Airship Industries Skyship 500

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The Skyship 500 is a non-rigid airship designed and built in the United Kingdom during the 1980s.
The Skyship 500 was developed from the Aerospace Developments AD500, the sole example of which was effectively the prototype / technology demonstrator for the production Skyship 500.
With the formation of Airship Industries production of the Skyship 500 could commence and five further airships were produced.
The Skyship 500 consists of a polyester fabric envelope, retaining helium gas, and carrying a gondola for the control cabin, passenger cabin, propulsion systems and ballast (fixed and jettison-able). The envelope is of a traditional streamlined shape with cruciform tail surfaces which carry rudder and elevator control surfaces for yaw and pitch. The undercarriage consists of a castoring twin-wheeled oleo-pneumatic strut at the rear of the gondola, with ground handling ropes for ground crew to manoeuvre the airship on the ground. The nose-cone of the envelope also carries the mooring point which can connect to a mobile mooring mast.
The polyester fabric envelope is coated on the outside with Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) loaded Polyurethane to reduce Ultra-Violet degradation and lined with a Polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) film bonded to the fabric to minimise Helium (He) losses.
Most other structural components are produced from fibre-reinforced composite materials, to reduce weight, including Fibre-lam board used to build up the fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) tail surfaces and control surfaces.
The moulded FRP gondola houses the control cabin, passenger cabin, power-plant systems and ballast (both fixed and jettison-able). Large windows to the front and sides provide excellent visibility for crew and passengers seated on five individual seats and a three abreast bench seat at the rear. Support for the gondola comes from Kevlar cables inside the envelope.
Power for the Skyship 500 comes from two converted Porsche 930/10 engines inside the rear of the gondola driving the vectoring Hoffmann ducted reversible-pitch propellers through lateral drive-shafts and converted Westland Lynx tail-rotor gearboxes. The pilot and co-pilot seated at the front of the cabin have a full set of instruments and avionics and control the airship through yokes which operate the control surfaces though cables.
One of the five production airships was modified into a heavy payload version, designated Skyship 500 (HL), using a larger Skyship 600 envelope but carrying a Skyship 500 gondola.