The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed by John McPheeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
AEREON is an aircraft manufacturer specializing in unique hybrid airships. It was founded in Princeton, New Jersey in 1959 and produced many models and prototypes up to 1971. The AEREON 26 and 7 are highlighted here. Each 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. It was powered by a piston engine, driving a pusher propeller, and generated lift through the aerodynamics of its lozenge-shaped fuselage without wings. Although results of flight tests conducted in 1971 were promising, funding for larger and semi-buoyant aircraft was not forthcoming at the time, largely the result of some mysterious brakes put on by the SEC.
The Hindenburg exploded, in part, because a US embargo on exporting helium to Nazi Germany forced them to use the more dangerous hydrogen. This put a chilling effect on lighter than error craft. However, those 13 passengers that unfortunately died then were the sum total of all airship passenger deaths. These craft require a resource (helium) largely located in the U.S. and take a small percentage of fuel to move forward compared to heavier than air planes, let along large ships. Green, fueled by the USA, and safe - do I have something here this country could get behind?
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