UK “airship” firm receives €2.5m funding boost

Based at Cardington in Bedfordshire - the spiritual home of British airship development - the company has been refining its technology for a number of years, and following an abandoned project to develop a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft for the US military is now working on a civil variant of its technology.

According to the firm,  the funding – which has come through the EU’s  Smart, Green and Integrated Transport Societal Challenge programme (part of the Horizon 2020 seven year research program) will be used to continue work on refining the civil variant, and to help develop a regulatory framework for the vehicles.

As previously reported in The Engineer, the aircraft itself is not strictly speaking an airship. As well as aerostatic lift from helium held in the body, it also uses a combination of aerodynamic lift from the aircraft hull shape and vectored thrust from a series of independent engines to fly.