Airship
Air Yacht – Lazzarini Design presents flying luxury catamaran
The shape of the catamaran reduces the cross section of the blimps.
© Lazzarini Design / pr
The designer Pierpaolo Lazzarini reinvents the airship: Instead of a clumsy sausage in the sky, a breathtaking catamaran crosses the clouds.
Pierpaolo Lazzarini is no stranger to design concepts – be it swan-inspired superyachts, crab-inspired catamarans, retro-futuristic flying cars or a city of floating pyramids. His latest project, the Air Yacht, is designed to glide in style over the sea or through the skies with two helium-filled airships.
Luxury of the air
Lazzarini Design has created a stunning airship. A yacht of the skies, with this Pierpaolo Lazzarini continues earlier designs of superyachts in a different medium. Now you could dismiss the design as a mere gimmick. But that would do him an injustice.
Because not only the eccentric Lazzarini believes in a rebirth of the airship. Besides the balloon, a zeppelin is the only flying object that can fly by itself. The light gas in the envelopes provides buoyancy. The engines only have to propel the vehicle forward, so it is conceivable to feed them with energy from solar power. In addition, an airship makes no noise.
Conventional airships consist of a large cylindrical shell containing several gas balloons – the cockpit and flight deck hang underneath. This is how Count Zeppelin built and also the most famous airship in history, the Hindenburg, followed this construction principle. The Air Yacht, on the other hand, is designed as a catamaran. Between two 150 meter long cylinders there is an 80 meter long middle deck, carbon bridges connect the deck with the hulls.
Endless space
The middle deck is 10m meters wide and houses a master cabin with 360 degree views, a dining area and a living area. There are five cabins with bathrooms on each outside. So it’s a design for luxury travel. An airship is particularly suitable for cruising the air. Its top speed is lower than that of a jet, but it can cruise as slowly as you like for sightseeing.
The hulls are self-supporting, so it’s a blimp like all modern designs, and not a zeppelin with an internal support corset. Inside is a honeycomb structure containing 400,000 cubic meters of helium. Although the inner structure brings with it an additional weight, it should stabilize the cases. A leak would be limited to one honeycomb. Because helium tends to diffuse through materials, multi-layer structures are a good choice to capture the escaped gas.
Innovative ideas
The form looks much more dynamic than the clumsy blimbs. The sensitivity to side walls should be less. Above all, take-off and landing should be easier. In the classic form, the airship only touches down with the narrow cabin, in front of which ropes are lowered and the ship is thus caught on the ground.
The rotors of the Air Yacht can be rotated. You press the yacht onto the surface, where the two helium envelopes are then attached and give the Air Yacht a firm footing.
As planned, the Air Yacht could fly for 48 hours at a speed of 111 km/h. The airship does not need a special airport, it can land on any large meadow or even on water. With low speed, it can also move on the water surface.
Lazzarini calculates a price of 550 million euros – so it will probably remain a food for thought.
Source: Lazzarini Design Studio via Boat International