IEEE Spectrum is reporting the FAA has issued a special airworthiness certificate to allow Google founder Sergey Brin’s LTA Research to flight test a 400-foot-long hybrid-electric airship, Pathfinder 1, at Moffett Field near San Francisco. LTA has been building the massive aircraft, the largest since the Hindenburg, since 2015. A second larger airship, which is almost 600 feet long, is also under construction. When he started the company, Brin said the plan was to use the airships for humanitarian aid to remote areas.
The test airship has a welded titanium frame whose light weight allows the use of helium as the lifting gas rather than the much-more-temperamental hydrogen. It will have a gondola that can hold 14 people and it’s designed for single-pilot operations, although it has dual controls. Two 150-kilowatt generators supply power to 24 electric motors scattered over the airframe. After initial tethered tests, the airship will be flown within a restricted area no higher than 1,500 feet above San Francisco Bay. Brin bought Goodyear’s Airdock in Akron, Ohio, as the future manufacturing site for the airships.
