stratosphere. Therefore, when loading or unloading, the team is forced to perform complex manipulations with ballast, which is usually water. Every kilogram of cargo removed from board must be replaced with a liter of water; loading is accompanied by the discharge of water from the ballast tanks. These procedures require the use of special ground equipment and are also harmful to the environment: the water used must be drained somewhere.

Aeroscraft designers were able to solve the problem by storing compressed helium in special compartments. After taking the cargo on board, the airship can easily increase its lift by introducing helium into the main volume and displacing the air with it. At the same time, the body of the device has a rigid structure, gas pumping is controlled by a computer, and an innovative system for changing the lift force allows one to minimize the composition of the maintenance team and the number of ground equipment. This will allow the device to be used to deliver cargo to unequipped landing sites.

The Eros company was founded in 1987 in Ukraine by Igor Pasternak. After the collapse of the USSR, the entrepreneur moved the enterprise to the USA. Now Eros, which is the largest manufacturer of airships in the world, is leading the competition to create a hybrid transport aircraft for the Pentagon. The company’s website reports that the full-size Aeroscraft will be able to lift up to 500 tons of cargo.

BARS - Non-airfield with Aerostatic Unloading Aircraft

The creation of a traditional transport infrastructure similar to Western Russia on the territory of Eastern Russia, which occupies an area of several tens of thousands of square kilometers, will require, as many analysts say, more than tens of trillions of rubles and more than one hundred years.

This problem can be solved in the shortest possible time with relatively low costs through the implementation of the BARS project, which is a combined air vehicle that combines the best properties of an airplane, helicopter and hovercraft.

Known aircraft (aircraft) - airplanes, helicopters, airships and other air vehicles - are ineffective for performing this task. The plane needs an airfield; the helicopter has a limited range, a relatively small mass of transported cargo (no more than 20 tons) and a high cost of transportation; An airship is limited by weather conditions and flight safety; it also requires a complex and expensive maintenance infrastructure.

Research and development work was carried out to substantiate the concept of an air vehicle - a non-aerodrome with aerostatic unloading aircraft (BARS).

BARS - Aerodromeless Airplane with Aerostatic Unloading. Project Bella-1. (photo www.tumenecotrans.ru)
Non-airfield aerostatically unloaded aircraft (BARS)
This vehicle solves the problems and shortcomings of known aircraft. Operation from unprepared take-off and landing sites has been confirmed - lake, river, swamp, field; independence from weather conditions with autonomous basing and high flight safety is justified.

The author of the invention and chief designer, Candidate of Technical Sciences Alexander Filimonov, managed to find a fundamentally new conceptual design for an aircraft that combines the best qualities of an airship, an airplane, a helicopter and a hovercraft.

The idea itself captivated the inventor more than ten years ago.

“In the late eighties, I worked at the Tyumen Industrial Institute,” recalls Alexander Iosifovich. “Then everyone was scratching their heads over one serious and very important problem: how to deliver equipment, large multi-ton blocks to the Yamburg gas condensate field. And we, at the Department of Hoisting and Transport Machines, set about solving it. In the course of the work, such a hybrid aircraft concept was born.

High performance characteristics have been achieved based on pipeline, bench and flight tests: the device has in-flight drag comparable to a conventional aircraft, it also has the necessary stability and controllability in all flight modes, and high takeoff and landing characteristics using an air-cushion landing gear.

As for the implementation of the BARS, VTTC project, then, as the analysis shows, the aerospace complex of the Russian Federation is the closest in terms of manufacturing technology for BARS and VTTC in general. Mastery of manufacturing technologies from composite materials, as well as universal control systems, will allow him, in cooperation with aviation design bureaus, research institutes and other industries, to implement the BARS and VTTK project within 3-5 years.

The viability of the BARS project was confirmed by the construction of its manned analogue and its successful flight tests conducted in winter on an agricultural field near Tyumen in 1996.

