Original subtitles

A new breed of super machines is evolving.

Bigger. Faster.

Smarter.

Built to tackle near impossible feats. Among them, a next generation airship.

Okay, we're ready to start engines in the cockpit.

Will this experimental floating giant forever change air transportation?

The first time we've built a ship like this ever. Or will it crash and burn?

Fire, fire.

We'll blow

this $35 million beast apart to discover technological secrets

that overcome the impossible.

A revolutionary helium buoyancy system that can lift nine SUVs.

Engine with the combined power of a race car.

Landing beam to touch down anywhere in the world.

We'll reveal how this extraordinary airship evolved to rise above

all other machines.

Tustin Air Base, 40 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Go, it's okay, let it go.

Inside this former military hangar, engineers make adjustments to a

flying machine.

Okay, I'm ready. Sounds good, guys. A revolutionary airship.

Her design could usher in a new generation of cargo vehicles.

Carrying everything from food and military hardware to humanitarian aid

cars.

For less money than any airplane in existence.

John, we're going to go for another test.

Looks good.

In 24 hours time, she will make her first ever test flight.

Three, two, one.

This is the daredevil pilot who will fly her.

I'm kind of a helium head, so to speak.

Corky Bellinger, one of around only 50 blimp pilots worldwide.

He's clocked up more than 15 ,000 hours flight time in airships.

After flying for 40 -plus years just in airships alone, this is the pinnacle of

my career.

I'm really looking forward to this and making it work.

The future of lighter than air is resting on what we're doing here.

In the next 20 years, I think that you're going to be able to look up and

airship just as readily as you look up now and you see an airplane.

I guess in a sense, when you get into something like this, you're laying your

butt on the line. You don't know.

In less than 24 hours, Corky will test fly the prototype of what could

A viable cargo -carrying airship called the Aeroscraft.

This next -generation vehicle is christened Dragon Dream.

She's absolutely beautiful. I'm really looking forward to taking her out and

what she'll do.

Corky's flown nothing like her before.

Built from 10 ,000 components.

Her revolutionary buoyancy system is filled with $250 ,000 of helium.

Three 300 -horsepower engines thrust her through the sky.

And four ingenious feet work like hovercrafts

to glide across rough terrain.

She's a brand -new concept to ship any type of cargo cheaply.

across the globe.

To me, it's like back to the future. It's really modern space shipping

and yet you can go back over 100 years, and a lot of that technology is right

here. The prototype Dragon Dream weighs 18 tons and is 270

feet long.

But if she passes tomorrow's test flight, a production line could start

airships over three times her size.

920 feet long with lifting capabilities of 500 tons.

They would be the largest aircraft ever made.

This valve is disconnected.

The responsibility for getting this unique airship ready for takeoff falls

one man.

32 -year -old lead engineer Tim Kenny.

Nothing is ever perfect, right?

He has never built anything like Dragon Dream before.

Before I came to Arrow, I was building large robotic machines that shrink wrap

cases of soda. Now, today, we're building a 270 -foot -long airship. You

that pressure can become, you know, extremely overwhelming, especially

you know, kind of your first role.

The man who is applying the maximum pressure is Dragon Dream's inventor.

Company CEO Igor Pasternak.

Born in the Soviet Union, he founded airship company Eros 20 years ago.

He secured $35 million from NASA and the Department of Defense.

to turn his vision into reality.

His reputation is riding on tomorrow's test flight.

It's hard to say what is your personal investment. It's everything.

It's my life.

It's literally my life.

How are we going to do tomorrow?

Oh, we'll be fine for tomorrow.

Airships were once seen as the transport solution of the future.

Until things went terribly wrong.

When the hydrogen -filled Hindenburg exploded in 1937.

Rather than using hydrogen, Dragon Dream is filled with helium, a gas that

doesn't burn.

And Igor's big idea is to reinvent airships to carry cargo.

Some of the people are going to be crazy.

And a lot of them still think they'll be crazy.

And tomorrow probably will be the day when the amount of the people who think

are crazy will be significantly reduced.

Igor hopes his design could use the same amount of fuel to travel from Los

Angeles to Chicago as a regular jetliner would use just to get airborne.

