Submarine-type airship prepares for first flight
A futuristic airship took its first tentative steps toward flight this month, floating up to 40 feet in the air inside one of the hulking blimp hangars in Tustin.
Many more tests are planned before the Aeroscraft – an ungainly zeppelin that mimics a submarine – can leave the hangar for its maiden flight, perhaps as soon as March.
But the initial trials show that Aeroscraft’s unique buoyancy system is functioning.
“We were able to prove that this technology works,” said Sadia Ashraf, spokeswoman for the ship’s maker, Worldwide Aeros Corp. of Montebello.
Worldwide Aeros is building the airship in a 17-story-tall, World War II-era blimp hangar at the former Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. The craft is a prototype for a fleet of airships that someday may ferry cargo around the globe more cheaply than cargo jets.
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