User:Sebread/AEREON Dynairship

Background
The Aereon Dynairship is a conceptual large hybrid airship developed by the Aereon Corporation.

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 rising gas such as hydrogen, making it a truly hybrid craft. This kind of configuration was researched by Aereon during the 1980's.

It's purpose would have been to supply a logistical and goods transport service to either civilian or military needs.

The concept and testing aircraft in preperation for the Dynairship was named Aereon 26. Following the apparent success of this test, showing the feasibility of the concept, the project went ahead. Aereon's board voted unanimously to continue building the Dynairship for civilian and commercial purposes.

However, when it came to building the much larger Dynairship, it was found that lack of financing made it impossible to build. The project was scrapped, and the Dynairship has still never been built. According to Aereon, the Department of Defence told Miller in 2003, "You were 30 years ahead of your time!

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

Original propulsion was stated in the patent to be four externally mounted propellers on the top of the body, with engine nacelles.

In the patent, a glass cockpit can be seen at the front. However, the Aereon corporation state that the design can be either manned or un-manned.

The huge design would have allowed enormous quantities of cargo to be transported over large distances.

Navy and Air Force research
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 subsequently built craft was named STOL-340.

Eyewitness accounts have revealed that the craft was enormous; and was anything from 475 to 600 feet long, and at the widest part, 400 feet wide. While the original patent had called for externally mounted propellors, Lockheed used silenced vectored turbofan engines.

The hull is said to have been ridged, and made out of a silica based composite, to prevent the craft being shot down by bullets.

Due to the craft's size, a huge cargo capability was apparent. If sizes reported are accurate, the vehicle could have easily carried a whole mechanised army division.

It is debatable whether research is still being undertaken today, and whether the military still views the concept as either financially or logistically feasible.