airships

Blimps first soared above battlefields in 1794 to spy on Austrian and Dutch troops. Now the U.S. Army wants them as radar platforms for defense against cruise missiles. A Raytheon-designed blimp made its first flight yesterday at Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Forget those cigar-shaped dirigibles of yore. German-American collaboration has produced a tadpole-like airship that could debut within days, and make even a jaded Sky Captain take a second look.

Mammoth-sized blimps may work well as advertising tools, but soon they could be doing a lot more work than that. Aerospace and defense corporation Boeing and Canadian company SkyHook International are working together to create a 302-foot-long airship with rotors that can haul heavy loads—double the capacity of the biggest helicopter—across remote regions at a lower fuel and environmental cost.

The High Life:  Matt Stubbington

Most of us fly for speed, but French industrial designer Jean-Marie Massaud believes that slow cruising in an airship could be the next step in air travel. Massaud has sketched airships since the age of five, he says, and has since collaborated with major brands like Yves Saint Laurent and Yamaha to design, respectively, perfume bottles and submarines. Now he’s partnering with Onera, France’s space agency, to create the world’s first luxury airship. The design of the Manned Cloud calls for a double-decker, 5.6-million-square-foot airship shaped like a whale. Boasting a top speed of 105 mph and outfitted with all the amenities of a cruise ship, it would ferry 55 passengers from Paris to Madagascar in four days, offering a turbulence-free, unpressurized flight at an altitude of a mere 9,800 feet.