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[grupo guitarlumber] 28/7/2005 05:41

UK airship maker flies into money troubles



By Julia Kollewe

Published: 28 July 2005

Britain's top airship company, Advanced Technologies Group, has run out of money and gone into administration.

The aerospace company, which has developed plans to build huge airships - the size of a large cruiser - yesterday appointed Tim Dolder and Paul Davis from Begbies Traynor as joint administrators. The administrators are charged with the task of restructuring the company and finding new investors, or alternatively seeking a sale of the business or some of its assets.

Mr Dolder said: "It just ran out of funds. It has incurred a lot of expenditure on the development of various airships. It needs more investment which would enable it to complete its projects which are so very nearly there." He said four parties had already indicated an interest and were keen to invest in the business. "It's very early days, but it is looking positive," he added.

ATG, based in Cardington, Bedford, was set up in 1996 by the engineer Roger Munk and has received £30m from a number of investors over the past nine years. The company, which has debts of between £8m and £9m, has sought the protection of administration to allow it time to refinance and restructure, possibly under new ownership, so it can complete development of its airships. Most of its 50 staff have been laid off.

Mr Munk said he was "very optimistic" about getting new investment from one foreign government organisation and three European aerospace companies, with which ATG has been working for a long time. He said the investments could range from £6m to £8m up to £50m and would be used to build a SkyCat 20 aircraft - a cross between an aeroplane and an airship, which would be ideal for humanitarian aid efforts - larger than a helicopter and capable of flying long distances.


Britain's top airship company, Advanced Technologies Group, has run out of money and gone into administration.

The aerospace company, which has developed plans to build huge airships - the size of a large cruiser - yesterday appointed Tim Dolder and Paul Davis from Begbies Traynor as joint administrators. The administrators are charged with the task of restructuring the company and finding new investors, or alternatively seeking a sale of the business or some of its assets.

Mr Dolder said: "It just ran out of funds. It has incurred a lot of expenditure on the development of various airships. It needs more investment which would enable it to complete its projects which are so very nearly there." He said four parties had already indicated an interest and were keen to invest in the business. "It's very early days, but it is looking positive," he added.


ATG, based in Cardington, Bedford, was set up in 1996 by the engineer Roger Munk and has received £30m from a number of investors over the past nine years. The company, which has debts of between £8m and £9m, has sought the protection of administration to allow it time to refinance and restructure, possibly under new ownership, so it can complete development of its airships. Most of its 50 staff have been laid off.

Mr Munk said he was "very optimistic" about getting new investment from one foreign government organisation and three European aerospace companies, with which ATG has been working for a long time. He said the investments could range from £6m to £8m up to £50m and would be used to build a SkyCat 20 aircraft - a cross between an aeroplane and an airship, which would be ideal for humanitarian aid efforts - larger than a helicopter and capable of flying long distances.

[ariane] 01/7/2005 09:28

Dinner party held in balloon

A group of men claim to have broken the record for the highest dinner party.

David Hempleman-Adams, Bear Grylls and Lt Commander Alan Veal ate a three-course meal in a balloon 24,262ft above Somerset.

Dressed in formal evening wear they skydived back to earth reports The Sun.

The previous record was 22,326ft up a Tibetan mountain in 2004

[ariane] 21/6/2005 06:09

Upside down hot air balloon

A British designed hot air balloon that flies upside down was the star attraction in Germany at the weekend.



Bristol-based Cameron Balloons designed the upturned balloon for pneumatics and automation company Festo which flew it near Berlin.

Cameron Balloons spokeswoman Hannah Cameron said: "We made two balloons that looked the same, but one was upside down and the other the right way up.



"They do cause people to do a double take when they spot them drifting along together. The firm wanted something different and this really does make people look.

"It was a tall order, though, in a lot of ways, for example the basket at the top is fake, and there is a real basket underneath, which is hidden by a special skirt that can be lifted as the pilot comes in to land."

[waldron] 19/12/2004 06:40

Jumper Jumping In To Airship Debate?



Do airships have a future as persistence surveillance UAVs in the altitudes between about 70,000 ft and space? Lt Gen Steve Boutelle, Chief, Information Office, G-6 for the US Army is a great believer in them and says the services need them as much as they need other air assets. He says USAF Chief of Staff Gen John Jumper shares his view. 'We were at a meeting at Hanscom AFB with him two weeks ago,' he told the UV/North America audience, 'and he said he was frustrated about it. He said: 'The air guys tell me they fly too high, and the space guys say they fly too low, so there's nobody supporting them. Well, I'm ending that right now. Space – you have airships and I want to see a program.'



