As you can see, my airship design has reached a much more advanced stage.  I will be constructing a balsa/lightweight plastic 20' flight test test model in my 2 car garage over the winter.  Once the airframe passes some tests not conducted in a computer generated wind tunnel then hopefully it will be on to building an even bigger one.  This finished Colossus will measure 160' in overall length and 72' wide for the airframe and she'll stand 118' from the strut to the main rudder. 

Powered by 12 electric 6 blade vectored thrust props which will be able to steer the craft in something like the airship version of three rectangular arducopters bolted to each other.  Not only will the housings pivot to allow more stable ascent/descent, the props also pivot out  within the housing to allow lateral thrust capibilities.She'll be very maneuverable, and computer testing indicates the airframe will capable of some new maneuvers previously unknown to rigid and semi-rigid airframes such as lateral crabbing,  and pivoting in a full 360 ciricle on her center-point within her own shiplength while making a vertical ascent or descent. This is a design change which can enable much safer landings and take-offs in windy conditions and perhaps prevent the pilot error which led to the hindenburg diaster from ever happening again.

The connection pylons between the main hull and the flight nacelles are airfoils which have air current forced over them by the forward engines.  This adds to the lift and stability of the craft allowing it to reach higher speeds than have previously been attained by similar craft, and is one of the design features which should enable it to perform some fairly impressive maneuvers once in the air. 

The main hull is semi-rigid with a pressurized envelope, similar to the Zeppelin-NT, however with a different internal framing configuration (obviously such would be necessary) and the flight nacelles have a lightweight rigid configuration with semi-pressurized helium cells.

She will be able to be operated fully autonomously, remotely operated by a single pilot wile the drones operate autonomously, or the gondola can easily be reconfigured to allow a single pilot to physically control the vessel if desired.  The gondola also houses the auxilliary electric generator to allow for operation in a cloudy environment or if the solar electric system fails for whatever reason. 

The battery banks providing power to each of the engine-pairs are located amidships and each nacelle is independently powered and recharged.  The odd pattern of the solar cells are based on the weight of the lightweight flexible amorphous panels I could find information on.  That pattern represents the best weight distribution to be able to achieve independent powering.

The drone launch and recovery system, mechanically, will be very similar to the original system designed for the USS Macon, Akron, and Los Angeles.  However the drones will have cradle supports which lower fore and aft (not detailed in these photos, nor is the drone fuselage configuration to enable launch/recovery)

She's carrying 8 scaled down lightweight electric versions of the MQ-1 which are recharged by the on-board solar system.  The drone wingspan is 18 feet.  It is capable of carry drones with up to a 24' wingspan and gross weight of 350 lbs per plane. and obviously the system could be reconfigured to accomodate smaller craft.  The way it works is really cool.  The craft are stored so close together that instead of having a lowering design for launch, I worked it in to the craft are stored at different distances from the hull.  The fore and aft drones are stowed 7" lower than the amidships drones. 

The drone launch process will have to occur in a paired sequence for balance purposes, and the thrust configuration greatly stabilizes the craft and makes her a lot easier to balance, so the stowage level only makes it easier to conduct the launch sequence and it keeps the drones closest to the most balanced point.  Once all the drones are away, the launch/recovery hooks raise up into the rigid hull of the flight nacelle and are kept close to the hull to increase aerodynamics.  When it is time to recover the craft, the L/R trapeze descends to its full length to allow recovery of in-flight craft after others have already bee recovered.

The on-board sensor package is pretty modular actually.  You can do a lot with this airship configuration.  I have hard mounted fore and aft gimbals on the main hull and amdships gimbals on each flight nacelle.  The bay in the main hull is also a sensor bay and acess panel.  Fuel stowage for the auxilliary generator is in wing tankage in the two airfoils and the ship will carry approximately 4-8 hours worth of fuel currently, but more fuel storage can be added.

Unfortunately the laws of physics concerning rigid and semi-rigid airships dictate that the 20' model will be able to lift it's own airframe and that's about it.  I should be able to include a single mini-cam on a gimbal but that's really it.  She won't be able to carry a functional payload until she's at least 80' in overall length and even then we're talking some pretty small (under 100 lb each) planes. 

I'll post more photos and stuff as they are generated and more news on this project and how it's going.  Till then.  Happy Flying!

Hello diydrones, my name is Wesley and I'm an airship designer. Most of my work is in manned thermal dirigibles, but I am also working on traditional gas lifted designes as well. There is another member here, Ahmed, who has inspired me to post my own blog on this sublject as he has developed a bungee activated rail-launch system for HTA (Heavier-than-Air) Drones which I believe is the key ingredient in my LTA UAV concept.

The project I'm working on now is called "Colossus" and will be a three-hulled hybrid Unmanned Hybrid Dirigible. The primary hull will contain a surveillance suite of it's own as well as all shipborne telemetry systems. The primary hull is capable of independent flight without the two outrigger nacelles, which are called "flight nacelles".

The Flight Nacelles will have a rail based launching system in the forward section of the nacelle and will have 4 HTA Drones with an 8' wingspan clipped on to the launcher at the time of the Colossus lift-off. They can be deployed while in flight, and will be recovered at the aft of the flight nacelle where automatic refueling/recharging systems will be placed. Once refueled/recharged, the trapeze which holds the drone to the Flight Nacelle moves forward and the craft is once again ready for deployment.