And it needs no runways.

It could take off and land anywhere.

If Dragon Dream works, its low operating costs could mean larger versions win

him a slice of the $5 trillion air cargo industry.

If the test flight fails, his $35 million dream will be over.

All right, let's rock.

It's the day of the big test.

I'm nervous, you know. I'm very nervous. We're trying to control it because I

don't want to be nervous and then everybody else gets nervous. So I'm

be the guy that's not the nervous one, but my nerves are rattled.

Dragon Dream's biggest challenge is withstanding the stresses of her first

test flight.

Building her was a tradeoff between weight and strength.

Weight is your number one enemy.

You can build anything as strong as you want it to be, but it won't float or it

won't take off. On this aircraft, you could build everything as light as

possible, but then it won't take your loads when you look at it from a cargo

standpoint. It would collapse.

Structural failure during the test flight could lead to a disastrous crash

endanger the lives of the pilots.

But Dragon Dream has a secret weapon her designers hope... will stop her

breaking up mid -flight.

The skeleton structure of this aircraft is a combination of unique materials

that we've developed mostly in -house and then combined them in this aircraft

a very unique way to make it fly.

Beneath the airship's skin, 10 ,000 honeycomb aluminum struts make up her

30 ,000 precision -drilled holes make them extra light.

Underneath her metal skeleton is Dragon Dream's backbone.

520 lightweight carbon fiber poles.

Arranged in a structure inspired by a world famous monument.

The Eiffel Tower.

It's an enormous building that's very light for its size.

In fact, it weighs less than the air trapped in a cylinder of the same width

height.

That's because the designers bolted the tower's thin iron struts together in

trusses made from triangles.

The strongest structure in engineering.

Dragon Dream's 200 trusses are even stronger.

96 special nodes join them together.

They move just a few fractions of an inch under stress.

Her rigid carbon fiber backbone can flex without breaking.

And the ship shouldn't snap in half in midair.

These nodes of the structure is kind of like the spine of your back. It's the

cartilage in between each vertebrae that allows those vertebrae to flex together

without fracturing each other.

She's strong and she's flexible.

Dragon Dreams designers have done all they can to prevent a catastrophic mid

-air structural failure.

Am I nervous?

No, I slept good last night.

Now they're just one hour away from finding out if their design holds

to make history.

At

Tustin

Air Base, California.

The revolutionary Dragon Dream airship is just 30 minutes away from her first

ever test flight.

Pilots Corky and Igor perform final flight checks.

Lead engineer Tim

briefs his team.

Today's the big day of all of our hard work. We're going to go out there and

this aircraft really go forward and do some flights.

Watch your feet. Watch for holes.

It's dirty. It's dusty out there. Anybody have any questions?

This is the plan.

Taxi Dragon Dream out the hangar.

Attempt takeoff for the very first time.

Then fly across the airfield.

testing the airship's systems under real flight conditions.

We don't want to hit anything, so we need to be very careful of what's going

on the ropes, keeping up with your crew chief and stuff like that.

The flight's main objective is to trial her experimental buoyancy system.

It's called COSH, Standing for Control of Static Heaviness.

The cost system of this aircraft is revolutionary.

There's not an aircraft in the world that has this system on board.

Traditional airships need ballast to stay on the ground when unloading heavy

cargo.

Dragon Dream is different.

She controls her own heaviness by adjusting the amount of air and helium

the airship.

What we're doing here is we're making a simulation for this aircraft, proving

that that cost system works.

on an open -air flight. What we're doing is we're using a large box here. We're

going to stick that in the cockpit of this aircraft with a simulated payload,

and we're using leaded bags here.

And then we'll take it for a flight, then we'll remove it, and the vehicle

stay stationary on the ground after the flight.

Don't put them all on that end, guys. To prove Dragon Dream works as a cargo

airship, the Kosh system must make her lighter for takeoff and then heavier

unloading the box on the ground.

Don't make me do all the work, guys. Come on. If the airship rises during the

unload, Dragon Dream failed the test.

And $35 million of investment goes down the drain.

I don't want it to fly away, but we've done all the tests inside the hangar and

simulated that, so we should go outside and everything should be okay.

