I travelled inside the ‘Flying Bum’ – this is what it was like

It’s close to a decade since the shapely curves of the ‘Flying Bum’ went bottoms up in a field in Bedfordshire.

The test flight of what was then the largest aircraft in the world ended up being the butt of the joke with memes and ridicule as it lay inelegantly poking into the sky, and it hasn’t flown since 2017.

But it could soon soon be time for the Bum to rise again – and this time, it’s got a new, sleeker silhouette. 

After years of admiring the giant airship from afar, Metro was invited to see it up close at its home in Bedford, and we were excited to jump inside. 

The Airlander 10, to give it its proper name, has been in the news recently because the company behind it has identified a site in Doncaster to manufacture dozens of aircraft per year in a new factory.

Hybrid Air Veicles (HAV) say they have more than £2 billion of pre-orders, and passengers could soon be flying around Spain, to the Scottish islands, or above the Arctic – if they can find the upfront investment to fulfill the orders.

At the back of an industrial estate in Bedford, a big warehouse holds the hard structures of the aircraft, including its engine, propeller, and flight deck.

The vast, helium-filled balloon which gives its famous curves and takes it airborne has been deflated, but we were able to step inside the cabin, where champagne flutes dangled from the ceiling and sofas looked out to huge windows in the floor. 

Although we were actually just in a chilly warehouse, screens covering the windows transported us to the Arctic, where icebergs drifted and glaciers carved in a bright blue sea below, and to a desert scene with rusty red sanddunes.

Maybe it was the idea of reducing emissions in the air travel sector, or maybe just the private jet-style interior, but I found myself thinking: ‘I like flying butts and I cannot lie.’

The cabin can be kitted out with rows of seats like you’d find in a plane, to get 130 people from A to B with a better view; Spain’s Air Nordstrum is already looking into using the aircraft for some domestic flights.

Or it can be a floating hotel, with eight double bedrooms and a central bar area with sofas to gaze at the landscape below, which is the configuration I experienced.

Strapping on a VR headset, I virtually wandered the corridors imagining what it would be like to silently drift over the world’s remote and beautiful landscapes, with views much wider than the peep from a plane porthole. 

By the end, I was ready for my real air cruise to the North Pole (on the offchance I could afford it).

Meanwhile, Nick Allman, an aerospace engineer who is chief operating officer of Hybrid Air Vehicles, came to chat about the aircraft, and here’s what was most interesting about what he told me. 

The Airlander has had a makeover – and it has feet now

If you loved that rounded Kim Kardashian silhouette, you may be disappointed.

The 98m aircraft has had a streamlined makeover. It’s longer, has had the opposite of a butt lift, and now has feet.

They company say this reshape had nothing to do with its cheeky nickname and is purely operational: there is now slightly more volume of helium in the balloon, and it can carry slightly more.

It also now has retractable feet, which can pop out when it’s time to land and make this huge blob look quite cute, like a soft hippo. 

It could be in the skies commercially by 2029

That’s when they’re aiming to make the first deliveries to customers, though it all depends on how quickly they can attract funding.

The first passenger flights are expected around 2.5 to three years after launch funding is achieved.

Their target is to produce 24 aircaft a year, and in the future plan to make even bigger ones.

Despite some hiccups with test flights, the aircraft received Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approval, and in 2019 they said they would now focus efforts towards producing them commercially.

If you shot it, it wouldn’t go spiralling around the sky like a balloon

Good to know – and I had to ask what would happen.

Nick reassured me: ‘At the scale we’re at, the pressure to make that skin strong is only 0.15 PSI. A typical car tyre is 30psi, so it’s a tiny differential pressure. In the scale of the aircraft, a hole is a tiny proportion.’

Even if someone put a bullet hole through, the puncture probably wouldn’t be obvious for about a week because it would be so tiny in comparison.

The balloon is not pressurised, so it also wouldn’t pop but would just slowly let out gas like water drippng out of a glass.

Don’t worry about a Hindenberg-type disaster, either: that airship was filled with highly flammable hydrogren, but the Airlander rises due to helium, which is inert.

The fabric of its shell is super thin

It has a woven skin that is so thin, it looks like you could cut it with scissors, though I’m assured this would be difficult.

Once inflated, the pressure from inside makes it strong enough to support heavy metal propellors.

It could make air travel more like being on a train

There were no cramped aisles or tiny toilets, and passengers would be free to talk from side to side (as long as seatbelt lights were off). 

Nick said it won’t be like what people ‘currently have to put up with’ oncramped plane.

In theory, you could even open the window, because it’s not pressurised.

What is the point of the Airlander?

Jokes aside, the “Flying Bum’ is a serious aircraft which offers a low-emission alternative to aeroplanes, particularly in areas which are hard to access and don’t have an airport. 

It can land on water or marshland, without the need for a full airport runway, making it a tempting prospect for areas that are otherwise hard to reach. 

It is designed to spend up to five days in the air without needing to go back to land to refuel.

Developed initially for US military surveillance, it now targets commercial travel and freight transport, and has more space to carry cargo than a plane, which tends to be the sticking point rather than weight itself.

Before it was grounded, the aircraft attracted hundreds of enthusiasts watching the huge blimp take off from Cardington airfield.

In the future, maybe you’ll see it all over the world, or even take flight in it yourself.

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