Aeros CEO Igor Pasternak says the 230ft-long Aeroscraft prototype, called Pelican, has completed a ground-handling demonstration showing the 36,000lb vehicle can move without assistance from ground personnel, controlled from the cockpit and using its air-bearing landing gear. The Pelican was heavier than air for the demonstration, he says.

The three remaining contractual demonstrations, which Pasternak hopes to accomplish next week, include a vertical takeoff and offloading payload without taking on ballast – both accomplished solely by varying the vehicle’s buoyancy. The fourth demo is of the vehicle’s lightweight aeroshell, which does not rely on pressurization for rigidity.

The Aeroscraft model ML866 is a planned 20-ton lifting capacityrigid airship, to be built by the Worldwide Aeros Corporation. There has also been announced a 60-ton ML868 and the 500-ton ML86X

The Aeroscraft uses a combination of aerodynamic and aerostatic principles to remain airborne. Approximately two-thirds of the craft’s lift is provided by helium gas. The remaining lift is provided by the forward thrust of the craft’s propellers, in combination with its aerodynamic shape, and its canards (forward fins) and empennage (rear fins).

As well as its horizonal propellers, the Aeroscraft has six downward-pointing turbofan jet engines for vertical take-off and landing.The craft also uses Dynamic Buoyancy Management, a novel technology which controls buoyancy by compressing its helium gas into pressurized tanks while taking air from the surrounding atmosphere into the vacant space inside the rigid structure, thus creating negative buoyancy. Releasing the compressed helium into the gas bags expanding inside the structure displaces the air and creates positive buoyancy. These systems make the Aeroscraft capable of landing on rough or snowy terrain, or on water.

Source, Photo and video: Aeros