Airlander 10, world’s longest aircraft dubbed the ‘flying bum’, is being retired
- UK firm behind plane-airship hybrid says it will ‘rethink the skies’ to build new model
A prototype of the world’s longest aircraft, dubbed the “flying bum”, will not be rebuilt but engineers are set to “rethink the skies” with a production-ready model.
Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), the UK-based company that created Airlander 10, has already received Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approval, and it is hoped the new airship model will take to the skies by the early 2020s.
“Our focus is now entirely on bringing the first batch of production-standard, type-certified Airlander 10 aircraft into service with customers,” said Stephen McGlennan, the company’s chief executive.
“The prototype served its purpose as the world’s first full-sized hybrid aircraft, providing us with the data we needed to move forward from prototype to production-standard. As a result, we do not plan to fly the prototype aircraft again.”
The Airlander 10 prototype undertook six test flights, some of which ended in chaos, but the company stressed it was their decision not to rebuild the aircraft, saying it had done its job, successfully completed final testing and gathered an immense amount of data in the process.