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Airlander 10 – the world’s longest aircraft – has continued its pioneering test flight programme by successfully completing another flight over Bedfordshire, UK.
This is the Airlander fourth flight and second in 2017.
Each flight sees operator Hybrid Air Vehicles push its envelope a little further and increase its understanding of the new aircraft.
“It was great to be airborne again and we enjoyed a really successful test flight.
“We gathered a lot of data during the flight which helps us to optimise and define the performance of this magnificent aircraft,” said Dave Burns, chief test pilot at Hybrid Air Vehicles.
These capabilities include unprecedented endurance of up to five days manned flight, carrying up to ten tonnes of payload – both under unprecedented electrical power.
“This will transform military surveillance, coastguard and border control and is increasingly finding other applications such as telecoms, geo-survey and geo-intelligence and home security,” said Burns.
The Airlander was taken off its mooring mast at 18:10 and took off at 18:12.
It flew for a total of three hours and 23 minutes before landing at 21:25 and was secured safely on the mast at 21:33.
This is the second successful flight since the £25 million aircraft nosedived during a test flight in August last year.
No-one was injured in the accident.
However, the airship’s cockpit was effectively destroyed.
The next flights will be scheduled one or more weeks apart in order to give time for a full analysis of the data collected on each flight, and plan, prepare and train for the next flight.
The Airlander team will be talking about her capabilities during the Paris Air Show Hall 2B/H178, within the UK zone run by the trade body ADS.
The event runs from June 23rd-25th.
Sоurсе: breakingtravelnews.com
