Country of origin:

United States of America

Description:

Commercial helium-filled airship

Power Plant:

(A-60) Two 60 kw (80 hp) Limbach four-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engines

(A-170) Two 134 kw (180 hp) Lycoming IO-360-B1G6 four-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engines

Specifications:

[A-60]

History:

The American Blimp Corporation was founded in 1987, and in the following year commenced construction and development of the prototype Lightship A-50. In 1989 Virgin Lightships Inc, a subsidiary of the Virgin Group of Companies, was formed as an airship operator and placed an order for four examples in 1990. The first production machine was manufactured at Hillsboro in Oregon, USA and certification was received in that year.

In 1991 the A-60 was developed, this having a larger envelope with a volume of 1,926 m³ (68,000 cub ft), increasing the machine’s capabilities. In 1993 Lightship American was formed to operate the type and an order was placed for three examples of the A-60 Lightship. The Company continued to produce the series in a number of models. By 1995 Virgin Lightships and Lightship American had merged and become The Lightship Group operating seven Model A-60+ machines from its facility in Orlando, Florida, and Telford in the United Kingdom.

Development led to the A-150, which was a nine-passenger variant and which received FAA certification in 1997, the first machine being operated by the Sanyo North American Corporation. Further branches of the Company were opened in Rio de Janeiro in 1998, and Singapore in 1999. In 2000 the Company entered a joint venture with Flying Pictures Live Ltd in the United Kingdom to provide aerial television coverage of sporting events from the airship fleet.

By 2001 sixteen Lightships were in operation on five continents with the names of a number of companies on the sides, including Mazda, Sanyo, Natwest Bank, Goodyear, Horizon Blue Cross, and Blue Shield etc. In 2002 Virgin Lightships was obtained by American Blimp and in later years the fleet was utilised in advertising and promotion programmes. The machine was fitted with a special internal illumination system and had a capacity to carry a pilot and up to five passengers. For the cameras it had gyro-stabilised camera mounts which provided a platform for TV/Video photography.

Examples of the Blimp A-60 Lightship have operated in Australia. The first became VH-ZIC (c/n 010 – ex N3119W) on 26 February 1998. Painted as ‘Goodyear’ when operated in the United States, it was operated in and around Melbourne, VIC for a few years, most of the time carrying the name ‘Whitmans Chocolates’ on the side. It carried television equipment for coverage of live sporting events. It was later flown with the names of different sponsors on the side before it was struck off the civil register on 22 May 2003 and returned to the United States as N610LG.

A further example was noted in Tasmania with American registration providing live coverage of a cricket test but nothing further is known about this machine.

An American Blimp was imported to Australia in late 2014, this machine, an A-60+ becoming VH-JVW³ (c/n 010 – ex N610VW, G-HLEL, N610LG, VH-ZIC, N3119W) on 17 October 2014 to Van Wagner Airships Australia Pty Ltd of Mona Vale, NSW. It had previously operated as VH-ZIC (noted above).

In July 2006 a Model A-170 Lightship arrived in Melbourne and was conveyed to Melbourne Airport at Tullamarine where it was filled with approximately five-million litres of helium. At the time it was announced it was to be used exclusively by General Motors Holden for marketing purposes and then would become a regular feature at sporting and cultural events. On 1 August that year it left Melbourne and was flown to Camden, NSW. It was painted overall red with ‘Holden’ on the side and advertising the new Holden VE Commodore series which had just been released. It was given approval to operate with its US registration (N156LG) for six months.

This model had a large screen on the port side for advertising clients products, this being 21.3 m (69 ft 9 in) wide and 9.1 m (29 ft 9 in) tall, and was reported in the press as being the first airship in the world to have such a screen, which could be artworked with up to 32 different shades of translucent material. The screen had 369,600 light emitting diodes (LEDs) and was designed specifically for viewing from ground level. This model could accommodate a crew of up to six, being accommodated in an 8 m (26 ft 3 in) by 6.2 m (20 ft 4 in) gondola.

An example of the series has been used in the United Kingdom and trialled with a mine-seeker detection system, this using optical and electro-optical surveillance systems and ground penetrating radar to identify minefield areas and to detect mines. This was part of a joint venture between the Lightship Group and QinetiQ, formerly the Defence Evaluation & Research Agency. It was also used to detect  unexploded ordnance, such as mortar and unexploded sub-munitions. Plans were proposed to use five A-150s for this work, these to use upgraded systems with advanced interferometry, polarimetry, data processing and motion compensation. The radar used was Ultra Wideband Synthetic Aperture Radar developed by QinetiQ at the Dundee University in Scotland.