While all eyes are currently on the flying car and flying motorbike ambitions of Google co-founder Larry Page, information has spread, that Sergey Brin is working on an airship (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-25/with-secret-airship-sergey-brin-also-wants-to-fly). He seems to even have it built in the historic Hangar One of the USS Macon. Together with its sister airship, the USS Macon was the only flying aircraft carrier ever built.
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| USS Macon in front of Hangar One, California, 1934 |
Seeing Sergey Brin - and the financial power he possesses - enter the airship industry is exciting. Despite this, it is yet to be found out what the purpose and the size of these zeppelins will be. According to the Bloomberg article, it is also unclear if Brin regards the project more as a hobby or a business opportunity. Likely it will be a combination of the two. Possible clients could be transportation companies and those who need to bring heavy equipment into hard-to-access places like the mountainous or little-populated areas.
After some research, I also found out that the Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures has leased Hangar One and the adjunct Moffett airfield for 60 years for $ 1.16 billion (https://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/november/nasa-signs-lease-with-planetary-ventures-llc-for-use-of-moffett-airfield-and/).
My conclusion though is, that if he was building an airship that will come close to or exceed the biggest ones from the first half of the last century, then there'd be more information - and more interest. Also, he'd have to invest most of his time or at least money, in it. The fact that he seems to not be doing this on his own but rather with Planetary Ventures and thus Google, gives hope, that maybe there is more money behind this news than we might assume now.
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| Hangar One, 1999 |
