The Aereon Dynairship is a conceptual large hybrid airship

Hybrid airship

"A hybrid airship is an aircraft that combines characteristics of heavier-than-air technology, fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter, and lighter-than-air , aerostat technology."[1]Examples include helicopter/airship hybrids intended for heavy lift applications and dynamic lift airships intended for...

 developed by the Aereon Corporation

AEREON

AEREON is an aircraft manufacturer specialising in unique hybrid airships. It was founded in Princeton, New Jersey in 1959....

 for civilian and military cargo transport.

It is one of Aereon's lifting body

Lifting body

A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage with little or no conventional wing...

 airship concepts, where a craft without a conventional "wing" generates lift by itself. It would have also have been filled with rising gas such as hydrogen

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...

, making it a truly hybrid craft. This kind of configuration was researched by Aereon during the 1980s. However, a patent was filed in 1969.

Design and development

The Dynairship was to be a very large ship, the conceptual designs showing it to form a large triangle, with small finlets at the back of either end.

The proof-of-concept aircraft for the Dynairship was the Aereon 26

AEREON 26

The AEREON 26 was an experimental aircraft developed to investigate lifting body design with a view to using its shape to create hybrid designs, part airship, part conventional aircraft...

. Following the apparent success of this project, Aereon's board voted unanimously to proceed with the Dynairship for civilian and commercial purposes.

Three proposed versions of the Dynairship were put forward:

• A "small patrol aircraft" 50 feet (15.2 m) long, with a gross weight of 4000 pounds (1,814.4 kg)
• A "medium-size cargo aircraft" 200 feet (61 m) long, with a gross weight of 270 long tons (274.3 t)
• A "logistic carrier" 1000 feet (304.8 m) long, with a gross weight of 4200 long tons (4,267.4 t).

Original propulsion was stated in the patent to be four externally mounted propellers on the top of the body, with engine nacelles. In the 1991 patent, a glass cockpit can be seen at the front. However, the Aereon corporation state that the design can be either manned or un-manned.

A lack of funding ended the project. According to Aereon, the Department of Defence told Miller in 2003, "You were 30 years ahead of your time"!

Navy and Air Force research

When it turned out that building the Dynairship under Aereon at that time was financially impossible, Miller went on to design very similar craft for research in the military field. The job of building a prototype craft was given to Lockheed's

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company is a major unit of Lockheed Martin with headquarters at Fort Worth, Texas.Lockheed Martin Aeronautics is also based in Marietta, Georgia and Palmdale, California. Palmdale is home to the Advanced Development Programs , informally known as the "Skunk Works"...

L-TAV division, and the resulting craft was named the STOL-340.