May 11 - Hybrid Air Vehicles' (HAV) Airlander 10 has taken to the skies, marking the recommencement of its flight test programme following the aircraft's heavy landing in August 2016.
Airlander flew for a total of 180 minutes. During the three phases of the flight test programme, the Airlander will perform more tasks and be permitted to fly further away from its base in Cardington,UK.
HAV has made a number of additional modifications since last August, including a more powerful and more manoeuvrable mobile mooring mast (MMM), and the installation of an auxiliary landing system, as HLPFI reported in March.
The first flight served to establish basic handling characteristics of Airlander, as well as to collect flight performance data such as handling, airspeed, and vehicle systems data, for post-flight analysis.
According to HAV, the next few flights are likely to be at least a week or two apart, in order to give time for a full analysis of the data collected on the flight.
