Cargolifter zeppelin
This must be one of the riskiest projects ever to capture the imagination of German investors, but with 150 top engineers from 16 countries working on it, there is no doubting the seriousness of the venture. Cargolifter shares jumped from 13 euros (11.98), to more than 25 euros, within. The idea of a modern zeppelin was easy and appealing to describe. The $110m raised in Tuesday's flotation will fund the prototypes - to be built in a huge hanger which is currently nearing completion. Its gleaming hangar is a photographers dream. Large machinery such as turbine generators could be delivered to the remotest locations with minimal disruption.Īlongside industrial backers such as Siemens, 16,000 mostly private shareholders have already invested in the project, even though it will be at least two years before the first test flight. Its backers say it will have a range of 10,000 km - easily able to cross the Atlantic.īut the key to its success will be technology enabling the airship to lift and lower cargoes without touching down. The airship will be twice the volume of the original Zeppelin and use inert helium gas instead of flammable hydrogen. CargoLifter built the worlds largest free-standing building, big enough to hold 14 Boeing 747s, for its prototype CL-75 airship. The Cargolifter, as this latest version will be known, was the idea of a German industry commission set up to find new ways of carrying huge unwieldy loads around the world. Not since the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 have airships been seriously considered as a viable form of commercial transport. Standing at nearly 400 feet tall and 1,000 feet long, it was designed to hold the massive balloons for cargo and travel. The stock market launch comes 63 years after the Hindenburg, one of the original passenger-carrying Zeppelins, burst into flames over America. Then Cargolifter arrived in the 1990s and built a new massive hangar. CargoLifter - Ein Misserfolg mit schlummerndem Technologiepotential Kristin Bartsch & Jan-Michael Ro Chapter 9328 Accesses Zusammenfassung Ferdinand Graf Zeppelin gilt als Pionier einer langen Geschichte der Luftschiffe, die Ende des 19. The airship will be so big, say its designers, that it will be able to lift the equivalent of 10 fully-loaded trucks. Whereas the CargoLifter airship would lower a load platform that contained ballast tanks to be filled on the ground, the FLYING WHALES design envisions. The company, CargoLifter AG, based on a former Soviet airfield near Berlin, intends to reinvent the Zeppelin as a modern form of freight transport. In one of the most unusual share offerings ever seen, a German company that plans to make giant airships is launching on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Tuesday. By Europe business correspondent Patrick Bartlett