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News Item – Luffships Ltd
Charles Luffman has acquired the assets and fully taken over management of SkyLifter Ltd as the new director/owner of the business (Company No. 07140078 – Incorporated 29 January 2010), renaming it Luffships Limited (completed 9 May 2018) in a recent bid to fulfil airship development plans that he’s been evolving over many years. He wishes to thank the company’s former director (Jeremy Fitton) and hopes SkyLifter will live on, returning to become an operator of Luffships’ buoyant aircraft in the future.
LS-LT18-1 Maiden Launch
SkyLifter Ltd was responsible for organising production and test of Charles’ design (LS-LT18) for an 18 m diameter lenticular aerostat, developed as a low-captured arrangement to test mooring arrangements and the aerostat in all weather for his omni-directional airship proposals; intended to be an overhead aerial cinema-screen for video and light-show displays at events. A prototype was made in accordance with his specifications/guidance by Airborne Industries Ltd (for the aerostat) and Skylaunch Ltd (for the ground arrangements).
The prototype was called Vikki, sponsored by Wayne Haxton (iFX Media Ltd) a specialist light projectionist (still involved with Charles) who wanted it for such purposes. It was flown several times at private locations in Shropshire during 2010/11 and then put into storage while funds for development were sought.
Charles plans its resurrection and use to continue his strategy for development of omni-directional airships, which he first revealed in 2003 at the AIAA Denver, Colorado, conference, where he gave a paper about his AeroRaft design; a proposal following CargoLifter AG’s closure (2002) for a way to achieve their objective of a serious aerial-crane airship with heavy-lift transport capability that could raise and place outsized payloads of say 100 tonne anywhere with precision control.
There wasn’t much interest for the AeroRaft at the time, but he continued with further arrangements knowing from experience that unidirectional airships, although useful for many purposes, aren’t suitable for duties needing precision control of position and heading (necessary for aerial-cranes) and good vertical ascent/descent capability – operating like helicopters, which are omni-directional aircraft. It also should be noted that helicopters are successful because of their ability to do things their aeroplane counterparts aren’t suitable for. It’s a matter of horses for courses!
LS-L100
Charles appreciates that it perhaps won’t be possible to fully realise his dreams, but believes he can lead the show long enough to establish a secure way for the heavy-lift aerial-crane goal (such as the LS-L100 design) to be fulfilled in the future. How long that may be depends on support to begin and finance to continue further developments necessary before the goal is realisable. However, he believes that if the cycle of huge traditional type developments continues without support for new omni-directional types, it may be never!
If successful with the funding application he plans to begin development late 2018 in the UK’s heartlands, so perhaps worth looking out for. Further news will be provided via website blog-posts; where one may also register interest.
Luffships – two ways to follow
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Übern Regenbogen führt ein Weg, in ein glückhaftes Land, das nie noch ein Mensch betrat.
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
Übern Regenbogen bleibt es klar – überm Regenbogen wird alles Träumen wahr.
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh, why can’t I?
Fliegst du empor das kleine Stück zum Regenbogen, nimmt das Glück dich mit!
English text as sung by Judy Garland. Deutsch text by E Y Harding.
Airships/Luftschiffen fundamentally have two ways that may be followed, namely:
- Uinidirectional (UD)
- Omni-directional (O-D)
For people who desire or need conventional ways, we have new UD airship designs arranged to overcome numerous issues that traditional airships suffer from and are very difficult to fix – like the need to allow weathervane movement around a mast when moored; because fixing them results in enormous aerodynamic broadside loads, not sensible to resist without calm conditions or protection.
On the other hand, we also have novel O-D aerostat and airship designs that operate like helicopters with much longer endurance, better suiting some roles and are fixed when moored. After all, why would anyone choose an aeroplane to do what a helicopter does best? The benefit of O-D types is that they don’t have definable front, back or side features and can slowly precess (if desired) while moving in any direction without upset.
The problem for both helicopters and aeroplanes is that they’re power hungry and fuel thirsty just to remain airborne – belching out huge quantities of polluting exhaust products straight into the atmosphere needed by all life forms to survive. Since airships float they remain airborne without effort and, depending on design, if operated intelligently, may travel without power using air currents for conveyance like rafts – so can remain endlessly aloft without danger.
Luffships’ LTA aircraft thus are an opportunity for people to employ better ways using the horse most appropriate for their course – not just airships!
Learn more by looking through our website and reading documents available. Otherwise, we’re available to talk with via contact.
Is the development of airships a legitimate business to pursue?
This is a question that I pose for people anywhere to think about and answer because, where I reside, the government’s tax authority for Inland Revenue used a ploy recently to say that pursuit of lighter-than-air (LTA) solutions for airships and other LTA aircraft development is a hobby. The result of this ploy was that I had to pay back a considerable sum of money (for an individual) they previously allowed for expenses incurred in pursuing the business and now no longer get tax relief for it. I now also can’t recover value added tax on business purchases either. Naturally, I think it’s an abuse of power by them that is unlawful, but fighting such people is rather difficult.
I guess my question could have been put in a different way (e.g. are airships wanted?), as this affects the airship industry generally and the pursuit of Luffships (new offerings); where, at the moment there are very few in service. The reason appears to be twofold:
1) Numerous other businesses pitched in with huge transport category projects when none existed and then failed to deliver, upsetting everyone.
2) At the low normal/commuter end of the industry, existing types are having a hard time against other new ways of doing things (drones, the internet, social media, to name a few) so are closing their operations.
I think that new ways are needed, which Luffships.com was set up to provide, but realise that there’s no point in pursuing them if not supported! Well, should I continue?
Answers would be appreciated.
Charles Luffman
Luffships.com Founder and Technical Leader
