Aereon Dynairship

The Aereon Dynairship is a conceptual large hybrid airship developed by the Aereon Corporation for civilian and military cargo transport.

Aereon Dynairship
Role Concept lifting body hybrid aircraft
National origin United States of America
Designer William Miller, working on behalf of the Aereon Corporation
Status Conceptual only
Number built None

It is one of Aereon's lifting body airship concepts, where a craft without a conventional "wing" generates lift by itself. It would have also have been filled with buoyant gas such as preferably helium or hydrogen, but possibly heated gases, making it a truly hybrid craft. This kind of configuration was researched by Aereon beginning in the 1960s and continuing until the 1980s. Several patent applications were filed, including a patent application filed in 1969.[1] The early development of the deltoid pumpkinseed aerobody was described in a John McPhee 1973 book.[2]

Design and development

The Dynairship was to be a very large ship, the conceptual designs showing it to form a large triangle, with small finlets at the back of either end.[1]

The proof-of-concept aircraft for the Dynairship was the Aereon 26. Following the apparent success of this project, Aereon's board voted unanimously to proceed with the Dynairship for civilian and commercial purposes.

Three proposed versions of the Dynairship were put forward:[3]

  • A "small patrol aircraft" 50 feet (15 m) long, with a gross weight of 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg)
  • A "medium-size cargo aircraft" 200 feet (61 m) long, with a gross weight of 270 long tons (270 t)
  • A "logistic carrier" 1,000 feet (300 m) long, with a gross weight of 4,200 long tons (4,300 t).

Original propulsion was stated in the patent to be four externally mounted propellers on the top of the body, with engine nacelles. In the 1991 patent, a glass cockpit can be seen at the front.[4] However, the Aereon corporation state that the design can be either manned or un-manned.[1]

A lack of funding ended the project. According to Aereon, the Department of Defense told Miller in 2003, "You were 30 years ahead of your time"![5]

When it turned out that building the Dynairship under Aereon at that time was financially impossible, Miller went on to design very similar craft for research in the military field. The job of building a prototype craft was given to Lockheed's L-TAV division, and the resulting craft was named the STOL-340.

Notes
  1. Aereon Corporation (February 2004). "Ultra-Large Airlifter". Archived from the original on 21 March 2011. Retrieved 24 April 2011.
  2. McPhee, J , The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 1973 ISBN 0-374-13781-1
  3. Miller, pp. 455–6.
  4. Google patents - Patent 5,034,751
  5. Aereon Corporation (February 2004). "Aereon 26". Archived from the original on 17 April 2011. Retrieved 24 April 2011.
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References
  • Miller, William McElwee Jr. (January 1975). "The Dynairship". In Joseph F. Vittek Jr. (ed.). Proceedings of the Interagency Workshop on Lighter than Air Vehicles. Cambridge: MIT Flight Transportation Laboratory. pp. 441–455.
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