We did some very successfull test flights with the new airship type AS 105 GD/6 in the Austrian Alps.
The germanwings airship and his crew was also there. New gallery in the picture-section.

GEFA-FLUG airship test flying in the Austrian Alps.

The Coppel Airship is flying in Mexico.

The  picture-section offers now some nice pictures of the Coppel Airship (Serial Number: H0051) flying in Mexico City (Estadio Azteca), on the International Hot Air Balloon Festival in Leon and over the archaeological site Teotihuacan.

The airship is operated by Javier Merino Amecuza and his company

VOLARE / Impacto Publicitario.

Coppel Airship flying over the archaeological site of Teotihuacan.

We updated the technical section with technical notes, the EASA type-certificate and the latest versions of the “Flight- and Maintenance Manual Hot-Air-Airship AS 105 GD” in english and german language.

… you a happy holiday season and all the best for the new year!

In early 2005 we startet a four year research and development project with the AS 105 GD/6 a sixseater with 5.000 m³ volume. Economical calculations proved, that carrying five passengers at a time is definetly a profitable way of operating hotair airships in the worldwide leisure and touristic business.

Photo by: Ingrid Schmah-Albert, Wehrheim

As an alternative there is a worldwide increasing environmental monitoring market as well with the airship being capable of carrying scientific loads of up to 450 kg.

The AS 105 GD/6 is developed from experiences gained with 50 smaller brothers of the AS 105 GD type, but has quite some features, which the forerunner does not have.

Every major item has been tested at various Aachen Technical University Departments including a lot of windtunnel testing. The stabiliser fins and the siderudder are streamlined now and modified.

An electric servo engine has been introduced which operates the siderudder (instead of pulling the rudderlines by hand) being a great relief for the pilot.

As well there is an autopilot-system to control the burners to keep precisely a given altitude, which is another relief for the pilot and safes 15-20% propane due to a more stable heat output and heat distribution.

A much stronger but still light envelope fabric has been developed together with Lückenhaus, one of Europe´s leading experts in light, strong and coated fabrics, well known in the LTA business for their superb longlife balloon fabrics. The wheft of the new fabric is almost twice as strong as the warp, taking into account that circumferential forces in airhip envelopes are twice as high as longitudional forces.

In that way a new airship fabric has been introduced 100% stronger but only 33% heavier than its forerunner. To improve tear strength even more the fabric is silicone coated from both sides. The fabric development took three years with three major steps and a lot of serious heat and UV testing in the “Textile Research Laboratory” of the University of Chemnitz, with computer simulations, the help of four months outside weathering (UV stability) and on the actual airship envelope.

But we have also thought about the groundcrew and their job. We have created a winch system with which the envelope will be taken out and brought back into its trailer without sweating in a couple of minutes.
We doubled the output of the standard 13 hp fan with the help of ducted fanblades made by the HELIX company. Cold inflation of the 5.000 m³ envelope takes place now in unbelievable 8-9 minutes.

With a well trained crew you can operate the 6 seat airship with pilot plus three crew.

The AS 105 GD/6 got its “EASA Permit to Fly” in august 2008 has undertaken its full one year flight testprogramm and is on its way to be certified by EASA in the passenger transport category in late 2009.

See also an article from Bennie Bos: http://www.hotair.nl/

Here is a short movie about our new airship type AS 105 GD/6:

The comments are in German language, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

We would like to say “Thank you!” to Günter Köhler who has created this nice movie.

Dear friends,

we are proud to present you some information about our latest development, the new GEFA-FLUG 6-seater-airship!

Please see this pdf-file for technical data and a price-list.

AS 105 GD/6 : technical data and price list

For any further information please feel free to contact us.

Best regards

Jürgen Leisten
GEFA-FLUG

The airship-parade in Bad Homburg was a big success!

As 105 GD/6 and AS 105 GD airships

All airships involved are manufactured by GEFA-FLUG:

- 7 type AS 105 GD

- 1 type AS 105 GD/6

The AS 105 GD/6 is the prototype of the new 6-seater airship series with a volume of 5000 m³.

More information about this new airship type will be available soon on this site…

6 Airships on one picture.

airship parade commemorative stamp

Last month we did some test flights with an external load on the AS 105 GD in Northern Germany (in the near of Bremerhaven).

Our test programm was authorized by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA), we got a “Permit To Fly” to check the flight characteristics of the airship during take-off, flight and landing procedures.

Our client was the “Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources” (BGR) in Hannover.

The BGR works in this project together with:

University of Münster

Raumfahrt Systemtechnik GmbH (RST)

The purpose of the flights was to carry a Georadar antenna over a large agricultural area.

More Pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/boeltes/Zeppelin#

http://spotterblog.de/2009/07/16/aufbau-und-flug-eines-hot-air-airship/?nggpage=2

We added some more images to the “AS 105 GD Picture Section”:

http://www.hotair-airship.info/pictures/pictures-as-105-gd/

Thanks to Bennie Bos (www.hotair.nl) for submitting very nice photos.

Enjoy!

A couple of GEFA-FLUG AS 105 GD Hot Air Airships will take part at:

Airship Parade – Bad Homburg/Germany
15th August 2009

More information (in German language):

http://www.bad-homburger-luftschiffparade.de

One of K. L. Busemeyers dreams was to fly an airship over the Serengeti in the footprints of father and son Grzimek, two famous German zoologists who, in 1958, used a single-engined aeroplane to survey the huge herds of wildebeests and zebras in Tanzania. Alan Root, legendary pioneering balloonist out in Kenya for more than three decades (made famous in Anthony Smith’s book Throw out two hands) was the main cameraman. The outcome was an Oscar-winning film and the best-selling-book, Serengeti Shall Not Die. Mucky’s idea was to recreate the old Grzimek project, flying at Grzimek’s locations and meeting up with their old comrades, but using an airship instead of a light aeroplane. The result this time would be a TV documentary. Here, then, is his remarkable story.

We started a new category named “Stories“. In this section we would like to provide you with articles about hot air airships.

We start with an article composed by the owner of GEFA-FLUG, Karl-Ludwig Busemeyer. The text with the title Just another Airship „Made in Germany“? provides an insight into the development of the hotair-airship type AS 105 GD.

An overview of all produced airships by GEFA-FLUG is now available in the “Pictures” section. A PDF-download is available.

New videos from Italy are added to the video section. Thanks to Pietro Contegiacomo!

is available for download now in the “Technical” section.

Flight- and Maintenance Manual AS 105 GD

Welcome to our new hotair-airship-blog!

This is the place to provide you with all kind of informations about our hotair-airships.

If you want to leave a comment, please feel free to do so!

Best regards

Your GEFA-FLUG Team