Aeroscraft Shows Off Its Giant Airship

Dragon Dream Outside Hangar

Dragon Dream Outside Hangar

Aeroscraft Corporation

Lighter than air vehicles are, for the most part, relics of a distant past. The first Zeppelin age ended with cries of “oh, the humanity.” One problem of the Hindenburg was its reliance on flammable hydrogen, but modern airships take advantage instead of inert helium for buoyancy. Despite the past century of flight mostly belonging to airplanes and helicopters, there’s been a slight resurgence of dirigibles this century. Not least among them is the Dragon Dream, by the Aeroscraft Corporation. This is only half the size of their planned airship, and look how huge it is:

Dragon Dream With People

Dragon Dream With People

Aeroscraft Corporation

Rather than the slow-moving luxury cruisers of old, the Aeroscraft is a working vehicle designed to carry 66 tons of cargo reliably to parts of the world without runways. The 555-foot-long craft is at a design freeze. Aeroscraft thinks they have the vehicle they want, and to meet deadlines on time, they’re going to stop tinkering with the design and just make the dang thing.

Here’s what it looks like in concept:

Aeroscraft Remote Delivery Concept

Aeroscraft Remote Delivery Concept

Aeroscraft Corporation

The Aeroscraft is just one of a small new world of gigantic lumbering dirigibles. In 2013, the U.S. Army canceled its LEMV surveillance zeppelin, but the project has since been revived in the United Kingdom as a working machine, and Goodyear is looking at replacing its soft-bodied blimps with more durable rigid airframes.

[General Aviation News]

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Washington state fines a crowdfunding project for stiffing backers

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Regulators have already started clamping down on crowdfunding fraud, but they’re now getting those project creators to pay up when they leave backers hanging. Washington state has ordered Ed Polchlopek III to pay a total of $54,841 in fines and restitution after he dropped his Kickstarter project, Asylum Playing Cards, without offering refunds. That’s a hefty payout when the entire project raised just $25,146, only a small amount of which ($668) came from Washington-based contributors. Clearly, the state is as much interested in sending a message as compensating those who were left high and dry.

The punishment didn’t garner much attention when the state dished it out in July, so it’s hard to say that this legal action will serve as a deterrent in the near term. However, it does lay the groundwork for future penalties that could alter the crowdfunding landscape. We’ve sadly seen numerous instances where projects not only failed, but left supporters in the lurch. If enough of these fraudsters are forced to pay up, you may encounter fewer sketchy funding drives in the future.

[Image credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

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Via: Polygon

Source: Washington State Attorney General

Tags: crowdfunding, fraud, government, internet, kickstarter, washington

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