5/16/2023 0 Comments Zeplin balloonThe manufacturers have some Boeing-sized ambitions for this new age of the airship. Its job: heavy lifting in some of the toughest places on Earth. About the same time, a vast new airship the shape of a blue whale, at 150m the length of an A380 and as high as a 12-storey building should rise up above its assembly plant, out of the heat and humidity of Jingmen, China. The Airlander won’t be alone in the skies either. The giant hangar built for an Arctic airship.The men and women on board the Airlander are tourists on an $80,000 (£62,165) luxury experience rather than explorers. In four to five years, all being well, one of the first production models of the enormous Airlander airship dubbed “the flying bum” will be the first airship to fly to the North Pole since 1928. The good news is that soon, the real world may finally drift closer to Pullman’s fantasy. Another can be found flying over the Amazon. A few more are employed to fly well-heeled tourists on sight-seeing trips over the German countryside. Last year, a blimp demeaned itself by setting two world records, including one for the fastest text on a touch screen mobile phone while water skiing behind a blimp. A handful of smaller airships can be found flying proudly across the United States on promotional tours for brands like Goodyear and Carnival Cruise Line. When I put the books down the reality is rather disappointing. What was once my local post office in Oxford is in Pullman’s fantasy – a zeppelin station where I could catch the evening airship to London. The giant airships of his parallel universe carry the mail, transport soldiers into battle and explorers to the Arctic. Zeppelins fill the skies of Philip Pullman’s epic trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials.
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