Dynalifter hybrid airship to test-fly this year

By JOHN G. WHITACRE
The Review

The Dynalifter is ready.

“We finished the world’s first manned hybrid airship,” said Brian Martin, co-president, along with Robert Rist, of Ohio Airships.

Construction of the Dynalifter, which combines elements of a rigid airplane and a blimp, started in 2004 and was completed last summer. Barber Airport owner Forrest Barber did a taxi test in September, and the craft is ready for its test flight.

Helium bags inside an aluminum frame provide half the lift. The Dynalifter lifts like a blimp but is easier to take off and land. “This allows us to get rid of the air crew,” said Rist. “A blimp takes 15.”

“Blimps, they’re really impractical for anything other than advertising and sightseeing,” said Martin. “But they are highly fuel efficient.”

The ship won’t float away, but the helium reduces usage of fuel that in traditional airplanes is used for both forward movement and lift. Fuel in the Dynalifter is used mainly for forward motion.

CGS Aviation Hawk ultralight wings are mounted midbody, and canards, the front wings, work in differential with the tail, lifting the front as the tail pushes down.

The tail and wing unit was custom made, and the cockpit is a Titan Aviation Tornado two-seat ultralight assembly. During testing, the second seat, which has controls for a copilot or for training, won’t be used.

“This is one-eighth scale of the freighters,” said Rist. “Between the cockpit and landing gear will be a cargo bay. The cargo bay will be as big as this hangar. The cargo bay will be 40 feet wide by 20 feet tall by 150 feet long.”

“Zeppelins were built that large in the 1930s,” said Martin. “It’s technologically not impossible.”

“This world is missing a form of transportation,” he said. “The mode was cauterized; people gave up because of the Hindenburg.”

“We’ve been focused on heavy-lift freight,” said Martin, but Ohio Airships could start with smaller freight ships and work up to larger freighters. “This one could carry freight, just not as much. We could begin production of small freighters in a year.”

“Most of the world’s land and population don’t have the road system that we have,” said Martin. Roads, not trucks, are the stumbling block to movement of freight in many countries, because roads require an enormous investment. The Dynalifter solves that problem with what Ohio Airships calls “roadless trucking.”

“The ability to land on short runways with large cargo bays can change the economics of some countries,” said Rist.

“We’re not taking on trucks,” he said. “Trucks can’t cross the ocean.”

Rist said the tundra of Canada prevents the building of roads and train tracks, and environmentalists oppose roads into wilderness areas - one access road leads to many more.

Roadless trucking would provide assistance in situations such as those following Hurricane Katrina.

“We’ve been hit by natural disasters. The major problem with response is the destruction of roads. They had the supplies,” said Martin.

“We’ve had high interest from the military,” said Rist. The Pentagon, he said, is interested in the Dynalifter as a replacement for pre-positioned Army supplies. Depots must occupy land in foreign countries, and they commit the United States to battles in specific places.

“Pre-positioning requires us to commit,” said Martin. “You can’t back down.”

“Dynalifter allows you to get away from that pre-positioning,” said Rist. “If there’s ever a huge conflict, they would go after the pre-positioning first. Air Force C17s only move themselves; they don’t move the Army. The Navy does, and the Navy is slow.”

“Dynalifter is a deterrent to nations, because we can respond quickly,” said Martin.

Rist and Martin have been to the Pentagon many times, starting in August 2001, but now are represented by Agilecast Inc., whose CEO, Mark Gay, a colonel, has talked to two-star generals about Dynalifter.

“He knows their lingo,” said Rist.

Dynalifter had its origins at Mount Union College.

Martin’s marketing professor, whom Martin called “a gem,” had worked in the business world and told his students to sit on their textbooks.

“He said the next Bill Gates is going to come from the shipping world,” and Martin sat forward wide-eyed while most students were yawing with boredom.

Rist worked at Mount Union at the time and approached Martin with his idea for “the next big thing.”

“Every smart person said, ‘You’ll shoot your eye out,’” said Martin, but he and Rist were undeterred, possessing the patient perseverance of Edison after the light bulb. “The greatest virtue is persistence, keeping at it over and over again,” he said.

Ohio Airships is not alone in the quest for a hybrid airship, but it’s the only company past the PowerPoint phase.

“Other companies are starting to copy us,” said Rist.

“They’re trying to wrap their minds around it; we’ve been consumed with it for six years,” said Martin.

“The next step is to get this aircraft to a practical flight,” said Rist. “That could take a while.”

“Once it’s at practical flight then we’ll go into the different missions of the aircraft,” he said. Besides military and commercial uses, the Dynalifter could be used by emergency crews.

A firefighting coordinator in Canada was interested in the Dynalifter, which could coat trees slowly in front of a fire, whereas an airplane flies by too quickly. The Dynalifter could coat leaves with 40,000 gallons of retardant, the equivalent of 1,000 runs by an airplane.

Rist and Martin envision direct benefits for the Alliance area if a paved runway of sufficient length were built.

“It could produce 500 jobs just to build the prototype,” said Rist. “Those aren’t slouch jobs; they’re engineering, high-end jobs. The Dynalifter would provide a huge amount of development as far as jobs.”

Meanwhile, the Dynalifter awaits the proper weather conditions.

“The sod should either be frozen or dried out,” said Barber who did a taxi test in September, traveling about 600 feet. Wind should be calm, with no precipitation, eliminating those extra variables and allowing the crew to cope only with aerodynamics.

Barber has flown airplanes most of his life and will test-fly the Dynalifter, which is like nothing he’s flown.

“It was lighter than I thought, more agile,” he said. He couldn’t compare it to the largest airplane he has flown, a Piper 12-seater, because it’s much bigger but much lighter.

“It’s a huge aircraft that doesn’t weigh as much.”

On the Web: www.dynalifter.com