 Today we start with the short video of one of the modern airships which was developed in mid 80s, the Skyship 600. This is a clip recorded during the maiden flight of this airship and this will give you an idea about what modern airships are as against what you might have in your mind. March 6, 1984. Regarding airships. The first time Skyship 600 has emerged from the runway of the Royal Aircraft establishment of Carrington, the traditional shrine of British airship aviation. Now this famous landmark houses the latest generation of lighter-than-aircraft, designed and built by airship industries and packed with state-of-the-art aviation technology. The world's media were out in force to witness the 600's maiden flight, reflecting the global interest in this multi-purpose craft. The 600 is a stretched version of the earlier Skyship 500, with passenger capacity doubled from 10 to 20 seats, cruising speed increased to 55 knots, airborne endurance to a remarkable 48 hours and virtually every other aspect of the craft refined and upgraded. Satisfied with the running of the twin turbocharged Porsche engines, the chief test pilot, Commander Nick Bennett, was now ready for takeoff. Using only a lone power setting, the 600 executed a perfect zero-roll takeoff and climbed steeply and quietly into the sky. She had entered her element and was performing to the highest expectations of the airship industries team. Skyship 600's ability to stay airborne for 48 hours gives her a unique operational flexibility, and the non-combustible helium lift gas has eliminated the fire hazards normally associated with hydrogen. In her civil role, the ship can be transformed into an eye-catching aerial advertisement. She can be used for promotional and pleasure flights, and she provides a perfect platform for aerial photography without any of the vibration and operational problems usually associated with conventional craft. An eye in the sky, the 600 had fulfilled many defense roles. With slow flight, unparalleled endurance, and large payload volume, Emma quickly qualified skyship for coastal and maritime patrol, including cushioning perfection, navigation monitoring and pollution control, as well as airborne early warning, anti-submarine warfare and minesweeping. Already defense and coast guard agencies for Britain, America and France are conducting technical evaluations on Skyship 600. After many hours flying, pilot Mick Bennett makes a steep approach to the airfield, then brings the ship to a stable hover prior to landing. The vector thrust engines allow total control in positioning the craft, and the rate of descent can be accurately adjusted to suit any payload. This capability to take off and land vertically makes the craft unique among airships. Gone are the days when vast tracts of runway were needed for their operation. The skyships of airship industries can easily take off and land on unprepared ground the size of a football pitch. Once on the ground, the ship docks quickly and easily. Secured to the mast, she needs no further tethering nor restraint. The maiden flight had been an unqualified success. The concept has been to take a jolly good old idea of buoyant flight, and then to use new materials to the best advantage in order to get the structure weight down as low as possible, and this is not achievable. So the use of the new materials is enabling us to save weight, and weight in an airship is absolutely fundamental because the gas has got to lift the structure and the volume. You can get the structure weight down to nothing, that is exactly what airship industries have done. Already the skyship 500 is in service in the United States and Japan, and after this tremendously successful maiden flight, the 600 is heading for even wider markets. Okay, so this was a promotional video by the company called as Global Skyship Industries or Airship Industries at that time. They have described in this video the modification of a previous airship called as Skyship 500. So this particular airship that you saw is the one that kind of revived the LTA technology in the mid 80s. But let us take one step further and look at the most modern airship available today for passenger transport, and that is called as the Zephyr. In the back side it will come later, which turned the mast had to be removed, vertical thrust, and on the back which I am right now pointing here, gives direct side force to control the airship. So these are the modern airships, and what you see now are the USPs of airships. Can anybody in the audience explain the meaning of the word USP? Unique selling point or unique selling proposition. What do airships have to offer which is unique and which can make them sell or stand out against other alternatives which are available. So these are some of the important USPs of airships. As we have seen in both the films, an airship does not require a runway. It does not require an elaborate airport infrastructure. Virtually any field is sufficient to operate airships. Typically we say that the length and the width of the ground should be approximately 1.3 times the length of the airship and that is sufficient for it to operate safely. Similarly you must have heard that the endurance of skyship 600 is 48 hours. As against this, can someone share with me what is your understanding of the maximum endurance of any other manned aircraft. That means once you fill fuel without refuelling, how long can you fly a manned aircraft? 16, 17 hours, okay. This is the typical endurance of a manned aircraft. As against that, an airship can easily operate in 48 hours for 48 hours and in one trial they also went up to 52 hours of nonstop flight. The third aspect of airships is something that many people make use of for scientific, technical or commercial work. Applications in which you need either a low speed flight or the ability for the aircraft to remain stationary for some time or for long periods of time and you want an environment which has got lower levels of vibration, lower levels of mechanical clutter. For example, if there is a helicopter which can do the same things, two main problems are excessive fuel consumption, high levels of vibration which have to be isolated in order to get any meaningful data or pictures from the helicopter. It is possible and there are correction algorithms available which will automatically cancel out the vibrations but still it is not a straightforward thing. Plus, the helicopter is very, very sensitive to presence of obstacles in the vicinity and a small mistake can lead to a fatal crash as we have seen so many accident videos of helicopters. If the tail rotor hits any object or obstacle or the main rotor, normally we have a catastrophe. The airship will allow a large cabin space with low vibration level and hence the crew can fly. If you have to fly for 48 hours or 40 hours nonstop, you need to have a comfortable environment. It is very difficult to fly more than 2 hours in a helicopter and it gives you a low noise vehicle because the propulsion system has to do less work. As I mentioned, the gravity is taken care by the buoyancy so there is less work to do. So smaller engines, hence in general lower noise levels, lesser fuel consumption means lower pollution and when I say unobtrusive vehicle, I mean a vehicle that does not disturb the things below. Below a helicopter you have a massive wash or you have this vortex below the rotor and this kind of rotor wash which is also there below quadcopters can actually sometimes disturb or interfere with the activities happening below. Imagine if there is a football or a cricket match going on and you bring a helicopter to take aerial video, obviously it will create lot of disturbances to the activities happening below. Let us say you want to do observation of marine, fishery or other, let us say you want to observe animals in their natural habitat. Presence of a helicopter is going to create lot of vibrations and they will not be then in their natural environment. So in short the bottom line is that an airship can be used for various applications as an aerial platform.