The Colossus, when complete, will be able to launch 6 HTA Drones at a time.

Now, I'm sure most of you are asking "Well what in the name of Jefferson Davis would make you want to launch a UAV from a 'blimp?'" Good question.

UAV's are aircraft just like any other. With limitations. Particularly on distance and range. In a military or law enforcement setting, you can't always get a UAV into place cheaply. Sometimes the unit has to be flown overseas and operated from a FOB in or near a combat zone. The UAV's at the base are open to attack, and once the drone base is discovered and compromised, you often have to bug out to a different location.

In Law Enforcement it is even more difficult because there is often only one drone available for use which can rearely cover enough area to be operationally effective in a reasonable amount of time. It's even harder if the drone needs to be transported to a different part of the state to allow for operation.

The Colossus project is primarily designed for Law Enforcement and Counter-Insurgency/Counter-Terrorism purposes. It will allow up to 12 HTA Drones to be placed in a given area of operation about 20,000 feet up. The Airship, powered by solar, parks itself in station-keeping above the AO, and the drones are deployed from the sky. This gives less time and opportunity for them to be shot down. It also removes a ground-based launch facility from the equation. At 60', the Colossus will have a very small radar signature, and can be coated with radar absorbtive substances for Military use....criminals and terrorists generally don't have radar.

Of course, this will be more than just a RC Blimp and a few RC Airplanes. The Dirigible itself would have to have a crew to operate all the systems on board. A Helmsman for steering, a Stablizer to operate elevators and control ballast and gas release, a port and starboard side Flight Boss who each control the launch and recovery of the HTA Drones, releasing docking clamps, monitoring the approach control cameras, and a shipboard sensor operator to run the airships on-board surveillance systems. A true team effort. Then there would be one pilot for each drone in the sky.

The Flight Nacelles will be fitted with an amidships mounted camera system which can monitor the drones on the launch rails, as well as monitor the drones progress and provide direction to the drone pilot during the recovery procedures. The launch and recovery will operate much in the same way as they did on the giant flying aircraft carriers of the last century (USS Los Angeles, USS Macon, USS Shennandoah), and the craft will have an extremely long range and can stay parked in s-k for a long time.

While the little drones go off to take regular or IR pictures and video, the Colossus can have more sophisiticated systems on board such as ground penetrating radar and other more sophisticated surveillance systems that have thus far unable to be mounted on small UAV's. I once heard a friend of mine who worked with military stuff say; "If you can fit it on a satellite, you can fit it in an aerostat (unmanned unpowered surveillance blimp). So while the drones are away on their mission, the Colossus can also continue to provide surveillance support of it's own rather than simply being a launch/recovery platform.

If only the airship's systems are needed for a given operation, the Flight Nacelles will be able to be removed to allow the airship to fly as an independent unit.

Where am I, exactly, in this project? Farther than you might think. I have the designs worked out. The HTA Drone launch and recovery systems are still on the drawing board, but a prototype "proof-of-concept" airframe should be completed by this time next year. I'll be sewing the envelope for the main hull this winter and will be constructing a much smaller (20') flight capable model to test airframe performance as well. The test frame will use weighted bags of water to simulate the weight of HTA Drones to test flight characteristics prior to and immediately after launch...IE, how to rebalance an unmanned LTA-UAV on the fly. It will be using air as ballast in ballonets mounted under the primary lifting ballonets in 6 places throughout the hull structure and can dump and refill in flight.

To answer your next question, no I don't have any help. Doing it all by myself right now. This blog represents a very VERY short verbal summary of a project that I have been working on for 3 years now. I only just recently discovered this website when I was researching HTA Drones to determine which would be the best for my design.

Any help, advice, design suggestions or encouragement are more than welcome. I understand that there is still a great hatred of airships as a result of the mistakes we made in the last century, but even the Hindenburg crash was a result of pilot error, not the fact that hydrogen was the lifting gas. The Macon crashed due to a design flaw in the tail-section (it was an unworkable design to begin with and we wasted our money on it and should have stuck with Eckener's designs for the Zeppelin tail section). It is because of our own mistakes and shortsightedness that airship research and development stalled almost entirely for 80 years.

Now it is a new Century. Hopefully it will bring a new Revolution in Airship design and manufacturing.

The areas that I particularly need help with are in the launch/recovery design systems. Creating the lightest weight system possible which is still sturdy enough to provide years of service. This will require a fairly complex servo control system to accomplish, I also have -literally- NO experience in adapting telemetry systems, but I do know that the ship itself will have to have a flight-telemetry system, but the Flight Nacelles will also have to have a system on board that can monitor the speed and whatnot of incoming HTA Drones for approach control purposes in addition to the cameras which will give the Flight Boss a visual reference of the progress of the landing drone.

Once I figure out how to post images here where I want them, then I will put up copies of the designs as they stand now. I'm using google skethcup to create the first models....everything else is on paper (I'm kinda old school like that, but then again...I am an airship designer..how old school is that).

Anyway...Hope you enjoyed this and I look forward to hearing from all of you.