Airships, Boutelle said, could solve a lot of the Army's tactical surveillance problems with payloads of 40,000 pounds, tremendous loiter times and the ability to fly at around 75,000 ft.



'There's support for them but in my view the money's coming way too slow.' Boutelle said his next move was to bring Army CoS Gen Peter Schoomaker into the loop. 'We're going to talk about it shortly.' Boutelle – a plainly dynamic officer with an obvious command of the technicalities of the emerging Army network said there is a problem with thinking about UAVs the way people do now.

[grupo] 04/10/2004 19:00

SpaceShipOne rockets to success


Brian Binnie pointed SpaceShipOne straight up
The rocket plane SpaceShipOne has shot to an altitude of more than 100km for the second time inside a week to claim the $10m Ansari X-Prize.
The stubby vehicle raced straight up into the sky over the Mojave Desert in California, US, with test pilot Brian Binnie at the controls.

The plane did not roll as it had done on previous flights and set a new record for sub-orbital flight.

The X-Prize was initiated to galvanise private space travel.

What we finally have here, after 40 years of waiting, is the beginning of the personal spaceflight revolution

Peter Diamandis, X-Prize Foundation
It has been administered by the Missouri-based X-Prize Foundation. Its president Peter Diamandis hailed the Mojave Aerospace Ventures team behind SpaceShipOne.

"We are proud to announce that SpaceShipOne has made two flights to 100km and has won the Ansari X Prize," he said.

"What we finally have here, after 40 years of waiting, is the beginning of the personal spaceflight revolution."

Preliminary radar data showed SpaceShipOne reached a peak altitude of 114.64km (368,000ft or 70.77 miles), which is higher than that managed by the experimental X-15 aircraft more than four decades ago.

Two steps up

Describing his record-breaking trip into space, Brian Binnie said: "It's a fantastic view; it's a fantastic feeling. There is a freedom there and a sense of wonder that - I tell you what - you all need to experience."


White Knight carried the rocket plane to the launch altitude
The development of SpaceShipOne was funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. He is believed to have sunk more than $20m into the project.

"What's going to happen a few years down the road when space tourism is available for everyone is going to be amazing," he said. "I'm looking forward to that day and hopefully we'll all be in space before you know it."

The aviation pioneer, Burt Rutan, who conceived SpaceShipOne and whose company Scaled Composites built the vehicle, said he was "so proud of my team".

The flight followed the pattern of previous SpaceShipOne missions. The rocket plane was first carried to a launch altitude of 15km (50,000ft) by the White Knight aircraft.

MONDAY'S HISTORIC FLIGHT
Take-off: 0647 local (1347GMT)
Ignition: 0748 local (1448GMT)
Landing 0814 local (1514 GMT)
Altitude: 114.64km (368,000ft)
It was then released and its engine ignited to take it up through the Earth's atmosphere. Unlike last Wednesday's first X-Prize mission, however, SpaceShipOne did not experience a roll near the top of its flight.

The vehicle went higher than it has ever gone before and the flight will earn Brian Binnie his civilian astronaut wings just as last week's flight did for pilot Mike Melvill.

Tickets to ride

The X-Prize competition has acted as a spur for space travel in the same way air travel moved on after Charles Lindbergh made his solo trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927 to claim the $25,000 Orteig Prize.

Funding for the X-Prize has come from the Ansari family of Dallas, which made its wealth in the telecommunications industry.


The flight will earn Binnie his astronaut wings
More than two dozen teams around the world are involved in the competition. Many of these teams, realising that SpaceShipOne would in all probability take the X-Prize on Monday, are already setting their sights on orbital flight.

This would enable paying passengers to experience hours or even days in space rather than the minutes offered on a sub-orbital vehicle such as SpaceShipOne.

The X-Prize Foundation now intends to organise a yearly multi-million-dollar X-Prize Cup which will be staged in New Mexico.

Burt Rutan has already announced that his company will build five rocket planes like SpaceShipOne for British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

The founder of the Virgin Group of companies plans to offer flights into space for $205,000 (£115,000).

[ariane] 29/8/2004 06:44

Chris Barrie's Massive Engines (DISCOVERY CHANNEL, 6pm)

He may be best known for playing hapless hologram Arnold Rimmer in Red Dwarf, but there's far more to Chris Barrie than that. He's also mad about vehicles of all kinds, and this series allows him to indulge his passion. In a double-bill of episodes, the comedy actor looks at the history of airships before, at 6.30pm, turning his attention to the development of locomotives

[ariane] 29/8/2004 06:40

28.08.2004

Japan-bound Zeppelin Forced to Return to Germany



Zeppelin "Lake Constance" had its historic debut cut short



A German-built Zeppelin headed for Japan is returning to southern Germany after being refused permission to cross over Russian territory. Bad weather and red tape cut stalled the historic flight.



