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Newmarket Era Banner - November 19, 2002
Spheres Future Spies in the Sky?
By Roy Green
If Hokan Colting doesn't get the contract to build spy ships for the United States, he'll be quite content to revolutionize the worldwide telecommunications industry.
It sounds like a James Bond movie, but the man sitting at a desk in an office tucked away in Newmarket's industrial area has none of the British agent's swagger as he quietly talks about billion-dollar U.S. defence contracts and airships patrolling the stratosphere.
The founder and chief executive officer of 21st Century Airships, Mr. Colting's dreams may be sky-high, but his plans are solid as granite.
"We already have a verbal contract with an American company for high-altitude experiments with a telecommunications platform," he says. "This could eventually involve airships as big as a 26-storey building, stationed 20 miles above the earth."
"That this will replace cell phone towers is not only likely - it will happen," he adds. "It will revolutionize telecommunications, even television signals can be provided to rural area from above."
He spreads out a series of photos of his latest prototype, a 60-foot-diameter, helium-filled sphere powered by turbo-diesel and a hybrid electric system, which he routinely flies at 18,000 feet, more than five kilometres into the sky.
"If our tests in Arizona in December with this airship are favourable, the next step will be a 130-foot-diameter ship that reach into the stratosphere at 40,000 feet.
With the next breath, he moves to a computer to outline his company's other percolating project - a contract to provide a series of high-altitude airships as part of George W. Bush's Homeland Defence project
On the screen, under an American eagle and an illustration of blimps filling the skies around the United States, are listed some of the parameters of this defence contract. The successful unmanned airships must be able to hover 70,000 feet in the stratosphere, carrying a payload of 4,000 pounds of computers and cameras.
He shoves a newsletter across the desk - the November 7 issue of The Homeland Defence Journal, with the lead article headed 'Sensors in the Sky'.
"There's a lot of money in this project," he says. "The prototype alone is worth $100 million and the other bidders are all giant defence contractors: Lockheed Martin Aerospace, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman.
"The last meeting was November 5 in Washington and I can say we have the most mature technology, the best technology for the project. If we get it, it will really be a David and Goliath story."
"We actually had a call from Boeing asking if we were interested in teaming up with them, but I'd rather lose the contract than lose our freedom to innovate. You can't be innovative with a company like Boeing."
From his earliest glider flights and experiments with hot air balloons, innovation has always been critically important to Mr. Colting.
He was flying gliders in his native Sweden in 1974 when the first hot air balloon to arrive in that country captured his imagination.
"I thought it looked fantastic and I decided I was going to own one," he remembers. "I got one just for fun, but everywhere I went, people flocked around and I realized there was a lot of potential for sightseeing and advertising balloons."
He founded, and later sold, Thunder and Colt, which manufactures one-third of all the hot air balloons produced today.
He came to Newmarket in 1981 and continued his ballooning ways, operating five balloons for Re/Max real estate outlets in Ontario. Although the company was thriving, he saw too many limitations.
"Balloons are very restrictive. You need 22 people on the ground every time you go up or come down. I had a ride on the Goodyear blimp in 1978 and became interested in airships. But even there, the technology, the cigar-shaped blimps, are very limited."
In 1988, he created 21st century Airships as a research and development company.
"At first, we were just trying to improve on the blimp technology, but we became convinced that the round shape is better."
"It's a new kind of airship," he says, pointing out the nine prototypes he has built and flown, each one a little better than the last. "They're like stepping stones."
The fact there is no external gondola is an unusual aspect of the innovative airship.
Instead, the pilot or payload is contained in a cabin inside the sphere
"There are two envelopes; a load-bearing outside envelope containing the helium and an inner envelope."
He takes up paper and pencil to explain why the sphere is so much better than the cigar shaped version, using terms like air pressure, lift, expanding helium and altitude.
But the end result is, "The sphere is simply more volume efficient, doesn't need airflow to move, turns on a dime, holds it's position and moves up and down like a helicopter."
In short, the high-altitude version of the sphere is an ideal platform for telecommunications, environmental monitoring ... and surveillance.
A recent issue of Popular Mechanics carries a story, Return of the Battle Blimps.
"Operating at the edge of space, 21st Century Airships are the ultimate weapon in the war on international terrorism," it reads.
But the illustration accompanying the story depicts a sky full of giant blimps.
Not a sphere in sight.
"Of all the people competing for the defence project, we're the only one with a spherical airship," says Mr. Colting. "Everyone else continues to work with the outdated cigar shape. One of the people we talked to in the early stages of our development said, 'If your idea was any good, someone would already have done it.' That's the type of thinking we're up against."
"If only the military can understand the concept; without politics we should easily win the contract. But I'm realistic, all of these companies have ex-military types on board and they carry a lot of weight."
And if he doesn't get the defence contract?
"We'll just go ahead with the telecommunications plans. And we'll continue to do research and development."
"There will always be a strong research and development aspect to everything we do. Only companies and countries that spend on R&D will do well.
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