- JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - Thanks to new technology, tourists
could soon be peering down on the world from luxury floating bedrooms,
just as they did in the 1930s. Acres of cut flowers may also glide quietly
over your head in the not-too-distant future on their way to market. A
new dawn for the airship is on the horizon, six decades after a hideous
accident killed off the gracious form of travel. A dozen companies around
the world are racing to be the first to get a new-millennium model off
the ground.
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- The craft may be a familiar cigar shape
or even triangular and is planned in many sizes from 250 feet -- a bit
longer than a Boeing 747 -- to more than 6,000 feet long.
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- Germany's Zeppelin company, whose founder's
name became a synonym for his invention, is building a 12-seater with a
semi-rigid frame for hourlong tourist jaunts at $250 per person. South
Africa's Hamilton Airship Company has grander plans for a 460-foot-long
ship to cross the Atlantic, 60 years after the last one, and hopes its
prototype will fly by July. ``The Atlantic has always been the route in
the world where you prove your technology,'' director Jonathan Hamilton
said. Industry studies estimate around 1,000 airships that can carry 10
tons each will be needed over the next two decades to carry out weather
tests, fight fires, drop humanitarian cargo in inaccessible areas, move
troops or conduct surveillance. Former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander
Haig wants to place enormous Zeppelins high above the world's cities to
transmit Internet, video and phone calls to the masses below. Others envisage
airships as jumbo cargo carriers, ideal for light bulky loads like flowers,
but the South Africans want to revive the stylish opulence of the brief
airship era.
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- FIREBALL ENDED AIRSHIP'S HEYDAY The Zeppelin's
time in the limelight lasted until 1937 when the Hindenburg, kept afloat
by flammable hydrogen, burst into flames, killing 36 people as it moored
near New York. The 800-foot German ship had just crossed the Atlantic on
a voyage that was the last word in comfort at the time.
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- Pampered passengers could lounge in the
piano bar, play billiards and even smoke in a secured cabin. But war, the
jet age and travel for the masses conspired to bury the airship, even though
the substitution of nonflammable helium for hydrogen removed the main danger.
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- Planes became faster, cheaper and bigger.
But the costs of an airship have been plunging down recently due to modern
materials, computer-aided design and other technologies. ``To build a Hindenburg
now would cost $6 billion. They had no plastic and used the intestines
of two million cows for the gas bags. The rivets were done by hand,'' Hamilton
said.
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- Today builders use sturdy tear-resistant
fabrics such as Tedlar and light materials such as carbon fiber. Airships
can now be mass produced and compressed air can help the craft take off
and land on spaces as small as a city-center helipad.
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- The Hindenburg was built on insect lines,
with a skeleton on its outside. Hamilton's ship will be more like a whale
with ribs around a central spine, a design he says is more stable.
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- Also in the airship's favor, priorities
have changed to favor quieter, cleaner means of transport. Airships make
less noise and use less fuel than planes. Larger ones should be able to
carry the load of a whole convoy of trucks, relieving road congestion and
cutting pollution.
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- Cargolifter of Berlin, backed by a consortium
that includes Siemens AG, plans a giant airship for loads of up to 160
tons, bigger than any aircraft. But the most ambitious plan is from a professor
at Illinois Institute of Technology, who says his mile-and-half-long AeroCarrier
could take 3,500 passengers and 35,000 tons of cargo, four times as much
as the biggest ship. Airships will still fly at only 60-90 mph but enthusiasts
say speed is not the point. ``Our airship will be like the Orient Express
of the sky or an ocean liner that can also go over land,'' Hamilton's marketing
manager Annemarie Roux said. It would take about five days to ferry 65
passengers to New York from London and twice that from Cape Town, depending
partly on the winds. High teas, black-tie dinners, a ballroom and three
decks to roam on should help pass the time.
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- Hamilton has spent $3 million and plans
a listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to find the $30 million still
needed -- about a fifth of the cost of a Boeing 747 -- for his first ship.
President Mandela has agreed it can be called the Nelson after him.
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- ``This may appear as a flamboyant exercise
or as a folly to some but for us it is a serious business,'' said Hamilton,
who insists airship travel will be extremely safe.
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- In its advertising campaign, the company
plans to highlight the magnificent views from luxury cabins flying at just
500 feet. That is low enough to watch wildebeest roam the east African
plains or watch street life in New York -- if your pilot dodges the skyscrapers.
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- REUTERS
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