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Blimp Soars to Record in Alberta Skies, Calgary Hearald, June 17, 2003
By Randy Boswell
A Canadian blimp maker claims to have set a new world record for airship altitude after soaring 6,600 metres above southern Alberta in an experimental craft that's being studied in the United States for use as a floating, stratospheric spy station and commercial telecommunication "stratellite".
Hokan Colting, president of Newmarket, Ont.-based 21st Century Airships, says the record-setting flight was conducted Thursday as part of a test regimen for perfecting his company's unique, ball-shaped blimp which two pilots can occupy seats within the helium-filled bubble.
The blimp, 19 metres in diameter and steered wit small propellers powered by a hybrid-electric engine, made its ascent in a rural area near Drumheller.
"We needed somewhere where there wasn't too much air traffic," said Colting, who received clearance for the flight from Transport Canada. "It couldn't have gone any better."
Colting said the only real hitch was the cold. He figures it was either the cool temperature at the height of the flight or the 10 hours spent breathing oxygen through a mask that left him with a mild case of laryngitis.
He was accompanied by his mechanic and co-pilot Tim Buss, who has joined Colting - a 59-year-old native of Sweden - on several other test flights.
The Geneva-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale currently lists Brian Boland, a U.S. blimp designer who also runs a hot-air balloon business in Vermont, as the world record holder. In 1988, he took an airship 5,667 metres above Luxembourg - an altitude of five kilometres. Colting's altitude, if confirmed, would be about seven kilometres.
Mary Anne Stevens, an official with the Canadian Balloon Association in Ottawa, said the new altitude record hasn't been validated but adds that a monitor from the organization had been appointed to observe the flight and that she is "99.9-per-cent" certain the record has been achieved if Colting says so.
She explained the distinction between balloons and airships is that the airships - such as the Goodyear Blimp or the ill-fated Hindenburg - can be steered, while balloons simply drift with the wind.
Hot-air balloons have, in the past, achieved much greater heights than blimps, even hitting altitudes of 33,000 metres. But Colting says his latest feat is just "one more step" en route to a planned 80-metre-wide helium filled, unmanned airship that could rise to 24,000 metres and remain above the Earth for a year or more.
The U.S. military, which has been investigating the feasibility of creating a network of "spy blimps" to patrol the country's airspace, held meetings with colting last year in Washington to discuss his design. And U.S. telecommunications company Sanswire has been in talks with Colting about using stratospheric airships as a mid-altitude, signal relaying platform to replace satellites or building-top towers.
Colting says that last week, after achieving his prime objective of setting a new altitude record for all styles of airships, he and buss decided to use their craft to try to beat the distance record of 374 kilometres for blimps of that size category and type of lift.
They were eventually forced to set down near Swift Current, Sask., about 12 kilometres short of the record, because they'd promised transport officials they'd land before sunset.
"A lot of people were there watching," says Colting, "and some wondered if it was a UFO."
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