Okay, guys, I'd like to do a flight control check.

Ten minutes to takeoff.

Now it's adjusting up.

Corky and Igor perform final pre -flight check.

Okay, they got 12 gallons, 12 gallons, 12 gallons. We got fuel on all the

Okay,

we're good to go.

There's no turning back down.

The future of aviation history could be transformed if Dragon Dream and her

pilots perform flawlessly.

Just one hitch and the test flight could end in catastrophe.

Five minutes to take.

It's time to test if the Kosh system gets the airship airborne.

Inside are nine massive bags made from a top -secret fabric.

They hold thousands of cubic feet of pressurized helium,

which they can shift in and out of her shell.

At the rear sit vital air ballast bags that can change the

airship's buoyancy.

Their design evolved from marine life.

Fish control their buoyancy through a unique organ, the swim bladder.

As they move up and down in the water, they shift gas from the bloodstream in

and out of the bladder to keep their buoyancy perfectly balanced.

Dragon Dream supersizes this idea.

Each of her four ballast bags holds 900 pounds of air to weigh the ship down and

keep her on the ground.

When Corky jettisons air from the bags and feeds more helium into the shell,

the airship should become lighter than air and take off.

Getting the Kosh system to this make -or -break stage was a big challenge.

Two months ago, the team installed it inside the hangar.

So now you can see that we're pumping in the helium here, and it's starting to

inflate. It probably takes about 30 minutes total.

They threaded each of the nine pressurized helium tanks.

made from a top -secret fabric, through a small gap in the airship's frame.

We've removed one of the structural components, and we'll be installing it

this location.

All right, we're going to lift. You guys are going to push. Ready?

And watch the harness.

We don't want this thing rubbing on any of our sharp edges on the structure.

A rip in one tank could cause the airship to fail midair, possibly

a deadly crash.

There's so many cables in this structure that makes it so difficult for us to

get in there and attach these harnesses to those nodes.

It might not be my life depending on it, but somebody else is going to be in

this aircraft flying, and it's very important everything gets covered.

Today,

the Kosh system is ready to switch on.

There we go.

Yeah. But Tustin Air Base is a challenging location to trial this

technology.

There's only so much he can do under this short little area. Like, if we were

out in the desert and built this aircraft, he'd have lots of room.

The final approach of California's John Wayne Airport.

passes close to the test flight area.

Release helium too fast, and the airship could shoot up into busy airspace.

An uncontrolled takeoff could be disastrous.

Everything now depends on nine pairs of critical valves attached to the helium

tanks inside the airship.

Small pneumatic switches open and close the valve's

flaps to control the flow of gas into her shell.

But release too much helium, and Dragon Dream could ascend too quickly.

and fly into the path of a landing airplane.

One miscalculation now could lead to a catastrophic collision with local air

traffic. Okay, here we go, guys. The lives of the pilots and Dragon Dream's

future now hang in the balance.

Korky and Igor are taking off in the pioneering Dragon Dream airship.

If she successfully completes her first -ever test flight, she could

revolutionize the $5 trillion air cargo industry.

Okay, we're going to regulate just to stabilize here. To leave the ground, her

unique helium tanks must release the right amount of gas.

or the $35 million machine could fly into the path of landing airplanes.

It's a perfect takeoff.

Now Corky and Igor must prove Dragon Dream can fly the full quarter mile

length of the test area.

The airship measures 270 feet long and weighs 18 tons.

She needs powerful engines to thrust her forward.

But conventional engines can create vibrations that could wreck the

frame.

So the team fitted this

airship with three ingenious engines that should smooth out the ride.

Their six cylinders are laid out to eliminate destructive vibrations.

An idea that began in car racing.

Early race cars had a big problem.

In long races, their engines shook themselves apart.

Engineers discovered...

Horizontal pistons moving in opposite directions evened out the forces inside

the engine.

This reduced the engine's vibration and powered the race car to victory.

Dragon Dream takes this technology to the next level.

Her six cylinders, arranged in opposing pairs, produce 300 horsepower.

Their smooth running should reduce the stress on the airship's structure and

keep Dragon Dream powering forward through the air.

But any

engine could go wrong.

