Image credits: LTA Research
Dawn has fallen on Silicon Valley, and the world has seen Pathfinder 1 for the first time. The electric airship is a prototype that manufacturer LTA Research hopes will usher in a new era of climate-friendly air travel and help funder Google’s humanitarian efforts. Co-founder Sergey Brin.
The airship has an all-white steampunk profile visible from the busy 101 Freeway, features fly-by-wire controls, electric motors, lidar sensing and other drone technology, and is longer than three Boeing 737s. It has been supersized and could potentially be transported. Huge amounts of cargo over hundreds of miles.
“It’s been 10 years of blood, sweat and tears,” LTA CEO Alan Weston told TechCrunch on the eve of the announcement. “Now we have to show that this can fly reliably in real-world conditions. And we’re going to do that.”
A series of increasingly ambitious flight tests await Pathfinder 1 before it is moved to Akron, Ohio. LTA Research The company is planning an even larger airship, Pathfinder 3. The company eventually hopes to build a series of airships that will provide disaster relief and zero-carbon passenger transport for damaged roads and airports.
But next year, the giant airship is likely to become a Silicon Valley landmark as its new materials and systems are systematically developed on the doorstep from companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon.
“We’re excited about the possibility of not just building one airship, but laying the groundwork for building many airships,” Weston said. “The innovations and technologies we are about to demonstrate have the potential to lay the foundations for new industries.”
Largest aircraft in almost a century
At 124.5 meters long, Pathfinder 1 dwarfs today’s Goodyear blimps and even the giant Stratolaunch planes designed to launch orbital rockets.
This is the largest aircraft to take to the skies since the giant Hindenburg airship of the 1930s. Though similar in appearance to that ill-fated airship and using passenger gondolas supplied by Zeppelin, Pathfinder 1 was built from the ground up using mostly new materials and technology.
LTA’s airship uses stable helium as the lifting gas rather than flammable hydrogen, is held in 13 giant ripstop nylon cells, and is monitored by a lidar laser system. A rigid framework of 10,000 carbon fiber reinforced tubes and 3,000 titanium hubs forms a protective skeleton around the gas cell, which is surrounded by a lightweight synthetic Tedlar skin.
Twelve electric motors powered by a diesel generator and batteries allow for vertical takeoff and landing. Pathfinder 1 can propel up to 65 knots (75 mph), but its initial flight will be much slower.
This morning, the airship quietly moved at a walking pace from a World War II-era hangar at NASA’s Moffett Field, guided by ropes held by dozens of the company’s engineers, technicians, and ground staff. surfaced.
The entire operation took place in the dark, not because the LTA was hiding anything, but because the airship’s flight test program begins at first light of the morning. The first lesson engineers hope to learn is how Pathfinder 1’s nearly 1 million cubic feet of helium and weather-resistant polymer skin will respond to the warming effects of the California sun.
“We have sophisticated methodologies that allow us to reproduce real-world conditions using static test stands,” said Jillian Hilenski, senior mechanical engineer at LTA. “However, dynamic shipboard flight tests provide the best data on the airship’s health and efficiency.”
test, test, test again
In early September, the FAA issued the following statement: Special airworthiness certificate Pathfinder 1 will allow test flights in and around Moffett Field and nearby Palo Alto Airport, as well as over southern San Francisco Bay.
These tests are first conducted just a few feet above the ground, with the airship tethered to a movable tripod mast. This will then be followed by a series of brief maneuvers around Moffett Field before exiting and overflying the bay.
“There are many benefits to crossing oceans,” Weston says. “First of all, when you come out of Moffett Field, the air over the bay is smoother than anywhere else, which is very important. That’s an advantage.”
As Weston works to reintroduce rigid airships to the skies of North America and eventually the world, safety is paramount. The first 50 flights of Pathfinder 1, which will be subject to FAA certification, will be permitted to fly below 1,500 feet and will use two pilots instead of the one required by the airship design. Ru.
“I can count on two hands the number of companies going into lighter-than-air space, but we all have a lot to lose if someone has a serious problem,” he said. Weston said LTA is working closely with the FAA to ensure every product it manufactures has a safe and prudent path toward full certification.
“The last maiden flight of this type of airship was the Graf Zeppelin II in 1938,” he said during an interview. “The FAA didn’t even exist back then.”
back to the future
In a world of eVTOL air taxis, electric aviation startups, and hydrogen planes, Weston acknowledges that airships are likely to be only a partial solution. “I can’t imagine airships replacing airplanes,” he says. “But I think there is a niche for airships as part of a transportation architecture that reduces the carbon footprint of air travel.”
Another important area may be responding to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and hurricanes. Sergey Brin also funds a non-profit organization called. Global support and development It aims to provide humanitarian assistance within the first 24 to 96 hours of a disaster.
Brin founded GSD in 2018 after using his superyacht to send medical workers to the scene of a cyclone in the South Pacific. The non-profit organization has since partnered with the non-profit organization YachtAid Global and now also has its own private vessel. MV DawnDozens of doctors and rescue workers can be quickly transported along with life-saving supplies.
Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in addition to crew, water ballast, and fuel, but future humanitarian airships will need even more capacity. Zero-carbon technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells are also likely to be used for electricity, Hilenski said. That includes validating new technology and proving to the FAA and paying customers that a new generation of super-airships can match the generally excellent safety and reliability record of today’s commercial jets. It takes a long and slow time.
“What excites me about what we’ve done so far is that we’ve shown ourselves, and we want to show the world, that we can scale and be productive.” says Weston. “And we believe in the possibility of scaling up again in the future.”
The FAA’s Pathfinder 1 Experimental Certificate expires in September 2024.