Giant 'flying bum' airship back in the skies

The world’s biggest airship, dubbed the flying bum, has resumed flight testing after crashing on its second flight in 2016.

The Airlander 10, a 310-foot (94.5m) behemoth filled with 1.3 million cubic feet of helium and capable of reaching altitudes of 16,000ft, flew for 180 minutes on Wednesday.

It restarts a test program which began with a maiden flight on August 17, 2016, but was interrupted by a damaging nose-down “heavy landing’’ just seven days later.

Hybrid Air Vehicles, the company behind the giant airship,  is pitching the airship as an “ultra-stable, ultra-powerful and ultra-long endurance platform” that can stay airborne for as long as five days.

In addition to passenger and cargo flights, It envisages roles ranging from search and rescue to border control, filming and academic research.

The company says the new test drew a line under the widely publicised crash and comes after a number of modifications were introduced, including a manoeuvrable mobile mooring mast and additional “landing fleet’’ on the airship’s auxiliary landing system (ALS).

“It was truly amazing to be back in the air. I loved every minute of the flight and the Airlander itself handled superbly. I am eager to get back into the cockpit and take her flying again,” said chief test pilot Dave Burns.

The test program will be in three phases and will see the airship perform more tasks and fly further way from its UK base at Cardington. Subsequent flights are expected to be a week or two apart.

The company said the latest test had three objectives, including the safe completion of the test flight from take-off to landing.

It wanted to establish basic handling characteristics of the Airlander within a well-defined flight envelope, including assessment of the new landing system, and collect flight performance data for analysis.

It said the landing system performed as expected.