Lockheed Martin Lands First Deal For Its Hybrid Airship – Straightline Aviation Buys A Dozen Blimps At $480 Million

Lockheed Martin is about to sell a dozen of its “hybrid airships.” A British aviation company has signed a letter of intent to procure the blimps for $480 million. These advanced floating dirigibles have the ability to reach far-off regions and land anywhere while silently traveling and saving a lot of fuel as compared to conventional aircraft.

The commercial future of the airships is set to begin once again. Aviation giant and defense contractor Lockheed Martin has signed its first contract to supply its indigenously developed hybrid airships. Twelve of them will be sold to Straightline Aviation (SLA). The companies have signed a letter of intent for the blimps, the first of which are expected to be inducted in the first-of-its-kind fleet of dirigibles in less than two years. The last of the hybrid airships that will complete the fleet is expected to be delivered before 2021.

Straightline Aviation, a British company, was established last year solely to own and operate the airships. The company intends to operate these airships for its clients, who mostly include oil, gas, and mining companies, reported Reuters.

Why are hybrid airships being used for oil, gas, and mining companies? Currently, the majority of the sites where the exploration for these fossil fuels is being conducted are located in fairly accessible regions. However, soon these sites will extinguish. Before that happens, companies need to find new locations that have dependably large reserves, and the only places where there are chances of finding these reserves are in highly inaccessible regions. Such difficult-to-reach regions were previously avoided owing to the extensive costs and risks involved, but soon they will have to be explored.

The hybrid airships make reaching these tough regions possible. The companies that will eventually use these blimps will deploy them to haul cargo and freight to remote areas. Besides exploring new regions, oil companies are struggling to make exploration cheaper as the price of oil drops, shared Mark Dory, chief operating officer of Straightline Aviation.

Some of the first regions where we might see these airships floating is in the Arctic, where there are no roads or other supporting infrastructure. Using these dirigibles will significantly bring down the costs and risks involved in transporting heavy cargo and personnel, shared SLA CEO Mike Kendrick.

“There is a real need for this. It can cost up to $1 billion to put the entire infrastructure in for an oil well. Falling commodity prices have not hurt interest in the airships — quite the opposite, given the cost savings — and U.K.-based SLA has four or five customers ready to try out the airships whenever they’re finally ready.”

The hybrid airship, made by Lockheed Martin and sold by Atlanta-based Hybrid Enterprises, is essentially a huge blimp. The first airship, christened LMH-1, is 300 feet long and 78 feet tall. At 21 metric tons, the airship is certainly heavy, but it is being built to ferry truck-size loads to highly inaccessible regions. Lockheed Martin confirmed the airships will be able to carry a total weight of 47,000 pounds, or roughly its own weight, of cargo. With a carrying capacity of just 19 passengers, the airship isn’t exactly meant to ferry people.

These hybrid airships can land on any flat terrain, be it land, snow, and water. The company claims the blimps can hover over open water. The advanced air-cushion landing system allows the dirigible to grip the ground like a suction cup, reported the Los Angeles Times. The potential customers will be happy to note the operating costs of these blimps is quite low, and they have a much lesser impact on the environment as compared to conventional aircraft of similar capacity.

[Image via YouTube Screen Grab]