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With offices in the United States, Europe, Japan and a manufacturing and maintenance facility in North Carolina, Skycruiser Corporation are in a position to provide a fully certificated airship for purchase or lease anywhere in the world. The Skyship series of airships which comprises the Skyship 500, Skyship 600 and Sentinel 1000 are the most popular of modern airships. They have proved to be the most popular and widely used large airship, operating all over the world and certified in a number of countries. We are currently working on Skyship 1000, a 24 seat airship under development at our North Carolina facility and based on the type certificate of the Sentinel 1000. To compare the various airships please visit the Airship Comparison page.
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| The airships' envelope is filled with non-flammable helium gas, which gives the airship its lift. The envelope incorporates forward and aft air cells called ballonets (visible as the deflated white bags in the picture to the right). Their primary task is to maintain the pressure and therefore the shape of the hull, by compensating for the expansion and contraction of the helium. The ballonets are inflated with air from scoops mounted in the slipstream behind each propeller. Excessive hull pressure is prevented by venting air from the ballonets, through valves mounted on the underside of the hull. This system also allows a measure of trim balance to be attained through differential inflation. | 
Photo Courtesy of QinetiQ |
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Our airships all feature vectored thrust systems. By rotating the ducted propellers the airship can take-off, hover, land vertically, and maneuver with impressive accuracy. The ducts serve to reduce propeller noise levels both in the gondola and on the ground while providing improved safety to ground crew and boarding passengers and increasing the efficiency of the propeller. The four tail fins are positioned towards the rear of the hull and feature surfaces which provide conventional elevator and rudder control. The fins themselves give added stability in pitch and yaw. The use of highly advanced materials minimizes the structural weight of the airship and so increases the disposable load. They also extend the life of the structure, minimize maintenance requirements and transform the performance of the modern airship. In addition, the use of non-combustible helium as the lifting gas has totally eliminated the dangers associated with the earlier use of hydrogen.
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| The nose of the hull is reinforced with a glass-fiber nose cone to provide a single point mooring system, and is therefore designed to withstand considerable mooring loads. Battens radiating from the nose cone allow the hull to withstand aerodynamic pressure at high speeds. |  |
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Inside The Gondola The gondola interior can be arranged in a variety of ways to provide comfortable seating for passenger operations, or ample space in which to fit an extensive range of mission equipment. It is our airships' spacious gondolas, panoramic windows, low engine noise and vibration that make them an ideal platform for a wide range of uses including passenger transportation, aerial photography and geophysical and hydrographic survey. These factors also provide the right environment to sustain the long endurance missions, which may be required by military and paramilitary agencies.
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