Skylifter: heavy duty flying saucer re-thinks lighter than air transport

One of the proposed Skylifter-delivered prefab buildings

 

For decades, fans of airships have been hoping for a large-scale revival of the majestic floating aircraft. Every few years, lighter than air flying concepts come along to raise those hopes, such as Northrop Grumman’s Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, Skyhook’s JHL-40, and DARPA’s Walrus, which led to the current Aeroscraft ML866 project. Now there's another unique contender to the throw into the mix – Australia’s Skylifter. If it ever makes it to the skies, however, it’s sure to be the source of some bogus UFO sightings.
As with other lighter-than-air vehicles, Skylifter’s main bragging points are its lifting abilities, the fact that it could stay aloft for days at a time, and its relatively low fuel usage and CO2 emissions (as compared to an airplane or helicopter).
Unlike traditional blimp-shaped airships, Skylifter would have no front or rear end, meaning that keeping it turned into the wind would not be an issue, and it could easily spin 360 degrees. It also wouldn’t be limited to landing at airfields with masts, which is the case with blimps. Instead, the pod and balloon would be moored to the ground, and the balloon could be lowered down close to the pod to minimize the effects of wind – the designers estimate that it could withstand gusts of up to 148 km/h (92 mph).