As the team discovered four weeks before the test flight.

Adam, easy.

You got the flow speed?

Everybody is ready.

When they performed a routine trial in the hangar.

Servo, right engine.

Right. We're very ready.

Disaster struck.

You guys want to just shut down for a minute, the left engine and hover, and

let's get up there and really check it out.

Fuel flooded the engine and a backfire ignited.

If you're airborne and you get an engine fire, that's a critical, critical,

critical thing. I don't want anything to catch on fire other than my barbecue

ever. When somebody says fire, it's usually something happening that you

want to happen.

A repeat of the hangar fire during today's test flight will be

Dragon Dream's been airborne for 20 minutes.

As Corky ramps up the RPM, there's no sign of trouble.

He can now concentrate on the flight's next critical test.

Steering Dragon Dream using the airship's rudder -like flaps called

surfaces.

Right now he's just playing with the functionality of the control surfaces,

it's changing the bits of the vehicle. That's why it's kind of like all over

place right now because he's just moving the control surface to see what they do

at low speeds.

Corky's command must reach the control surfaces as fast as possible.

They race from his joystick through the ship's nervous system.

820 feet of fiber optic cables.

Traveling at over 120 ,000 miles per second, they reach 10 pneumatic pistons

that move the control surfaces.

It's a system that should give Corky super fast handling.

is responding to his input.

Staying on position, I mean, it looks great.

I'm really happy with what's going on so far.

Dragon Dream's control surfaces keep her straight and level.

But up ahead lies the next big test.

Maneuvering over a 100 -foot gap in a tall fence.

This wind is all over the place right now.

The wind shift to us now, Igor.

It's really squirreling.

Mother Nature is pushing the airship off course.

We're still with wind vectors coming around that hangar, all of these

so the wind changes quite a bit on us. The danger level is rising.

There's a real risk Dragon Dream could collide with the fence.

What's going on in that direction now, buddy?

And her test flight ends in disaster.

At Tustin Air Base, California, $35 million airship Dragon Dream is half an

into her first ever test flight.

If successful, this prototype could spawn a new generation of airships that

promises to reshape the $5 trillion air cargo industry.

We're going to go, yep, something like that.

Pilots Corky and Igor must now prove Dragon Dream's untested steering system

maneuver her over a 100 -foot gap in a fence up ahead.

Dragon Dream's designers have equipped the rear of the airship with a propeller

framed by two retractable shrouds.

The design... should steer the airship from the back.

It's an ingenious idea that evolved from rockets.

Pioneering rocket engineers faced a major problem.

Too many of their designs lost control during the slow takeoff.

In the late 1940s, they tried something new.

Installing a movable nozzle to direct thrust.

and a gyroscope in the rocket's nose.

If the gyro sensed the rocket leaning one way, it positioned the nozzle the

other way to shift the engine's thrust and push the rocket back on course.

Dragon Dream uses this rocket steering concept in a new way.

Corky can move the airship's shrouds to redirect the thrust from side to side.

and rotate them to nudge the tail up or down.

He should be able to turn the airship on a dime.

Lead engineer Tim Kenny is worried about

how the steering system will work under flight conditions.

This is all new. I mean, every time we do something with it, it's new.

And we're learning things as it goes. You know, the first time we've built a

ship like this ever.

The only chance the teams had to trial the experimental steering system was

inside the hangar.

Just a month before the test flight.

The system took six months and $30 ,000 to build.

Hangar tests were a success, but no one knows how the system will work during

today's test flight.

As Dragon 3 approaches the fence.

If I go from here, I don't have to drag the ropes over the fence.

We got some safety guys on the line just in case it does something we don't want

it to.

So what we're going to do is kind of let the line completely slack.

We'll still have guys close by, need it if we want to, you know.

This is the most dangerous stage of the test flight so far.

Innovative steering systems can fail with disastrous results.

Virginia 1922.

U .S. Army airship Roma suffered a malfunction with its steering mechanism.

The airship drifted towards the ground.

It hit high -voltage power lines and exploded.

34 passengers and crew died instantly.

On their approach to the fence, Corky and Eagle attempt a gentle turn.

Tim watches nervously as the airship changes position.

