Lei Feng network had reported in July, the news from Britain Hybrid Air Vehicles (mixed air airship company, referred to HAV) the company's largest aircraft Airlander 10 upcoming flight of the end of July. However, due to technical reasons, its first flight date was repeatedly delayed until today, more than half a month later, Airlander 10 finally successfully completed the "Virgo Airlines".
At 7:00 p.m. local time on the 17th, the Airlander 10, the world's largest aircraft from HAV, took off from an airport in Bedfordshire County and successfully flew more than 30 minutes in the air. According to HAV, the Airlander 10 can manually navigate the air for up to five days without interruption. The unmanned automatic navigation is continuous for two consecutive weeks and is ideally suited for applications such as emergency rescue, air surveillance, travel passengers and material transportation.
As the largest aircraft in the world today, the Airlander 10 is 92 meters long, 44 meters wide, 26 meters high, and has a carrying capacity of 10,000 kilograms. This volume is larger than the Airbus A380 (the A380 is 73 meters long, 24 meters high, 79.8 meters in wingspan, and the aircraft has an empty weight of 8840 kg). In addition, the interior of the airship is filled with 1.3 million cubic feet of helium gas, which is gathered together to fill 15 standard swimming pools.
It is reported that Airlander 10 first came from the US military's LEMV project and was later sold to British HAV in 2013 due to military spending cuts. Later in the hands of the HAV, it was idle for two years because of financial constraints. In 2015, it was able to restart R&D under funding from the British government and crowdfunding by HAV.
In the future, the Airlander 10 will be mass-produced. HAV said it will create 10 such "flying ass" by 2021.
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