All the air has gone out of the Zeppelin's historic flight from Germany to Japan. After being grounded at the Finnish-Russian border for five weeks waiting for authorization to enter Russian Airspace, the cigar-shaped 75-meter-long (247-foot) airship, the first of a new generation which had intended to cross Russia to Japan last month, is now being sent back to the factory on Lake Constance in southern Germany.



Japan's Nippon Airship Corporation (NAC) had purchased the dirigible called "Lake Constance" from the German company in March for $11.7 million and wanted to fly the 12,000 kilometers from Germany to its new home in Japan.



NAC wants to use the helium-filled airship for sightseeing and advertising flights and hopes to feature the modern day Zeppelin at the 2005 world Expo in the Japanese city of Aichi.



The era of the zeppelin as a mode of transport ended when the German-made Hindenburg caught fire in New Jersey in 1937, killing 35 of the 96 people on board.



Red tape hassles



Dr Bernd Sträter, the managing director of Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik Corporation which built the airship, indicated his Japanese customers had decided to abandon the journey and send the airship back to Germany due to bureaucratic problems.



"The contract was signed in March this year and the time was very short to train the pilots and bring the ship to the Japanese certification board," Sträter told DW-RADIO. "And as far as I know the Japanese NAC shortly after signing sought the permission in Russia. And it takes a long time I think in Russia and in other countries as well," Stäter said. "Everyone who purchases planes tells you it takes a long time and that is the main reason."



Ian Aitchison, group communications officer for NYK Europe, which owns a 53-percent stake in the airship, was more candid in his assessment of the problem earlier this month. "Besides weather, the delay is primarily due to [the] Russian bureaucratic process and the need to slightly alter the flight path across Russia," Aitchison said in a statement.



Aitchison also quelled earlier Russian reports that a further reason for the delay was the airship pilot's citizenship. He holds a German passport and Russian laws require the ship to be accompanied by a Russian pilot.



Historic journey





The Zeppelin, which is designed to travel great distances, had already put 3,000 kilometers behind it before being stopped in Helsinki. The journey was intended to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin's round-the-world flight in 1929. Graf von Zeppelin, a German military officer, is credited with developing the airship that bears his name.



This newer model is a third of the size and can carry 12 people on board. It was carrying a six-person crew from Japan and Germany and was expected to take 30 days to travel from St Petersburg to Vladivostok, and then onto Japan, stopping several times en route.



Security concerns and bad weather



But as the accompanying ground crew increased, Russia raised concerns about security explained Sträter.



"Originally it was planned to do it within three weeks, but meanwhile also for security reasons a lot of people have to accompany by road in trucks and this was originally not foreseen and so I believe 4-5 weeks should be the crossing time from St Petersburg to Vladisvostock or to the Pacific," he said.



Sträter also pointed to worsening weather conditions in southeast Russia as a further reason for the stalling of the project. "The main reason to stop this activity was because of the weather conditions in Siberia. Everybody has to calculate that end of September the cold comes in and the airship will have to stop somewhere there without any protection against wind and weather and there's no opportunity to bring it back to western Europe or to Japan."



Delivery problems



Sträter explained that simply packing up the airship and shipping it to Japan was not an option.



"The Zeppelin new technology is the newest technology in the world and the largest in the world, with a lot of high performance activities which not any other airships has," Sträter said.



"But it also has one disadvantage -- all the other existing airships are blimps, they don't have an internal structure. Ours has an internal structure, a little bit equivalent to the old Zeppelins and you cannot disassemble this structure very rapidly and the blimp. You take the helium and the gas and the air out and then you can pack it in several weeks into a container which you can't do with our airship," he said.



"So that means you can only bring our airship to the final destination by a fire flight."



The technicians from Germany's Zeppelin Luftshifftechnik corporation are now investigating other transport options including placing the inflated Zeppelin on a cargo ship or flying it like a kite from a smaller boat.



Otherwise Nippon Airship Corporation have said they will attempt to fly the Zeppelin again next spring after securing authorization from Russia.

Jennifer Macey (sp)

[maestro.] 28/8/2004 09:15

Ariane... i think there is now a shift in thinking regards oil..first it was coal that went now it will be oil...gas will be the new king...natural evolution from solid to liquid to gas.The Iraq war may have hastened the process has people realise that wars for oil can no longer be tolerated and other alternatives must be found...

[ariane] 28/8/2004 08:55

sadly over recent years airship co.s have tended to go into liquidation.