The wind just shifted 90 degrees on us.

We're not going to be able to go over that fancy eagle with this wind.

Strong gusts suddenly push the airship offline.

Careful, guys. We're drifting hard.

Overpowering the experimental steering system.

And putting Dragon Dream on a collision course with the fence.

At

Tustin Air Base,

California, the revolutionary Dragon Dream airship is in trouble.

Strong winds are pushing her straight towards a tall fence.

pilots Corky and Igor face a make or break decision.

Crash land the $35 million airship or power over the seven foot tall fence

and set down on the other side.

I don't have a choice, guys.

I got no choice.

The airship scrapes over the fence with just feet to spare.

Touchdown.

It's a relief for lead engineer Tim Kenney.

Oh, that ship goes six feet off the fence.

A couple times right there was pretty...

It's time for the next critical test.

The airship must taxi back to the hangar to prove it can operate in areas with

rough landing zones.

I'm on a taxi, ma 'am.

Corky and Eagle are relying on the airship's unique feet for a smooth ride.

Each one is 26 feet long, almost the length of two SUVs.

They're designed to reduce friction between the airship and the ground by

floating on a cushion of air.

They owe their origin to a groundbreaking invention from the 1950s.

A propeller, an engine, and a boat with rubber wrapped around it.

The propeller pushed air down into the rubber skirting.

It was the world's first commercial hovercraft and inspired the Dragon

feet.

The fans in each foot spin at 3 ,400 RPM.

They push air into a soft plastic skirt, forming a thin cushion of air directly

under the airship.

These mini hovercrafts should allow Dragon Dream to glide across the

terrain.

The

airship

skims across the uneven terrain.

and comes to a halt outside the hangar.

Only the final and most important challenge remains,

unloading the 500 -pound cargo crate.

To prove she's a viable cargo transporter, her buoyancy system must

keep her grounded during the unload.

If she floats up into the air, she'll fail the test.

And put the ground crew in danger.

Like U .S. Navy airship USS Akron did in 1932.

Sailors secured her as she came in to land.

Warmed by the sun, the airship's helium became more buoyant.

Akron began to ascend out of control.

Three sailors failed to let go of the landing rope and were pulled into the

as the airship rose.

Two plunged to their deaths.

The other was saved in a daring mid -air rescue.

If Dragon Dream's revolutionary buoyancy system fails today,

some of the ground crew could be in danger of a similar fate.

This is how it should work.

Compressors inside the airship should suck helium from its shell into nine

-pressure tanks.

At the same time,

Fans help channel hundreds of pounds of air into ballast bags.

This should make the airship heavy enough to stay grounded when the crew

unload the cargo crate.

Make sure all of these keys are enabled.

Pass this test and Dragon Dream has a future as a heavy cargo transporter.

Any malfunctions and the airship will lift off the ground, possibly hauling

ground crew into the air.

The box is out.

Kosh keeps the airship rock solid on the ground.

Absolutely perfect.

Yeah, give me a fight.

The mission is a success.

Okay, let's put it in the bar.

Absolutely fantastic.

That was great. It was absolutely great.

And the cockpit had no glitches at all. No red lights. Everything was green. It

was perfect.

The test flight over.

Lead engineer Tim Kenny sets his sights on the next challenge.

Should we go higher?

Absolutely. Can we go farther?

Absolutely. I want to keep flying and keep going and keep going. You know, I

want to see it fly over people's homes and actually, you know, people see it

real. The test flight is a milestone in aviation history.

Production could now start on larger versions of Dragon Dream that will carry

everything from humanitarian aid to military equipment all over the world.

Everything today was a success. It really, really was. I can't begin to

how happy I am. I'm thrilled.

I'm going to go home for a couple of weeks, play a little golf, get on the

and just kind of think about relaxing a little bit. And then after a couple of

weeks, come back and get into it again.

You can't put a fork in me just yet.

Dragon Dream could be the revolutionary cargo airship of the 21st century.

It's thanks to steering inspired by rockets.

The work like hovercraft.

Super reliable 300 horsepower engines.

A revolutionary buoyancy system.

And a light, tough carbon fiber skeleton.

But this airship has evolved to rise above all other machines.