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For craft that can lift 40 to 50 tons, he says, “there are very large market segments.in Canada and Siberia.” He’s bitter that his hangar was “sold for a swimming pool.”īut what a pool: At 3,000 square yards, it’s larger than four Olympic-size pools, and its artificial horizon conjures a faraway island. Von Gablenz, who now runs his company from an office in Berlin, is still optimistic about the future of airships as cargo haulers. “This makes natural tanning possible.” Some 900,000 visitors, mostly from northern and eastern Europe, come each year.
#CARGOLIFTER HANGAR GERMANY SKIN#
To open the hangar to light, “we exchanged the skin of the hall with 20,000 square yards of translucent film,” says Tanjong spokesman Patrick Kastner. So workers welded shut the two steel doors, which weigh 600 tons each. Tanjong soon found that keeping the hangar at 78 degrees Fahrenheit year-round was a challenge. A German court ordered the giant hangar sold to a Malaysian company, Tanjong, which bought it for 17 million euros (about $24 million) as a site for its Tropical Islands Resort. CargoLifter used it to store a prototype of an airship (later destroyed in a storm) capable of hoisting 60 tons.īut the end of the bull market spelled the end of von Gablenz’s dream: By 2002 his company was insolvent. Ten years ago, his plan seemed to be progressing at an abandoned Soviet military airfield 40 miles south of Berlin, his investor-backed company, CargoLifter AG, erected a $110 million airship hangar measuring 1,181 feet long by 688 feet wide by 351 feet high. This week CargoLifter outlined its plans again at the 14th American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Lighter-Than-Air Technical Committee Convention and Exhibition in Akron, Ohio.German Entrepreneur Carl von Gablenz had an unusual vision: a fleet of giant helium airships that would haul outsize industrial loads, such as oil rigs or wind turbine blades, to remote areas of the globe. CargoLifter hopes to pull in revenue using the CL 75 in Canada by the third quarter of 2002. The balloon can be towed by trucks, ships or helicopters, as well as a stationary winch-cable device. While readying to get the big ship off the ground, the company will focus on a transport balloon it calls an “AirCrane” that can lift 75 tons. The company cites these overruns and date setbacks as part of the price for bringing a major technological effort to market.
And the initial cost projections for producing the CL 160 have jumped from 80 million euro (about $68 million) to 590 million euro (about $502 million). The CL 160’s viability has been called into question by the German press, as the dates of the first flights have been pushed back. The project has seen its share of setbacks. Now being tested, the unmanned CL 75 “AirCrane” can tote up to 75 tons, the company says. The airship need not land to unload its cargo, which is why it is sometimes referred to as a “flying crane.” The payload can be discharged while the CargoLifter hovers at 300 feet. When the CargoLifter reaches its destination, ground cables are connected and water is pumped into the CL 160 to hold it in place if a cable breaks. Another four CT-7 engines maneuver the airship. Once aloft, the airship can reach a maximum altitude of 6,000 feet, propelled by four 1,900-horsepower General Electric CT-7 helicopter engines. The weight of the payload is distributed along the keel.Ĭoming out of the hangar, the CL 160 attaches to a mobile mast that is pulled along by a rail car. And unlike a blimp, the CargoLifter has a keel, which runs along the underside of the helium-filled envelope.
Zeppelins have rigid skeletons, while the CargoLifter holds its shape from internal pressure of the helium. Edwards notes that the CargoLifter CL 160 isn’t really a zeppelin, but a semi-rigid airship.
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