Introduction
The UPship™ project to design and build improved airships started 35 years ago. We are designing and will manufacture and operate innovative, unique and practical semi-rigid dirigible airships with battery electric propulsion for various applications such as tourism, advertising, passenger services and cargo transport.
OUR AIRSHIPS
Our 33 meter version from the beginning will be able to demonstrate and perfect our control, mooring, and cargo delivery systems and can be easily scaled-up to the 8 seat Type Certified tourism airship (including a rear observation balcony!) and then the 80 seat or 8 ton capacity passenger and/or cargo version. This can include a unique active de-icing system that makes it the ONLY airship for practical cold weather operation. Notice that our 11,000 is just slightly larger than Umberto Nobile’s N1 Norge and N3 Italia semi rigid airships that reached the North Pole in 1926 and 1928. This could also operate with hydrogen fuel cells and fewer batteries, for longer range. Unlike some other projects, we build on history rather than ignore it. With this experience, a later twice scale version of this could deliver near 60 tons of cargo to anywhere, using hydrogen fuel cells for long range operations, and hydrogen for lift.
Here are the basic specifications for the 3 proposed versions.
Specifications in Detail::
UPship™ Model 3300 5500 11,000
- Seating: 2 8 80
- Length: 33 m 55 m 110 m
- Diameter: 6.9 m 10.8 m 21.6 m
- Fineness (L/D) 4.7 5.0 5.0
- Total volume: 740 m³ 3,018 m³ 24,140 m³
- Helium fill 85/81/81%: 630 m³ 2,444 m³ 19,554 m³
- Empty weight: 420 kg 1,400 kg 11,000 kg
- Takeoff weight: 620 kg 2,400 kg 19,000 kg
- Useful load: 200 kg 1000 kg 8,000 kg
- Propulsion power: 12 kW 68 kW 540 kW
- Battery capacity: 30 kWh 180 kWh 1500 kWh
- Useful battery 80%: 24 kWh 144 kWh 1200 kWh
- Top speed kph/mph: 80/50 105/65 132/82
- Range UPship 3300
8 hours/400 km/250 miles at 50 kph
2 hours/160 km/100 miles at 80 kph - Range UPship 5500
20 hours/1000 km/600 miles at 50kph
8 hours / 600 km / 375 miles at 80 kph - Range UPship 11,000
40 hours/2,000 km/1,250 miles at 50 kph
10.5 hours/840 km/525 miles at 80 kph
4.5 hours/450 km/280 miles at 100 kph
We aim to provide customers and buyers with the most unique and enjoyable way to travel, and provide a practical means of transport for remote areas with little infrastructure. Our location in Costa Rica gives us access to markets in two continents. The simplicity of our time-tested design and starting with an efficient and economical 2 seat airship as our Minimum Viable Product both speeds our path to profits and lowers risks to investors compared to other projects that are starting without knowledge of airships and planning huge high-risk airships with low efficiencies. Our patents will solve several problems that they are not addressing, and can be licensed to our competitors, or to joint ventures. Very unlike our competitors, our first airship can be built for well under $1 million, and can be used profitably from the beginning for flight training.
We welcome future purchase or investor inquiries, just contact jesseblenn@davincicostarica.com (jesseblenn@gmail.com) or Telephone +506-8372-4113.
STAY INFORMED!
You can stay informed of our progress by subscribing to our UPship Free news list. Or, help advance our project by becoming a member of our UPship LTA Support Group. Group members will be given progress reports, insider information, a guided tour of our project as it advances, and a $50 discount on pilot training flights once and if we start tourist flight operations in Costa Rica. (Legal Disclaimer: These last two are conditional on our success of course, so are nonbinding, and are limited to one discount per flight.) All this is for a $10 yearly subscription. Just click here:
For an incomplete yet excellent history of the UPship™ airship project, see here:
https://lynceans.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/UPship-converted.pdf