- Euro Airship is planning an around-the-world, non-stop flight with Solar Airship One. If it succeeds, it would become the first flight to make the trip without using fossil fuels.
- The aircraft features a solar film and stores surplus electricity in onboard fuel cells.
- Euro Airship hopes that the demonstration ship can one day turn into a marketable aviation solution.
Fossil fuels need not apply for Solar Airship One’s upcoming voyage. The fully electric airship, designed by the company Euro Airship, plans to fly non-stop around the world in 2026. Euro Airship expects to accomplish the feat using solar and hydrogen power with an electric engine, traveling roughly 25,000 miles in a 20-day adventure.
If the company accomplishes this dream, it would become the first fossil fuel-less flight of its kind.
“Throughout history, all great dreams have been considered impossible before they were accomplished,” the company writes on its website. “Today, the adventure must continue by realizing a great epic in the service of environmental protection and renewable energies.”
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The Solar Airship One’s plan has the airship crossing 25 countries, two oceans, and several seas. The ship will use a solar film covering the entire upper surface for “direct and constant electrical power during the day.” Expected surplus electricity can be stored in fuel cells, which produce hydrogen via water electrolysis to keep the ship going.
This combination of solar and hydrogen power removes the need for fossil fuels and keeps the airship on a quiet, electrical path for the entire flight.
With a double-envelop on the rigid airship stabilizing the ship’s pressures and regulating its internal temperatures, the airship is expected to handle all weather conditions, feature an automatic de-icing system, and require no permanent heavy infrastructure on the ground.
Solar Airship One will feature an aluminum structure encasing 15 helium envelopes—each of which will be independently managed, something that the company claims will allow for “instantaneous response and anticipation of meteorological events.”
Sticking close to the equator, the roughly 21,600 nautical miles flight should hover around 20,000 feet. While Euro Airship claims that the journey could be wrapped in as few as 20 days, they admit that it may take up to 30.
Construction of Solar Airship One is scheduled to begin in 2024 ahead of the 2026 flight.
“The goal is to educate, to catalyze the young generation, for us it is very important because of the climate change, because of the natural disasters coming,” Dorine Bourneton, Euro Airship crewmember, told Flying magazine. “We need to have a new mobility—a green mobility.”
Along with Bourneton, the three-person team piloting Solar Airship One will include former astronaut and French Air Force pilot Michel Tognini and around-the-world balloon flight pilot Bertrand Piccard.
Euro Airship plans to prove its technology during this scheduled experimental flight and bring a new style of airship to the sky—one that can fly without coming down. The company expects to earn an experimental certification to fly in 2026.
Euro Airship’s goals include offering ecotourism trips and unmanned surveillance flights—the concept of flying without needing to refuel gives the latter some extra heft. They even want to eventually establish a presence in logistics services, as the airships can handle heavy payloads.
“The Solar Airship project,” says Corinne Jouannay of Capgemini Engineering in a news release, ”demonstrates that it is possible to catalyze an ecosystem to foster the emergence of sustainable air transport solutions.”
Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
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An Airship Is Ready for the First Non-Stop, Fully Electric, Around-the-World Flight - Popular Mechanics
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