However, despite this, as well as numerous requests from potential users of such an aircraft on the website http://www.tumenecotrans.ru about the possibility of purchasing a BARS or the opportunity to use its services, they have to be disappointed, since the project has not yet been implemented due to strong resistance from the administrative and technical bureaucracy. To implement the project, funds are needed, and not small ones. Such funds are available not only to the state, but also to the regions, which are able to implement the project by creating the necessary financial and organizational structure. If there was a will.

This airship, which has a rigid structure made of aluminum, is fundamentally different from all airships ever built by people. Airships, by definition, have no internal structure, and their shape is created only by gas pumped inside the shell. Airships, called zeppelins, maintain their shape regardless of the pressure of the gas pumped into them due to the presence of a skeletal structure. For example, the famous Giedenburg airship had an internal “skeleton” made of highly flammable balsa wood, which played a significant role in its historical crash. We hope that such a fate will not befall the Aeroscraft airship, which is made of aluminum and carbon fiber, and its positive buoyancy in the air is provided by a series of gas-filled tanks. Unlike other hybrid airships, the Aeroscraft airship does not require wings to create additional lift when moving; it rises into the air only due to the lifting force of helium.

The Aeroscraft airship is a development of Eros Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of airships and zeppelins, since 1996. And last week, the company carried out its first test launch of the Pelican airship. At 81 meters long and 30 meters wide, the prototype Pelican airship is half the size of Aeroscraft's future full-scale airship. When completed, the Aeroscraft airship will be about 120 meters long and will be able to lift more than 66 tons of payload into the air.

Unlike airships, which maintain zero buoyancy and maneuver using variable-angle propellers, Aeroscraft uses a unique COSH (Control of Static Heaviness) gas-filled tank system, which regulates the static lift force relative to the air. This system works on exactly the same principles on which the ballast tanks of submarines and other underwater vehicles operate.

Inside the rigid body of the Aeroscraft airship are several sealed tanks into which helium is pumped. When the pilot needs to increase his altitude, non-flammable helium is pumped through a system of valves and piping into internal gas cavities, which expand in volume, displacing the air. This increases lift and reduces the static weight of the airship, allowing it to rise to greater heights. Thus, by adjusting the helium pressure, the airship will be able to lift cargo, descend and rise smoothly without the need to take on or drop ballast cargo. In addition to this, the Aeroscraft airship will be equipped with six variable-angle propellers, this will allow it to increase lift if necessary and move in a given direction at a maximum speed of about 35 kilometers per hour.

Having a minimum carrying capacity of 66 tons, without requiring a runway or a specially equipped area, Aeroscraft airships can become the only means of delivering cargo to the most inaccessible places on the globe. Aeros Corp. plans to make three models of Aeroscraft airships, the ML866, with a lifting capacity of 66 tons, the ML868, with a carrying capacity of 250 tons, and the 500-ton ML86X. In addition to delivering cargo, these airships can act as flying hotels, whose residents will be able to travel around the world by air, which will take 80 days.

It should be noted that the experimental Pelican airship made its first ascent into the air while being tied to the surface of the Earth by several safety cables. And the first completely free flight of this airship will be carried out over the next few weeks.

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

Construction of the airship Airlander 10 began in 2009 by order of the American 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.

That same year the project successfully received government funding of £2.5 million. In total, the construction of the test model cost £60 million ($100 million).

The airship is 92 meters long (which is approximately the length of a football field), capable of carrying a payload weighing up to 10 tons and flying without landing for up to 5 days in a row with a crew 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 unprepared places, even landing on water. The airship is filled with helium and its maximum speed is 150 km/h.

Airlander 10 uses a hybrid system for flight - it rises into the air thanks to the lifting force arising from its special shape. An airship of this type spends a little more fuel per unit of travel than a classic one, but has a greater speed of movement, while maintaining the advantages of lighter-than-air devices - 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.”

At first, Airlander 10 will be used as entertainment for tourists, and for delivering large 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 acts as a co-investor and active participant in the project. Despite struggling with a terrible disease, he took part in the revival of Airlander 10 and the search for additional investors for the project. Bruce loves the sky very much, and 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 in learning the details of current and planned projects in this area, and therefore we invite people involved in airship construction not to hide interesting information, but to share it with us.

