Someday soon you will be seeing more than the Goodyear blimp flying overhead. Yes, you could be seeing the SkyYacht personal blimp buzzing along. Heck, you might see more than a few. Maybe we could do dirigible wars. How fun would it be to do paintball with the blimps bombing from the air? That’s my idea of a joyride. The personal blimp is the brainchild of Dan Nachbar. Dan “25 years in computer science research and development, primarily at Bell Labs and Bell Communications Research.” Now he is pursuing his other true passion - flying. He wanted a craft that was easy to navigate and super quiet. This blimp is his answer to those desires.
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“While some hot air airships exist today, these craft are extremely limited in their abilities. These limits arise because the envelopes (a.k.a. “gas bags”) of these ships consist only of fabric with no rigid structural members (i.e. They are “non-rigids”.) These designs rely solely upon internal air pressurization (the way a toy balloon does) to retain their shape. This lack of structural rigidity leads to both low airspeed and limited steering.
In contrast to completely non-rigid envelope designs, the Personal Blimp has a rigid, but folding, skeleton (much like an umbrella) to allow the envelope to retain its shape without requiring internal air pressurization. We received a patent (USPTO #6,793,180) for this unique structural design in September of 2004. The Personal Blimp’s rigid but foldable structure also provides hardpoints at strategic locations (e.g. on the tail) for mounting systems such as the engine and propeller. With the engine/propeller mounted on the tail, the Personal Blimp can use vectored thrust for steering. This provides far greater maneuverability, particularly for hovering, than any previous hot air airship.”
Watch a video of the blimp in action.
Source: Personal Blimp homepage
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