PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - AirLander take off then 2nd Flight Mishap
Old 27th Aug 2016, 17:27
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A Squared
 
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Originally Posted by RAT 5
When is it going to do an Atlantic crossing; a Pacific crossing and a round the world non-stop? They would sure gain some publicity (hopefully positive) and the R&D gained would be huge. But then again, you wouldn't try it unless it was a 95% certainty.
If you read the history of this device, it was once scheduled to do some of that/ Back when it was still a US DoD project with Northrup Grumman, it was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan under it's own power. That was determined to be a bad idea, and the plan was changed to shipping it deflated to Afghanistan. Then sometime later the whole thing was scrapped completely. An a related note, it's a bit odd that this is being touted as the "first flight". The Airlander flew back in 2012 when it was called HAV304, and yeah, it's physically the same airframe.
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