Dirigible airship offers freight delivery for hard-to-reach locations

CALIFORNIA-based Airship Ventures aims to launch its Zeppelin up Alaska's Inside Passage to Anchorage by June 2013 once it acquires joint venture partnerships.

The company founded in 2007 bases its Zeppelin NT (new technology) in an airship hangar in Moffett Field, San Francisco operated by NASA. Its work fits with NASA's ongoing initiative for "green aviation" as an aircraft that uses less greenhouse gases than a cargo jet, said NASA director of Ames Research Centre Pete Worden.

"Airships appear to us to be an industry about to take off," he added, cited a report from West Perth-based MICEBTN magazine on the company, which seeks potential sponsors of cruise ship providers.

It has already launched its 246-foot airship Eureka on flights over Long Beach for up to 12 passengers and through sponsorship it is keen to support companies which operate in hard to reach areas such as mining, petroleum and for disaster emergency services.

As a non-intrusive platform it can also serve documentary makers observing wildlife, one of the possible joint venture partners.