The Lightship Group

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The "Spirit of Europe II", operated for Goodyear.

The Lightship Group describes itself as the world's largest operator of airships . (As of early 2005)

Company history

In 1987 the American Blimp Corporation (ABC) was founded by Jim Thiele, who came up with the concept of lightships. In 1988 the prototype of the A-50 was built.

A first of a total of four airships was purchased in 1990 by Virgin Lightships Inc , a subsidiary of the Virgin Group , after it was founded in 1989 to operate these ships. It was the A-60 prototype, which was built in Hillsboro / Oregon and which was handed over to Virgin after its FAA certification. In 1991 this model was upgraded to the Lightship A-60 + by increasing the hull volume to 1926 m³ (68,000 cft).

Lightship America was founded in 1993 as a subsidiary of ABC and an airship operator. It began operations with the first of three A-60 + airships.

Two years later, in 1995, The Lightship Group (TLG) was formed as a partnership between Virgin Lightships and Lightship America. It then had a total of seven A-60 + airships with offices in Orlando / Florida and Telford / Great Britain.

The first nine-passenger Lightship A-150 was built in 1997 and certified by the FAA. It had been commissioned as a flagship by the Sanyo North America Corporation.

With the further expansion of TLG in the late 1990s, offices were also opened in Rio de Jainero in 1998 and Singapore in 1999.

In October 1993 an A-60 + lightship went into operation for the MetLife company as an advertising medium (“Snoopy I”), followed in February 1994 by a second MetLife blimp (“Snoopy II”).

Flying Pictures Live Ltd, a collaboration between TLG and Flying Pictures, Ltd (Great Britain), was formed in 2000 in order to be able to offer aerial recordings and the broadcast of major events with TLG's global airship fleet.

In the same year on January 19, 2000, an A60 + airship in Staffordshire / England set an absolute FAI speed record for airships of all classes with 92.8 km / h . It was only broken on October 27, 2004 by a Zeppelin NT , which reached 111 km / h and was piloted by the American aviation pioneer Steve Fossett . From October to November 2000 an A60 + airship helped the UN search for mines and duds in Kosovo. A radar device was used for detection.

In 2001 TLG operated 16 lightships on five continents for customers such as Mazda , Sanyo , or Goodyear .

Virgin Lightships was acquired in 2002 by a subsidiary of the American Blimp Cooperation, which has since had complete control of The Lightship Group.

accident

On the evening of June 12, 2011, the airship "Spirit of Safety II" (G-TLEL approval), which was used for a Goodyear advertising campaign and was used to film an event on the Hessentag 2011 in Oberursel , caught fire when approaching the Reichelsheim airfield . crashed and burned out completely. The pilot was killed and three journalists who were traveling with him were able to escape from the burning cabin.

Web links

• Mine sweeping project with an airship
• MetLife Blimp

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Passengers jump out of the window: One dead in an airship crash. In: hr-online.de. June 14, 2011, archived from the original on June 15, 2011 ; Retrieved May 5, 2012 .