Hybrid Airships will give operators virtually unlimited access to isolated locations around the world and provide support to areas with little to no infrastructure.
Attention does, however, have to be given the hybrid airship’s skin, where holes can develop. To mitigate this problem, the aircraft is deflated and then inspected manually.
To streamline this process, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has patented SPIDER (Self-Propelled Instrument for Damage Evaluation and Repair), in which two robots set about inspecting the outer skin of an inflated airship for holes, repairing them as and when they are found.
Project to investigate hybrid approach to titanium manufacturing
What is this a hybrid of? Superplastic forming tends to be performed slowly as otherwise the behaviour is the hot creep that typifies hot...