On November 16, 2012, TsAGI considered the project “Aerodrome-free 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-Ogarevo. This was followed by an order from the President of Russia to the Minister of Industry and Trade to look into this issue and report.

The aircraft is designed according to the “flying wing” design with a developed tail unit 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 take-off and landing device (TLD) allows for non-aerodrome operation from water, swampy and snowy surfaces, and any soil, and thereby eliminates the need to re-equip the aircraft TLU depending on the time of year. Sustaining propeller-engine installations located on the rear of the center section provide complete airflow of the tail surfaces, increasing reliability and safety in various flight modes. The presence of a lifting propeller-mounted installation located in the channel of the disk-shaped center section provides vertical or short takeoff and landing.

BARS is a combination of three well-known aircraft: an airship, an airplane, a helicopter, and a hovercraft. It was possible to create a combined aircraft, eliminating the disadvantages of an airship, an airplane, a helicopter and a hovercraft, but preserving their positive qualities. So, for example, the following disadvantages were excluded: the airship has windage, the need to have a complex maintenance system; for an airplane - the need to have an airfield; A helicopter has a short range and high cost of transportation.

The use of hovercraft elements and the main rotor of a helicopter made it possible to ensure non-aerodrome basing and operation from any flat surface (water, swamp, snow, soil, etc.), to eliminate the complex infrastructure of airships and airships (it has an on-board self-service system). Preserving the elements of the aircraft (load-bearing surfaces) and the airship (lifting gas) made it possible to obtain greater carrying capacity, range and high efficiency of transportation.

The combined take-off and landing device (TLD) allows for non-aerodrome operation from water, swampy and snowy surfaces, and any soil, and thereby eliminates the need to re-equip the aircraft TLU depending on the time of year. Sustaining propeller-engine installations located on the rear of the center section provide complete airflow of the tail surfaces, increasing reliability and safety in various flight modes. The presence of a lifting propeller-mounted installation located in the channel of the disk-shaped center section provides vertical or short takeoff and landing.

Great opportunities open up if you use BARS as a carrier of 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, central and tail compartments with the possibility of loading 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 invention patents from Russia, Germany and the USA.

On the basis of the prototype, which, however, does not have aerostatic unloading, the Tyumen research company Tyumenekotrans built the non-aerodrome BELLA aircraft more than 15 years ago, which, with the participation of the Moscow Aviation Institute and the Siberian Research Institute of Aircraft Engineering, successfully passed preliminary flight tests.

At the same time, there are still a lot of questions about such a complex machine, which combines three basic engines.

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

The lack of a clear state policy in the field of the aviation industry, an outdated examination system and a closed decision-making procedure for new aircraft technology are slowing down the development of the project. Thus, the participants in the above-mentioned meeting at TsAGI were not familiar with scientific and technical materials and the results of experimental research in advance, so they were not able to understand the concept of the project from the author’s report in more than two hours. This project was discussed at TsAGI according to the same scheme four years ago. Things didn’t go further than agreeing to conduct research on the project. Over the years of the project's existence, dozens of responses have been received from companies and departments expressing their readiness to use such aircraft, but only in their serial version.

In May of this year, the European Commission allocated a grant for research into the project. To prepare the corresponding application for a European grant, three consulting structures joined their efforts - the Russian company PREFISH, the agency Agent Kronstadt GMBX (Germany) and the company Oxford Progress LTD (UK). In the conditions of the highest competition for grant applications under the European Commission program to support innovative developments, this application won on the first try, and four European contractors - English and Riga universities and two German companies - received about 700 thousand euros to analyze the concept of a combined non-airfield-based aircraft designer Alexander Filimonov.

In the USA, the Pentagon has allocated multimillion-dollar 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 (UK).

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-airfield aircraft of both light and heavy payload will be built. It would be the best option if Russia and Europe joined forces in implementing a project that benefits both parties.