“Pathfinder 1”... a new airship powered by helium fuel
It is used for shipping and can accommodate 14 passengers
People expect traffic on Highway 101 in Mount View, California, to increase in the coming days or weeks, as bikers and strollers will slow down to see the "Pathfinder 1" airship (124 meters long) built by Sergey Green, co-founder of "Pathfinder 1". Google takes to the skies for the first time.
According to the American Society of Electrical Engineers website, LTE Research, which Green founded in 2015 to develop airships (balloons) for shipping and transporting humanitarian aid, obtained an exceptional certificate of airworthiness for its helium-filled aircraft last September.
This license allows the largest ship since the ill-fated “Heidenberg” to begin flight tests at the civil-military Moffett Field Airport in Silicon Valley, from the moment of its issuance.
This certification allows the company to fly “Pathfinder 1” at an altitude of 460 meters (1,500 feet), and thus in the airspace of the Southern California Bay, without interfering with aircraft heading to - or from - the commercial airports of San Jose and San Francisco.
Initially, the massive airship will be attached to a mobile mast for ground-based external tests, before launching 25 low-altitude test flights, with a combined duration of about 50 hours.
Improved design: It is true that its massive and rigid design brings back memories of the airships used in the early twentieth century, but “Pathfinder 1” is completely different from any large airship that has flown before.
The ship includes 96 welded titanium axles and 288 polymer tubes reinforced with carbon fiber that is light enough to allow it to use non-flammable helium instead of explosive hydrogen as its lift gas.
The ship also includes 12 electric motors distributed on the sides and tail, in addition to 4 fin rudders that support vertical take-off and landing and flight at speeds of up to 120 kilometers per hour. In addition, the design contains a polyvinyl fluoride-coated layer containing 13 helium bags made of tear-resistant nylon, and inside them are lidar systems to monitor gas levels.
Last but not least, “Pathfinder 1” includes a hybrid propulsion system with two diesel engines (150 kW) that work alongside 24 batteries to supply power to the electric motors, according to a recent presentation by Alan Weston, CEO of TLE Research. He added that the company plans to use hydrogen in future versions of the ship in the form of fuel for hydrogen cells or turbine engines, or in the form of gas for lifting.
Transport and shipping missions
The design of the balloon that the company used in “Pathfinder 1” bore the signature of the famous German company “Zeppelin,” and can accommodate fourteen people, although the air tests will not allow the participation of uninvolved people.
LTE eventually intends to use its airship for humanitarian missions, shipping, and transporting crews to areas difficult to reach by land. Brin also runs an independent non-profit organization called Global Support and Development, which leads similar missions at sea in regions such as the Caribbean, Latin America and the South Pacific. The organization initially relied on the huge yacht “Brain” to transport medical teams to the scenes of hurricanes and disasters, and it recently launched a ship specially designed to transport dozens of medical workers, with large shipping containers. The ship, called MV Dawn, carries its own watercraft and vehicles, and is capable of producing and unloading large stores of fresh water, and may constitute a model for humanitarian air ships in the future.
