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Winnipeg Free Press, August 17, 2004
Report says province could lead airship industry
By Geoff Kirbyson
MANITOBA is in an ideal position to be a leader in the still-developing airship industry, but the window of opportunity won't be there forever, a new report from the University of Manitoba warns.
Barry Prentice, director of the Transport Institute at the I.H. Asper School of Business, said with the high costs of existing air transportation to the 70 per cent of Canada without all-weather roads and with global warming cutting the number of usable days for winter roads, the time is right to look at a cost-effective air solution.
"Airships are an enabling technology that can unlock the economic potential of northern Canada. Without effective transportation, the standard of living in the North will always be inferior to the more densely populated south," he wrote in his soon-to-be-released report, Economics of Airships for Northern Re-supply.
"Now we're in a position where we want to carry large loads by air to remote and inaccessible areas. You can't do that with an airplane without a big runway."
Prentice will present his paper to the 5th International Airship Convention at Oxford University in Oxford, England, on Friday.
He said with a campaign in the U.S. calling for a civilian fleet of airships that could be used by the military, it's no longer a case of if but when airships become a viable entity.
"The Americans are going to do something so there's an invitation for Canada to get on board. The technology seems destined to happen someplace. If we can be there early, maybe we can attract one or two manufacturers to set up here. Once an industry starts somewhere that's where it tends to stay," he said in an interview yesterday.
Ken Carr, executive director of the Manitoba Aerospace Association, said although he agrees airships make sense from a theoretical point of view, he's not as optimistic as Prentice about their future in practical terms.
He said airships are slow, they require "huge" hangars for storage in winter plus there's a lot of wind on the Prairies.
"That takes away from their practicality," he said in an interview.
Carr acknowledged that if the industry was to grow to a certain scale, it could be serviced by Manitoba expertise in engine repair and overhaul, composite materials and cold-weather testing.
"The concept has to take off and it's got to make sense from a business perspective," he said.
Prentice said 80 years ago, airships able to carry 100-tonne passenger loads regularly made trips across the Atlantic.
He said he isn't afraid to mention the Hindenburg -- one of the highest-profile aerospace disasters of all time, despite only 35 fatalities -- as an example showing the technology works.
(The Hindenburg crashed in a spectacular blaze in New Jersey in 1937.)
"Anybody who knows the history of airships knows it was the Hindenburg's skin that caught fire and nobody is talking (today) of using hydrogen as a lifting gas. At any given moment, there are 30 to 40 blimps flying anywhere in the world. They're very safe vehicles," he said.
"Two-thirds of the people on the Hindenburg survived. If that happened in an aircraft today, you'd think it was a miracle."
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