Cargolifter comes to mind, which i believe was eventually at a deflated value by

UAE enterprise.

if it does takeoff,companies such as BOC,Airliquide,Praxair and Linde to name but a few will profit.

enjoy your weekend

[maestro.] 28/8/2004 08:40

nice articles guys...looks like things are happening at last...might get my wish to travel on one in the not too distant future..

[maywillow] 27/8/2004 06:07

Good Luck M with your thread


BRAVO !

[maestro.] 27/8/2004 05:54

The Nippon Airship Company is set to revolutionise air travel..


If we build a rigid airship as big as 'The Hindenburg' with the modern materials and technologies today, we can create a giant airship with extremely safe and high performance, which would be no comparison with the original one. Now, we can use much lighter and stronger materials for the ship such as carbon fiber brought by high polymer technology and light alloys with the leading edge. We can calculate its strength accurately using computers. Also, the airship can have up-to-date systems of navigation, meteorology, and communication. In the future, we will be able to build a perfect pollution-free airship by using the hybrid system and a combination battery of solar battery and fuel cells instead of using the existent small diesel engine with high performance or the aircraft gasoline engine. We believe that we would offer you a luxurious sky trip in near future.

Time Mr.Branson to stop messing about in silly hot air balloon escapades and do something positive with your millions...I would if i had the money

[serko1] 19/12/2003 14:10

City may lose out over new airline Dec 19 2003



A NEW UK domestic airline wants to set up in Liverpool flying to 41 UK and Irish destinations in direct competition with the rail industry.

Air-Train proposes to use 32 200-seat jets with 16 permanently based here, creating almost 600 jobs at Liverpool John Lennon airport.

But airport chiefs say they do not have the capacity to handle the ambitious scheme and Air-Train founder Neil Bellion says he may now have to take his proposal to Manchester.

Airline consultant Mr Bellion, 39, from Liverpool, is part of a four-strong team aiming to raise £65m on the Alternative Invesment Market, the junior stock market, in the first quarter of 2004 to fund their plans.

He sees no shortage of investors: "Richard Branson recently floated an airline in Australia which was 10-times over subscribed, and easyJet's flotation was also oversubscribed.

"We want to get our funding away in the first quarter of the year and we have to have an airport in our prospectus. Manchester is looking more likely."

Mr Bellion, whose last project was setting up an airline in Kurdistan, said Liverpool has turned down his proposal but offered to help him set up at Finningley in York-shire, a small airport which parent company Peel bought earlier this year.

He said: "I've been talking with Liverpool for two years and I'm still looking at JLA, but they say they don't have the capacity.

"They need to raise their ambitions in terms of their infrastructure and their airport. There's bags of land available."

He added: "They don't want to spend the money on the infrastructure we need. Finningley isn't an option because it won't be open for another year."

He explained the idea behind using Liverpool as a "hub and spoke" operation is because it is ideally located in the middle of the country.

Planes would link virtually all the UK, from Northern Ireland to the tip of Scotland, London and the Channel Islands.

Mr Bellion said: "For example, if someone from Newcastle wanted to get to Birmingham they would fly to Liverpool and change planes onward to Birmingham.

"Liverpool would be like the Crewe station of the air industry."

Tickets would range from as little as £9 one way, with the most expensive return fare priced at £128.

"All fares will be lower than the train," said Mr Bellion.

"Flights will be ticketless. We'd issue smart cards. Passengers would book online and we would credit their smart card for the flight. Electronic readers would then allow their card access at the gate."

He said the business could handle 256 flights a day, carrying 22 million passengers a year, making Liverpool the country's fourth busiest airport.

And because most passengers would not carry luggage there was an opportunity to make Liverpool the UK's premier hub for same day mail and parcel delivery.

Although Air-Train would be a domestic operation he said it represents a fantastic opportunity for Liverpool to take long-haul transatlantic flights and offer passengers onward planes to anywhere in the country.

Mr Bellion says he has already been offered 33 Boeing 757s by Thomas Cook Airlines: "Because of the state of the holiday industry they are using smaller planes."

Liverpool JLA corporate affairs manager Robin Tudor said: "We're talking to a number of start-up operations and would include Neil Bellion in that.

"We do have a problem in that what he is proposing we couldn't accommodate in time.

"Our expansion plans have been agreed with the local authority and we can't divert from that.

"We have to be realistic as to what we can accommodate within the guidelines as agreed with the local authority. There's no point in kidding anybody if we can't cope with it. Parking the planes was a problem in itself.

"Finningley is a new airport with huge potential but we're still in discussions and we are certainly not saying 'go away we're not interested'."

[maestro.] 22/10/2002 08:56

junglejim
them tanks are pretty resilient to accidents and you won't get burnt to death..