Travel to the North Pole aboard a luxury airship

(CNN) – It is May 11, 1926 and a gigantic airship, the Norge (which means Norway), has just been unhooked from its mast in one of the most remote settlements in the world, Ny-Ålesund, in the Svalbard archipelago.
This group of rocky and barren islands, closer to the North Pole than to the Norwegian territory, is the natural starting point for any expedition venturing into the frozen reaches of the Arctic, and that is precisely what those who are to aboard the Norge.

Leading the expedition, made up of 16 people, are none other than the most famous polar explorer of the time, the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who in 1911 became the first man to reach the South Pole, Umberto Nobile, the famous engineer Italian airship who designed the Norge, and the heir to the coal and American adventurer Lincoln Ellsworth.

If Amundsen’s earlier conquest of the South Pole had involved a grueling march of months in dogsledding, this new expedition would be a much shorter affair. The group, however, would have to be content with flying over the North Pole instead of setting foot on it.

The trip turned out to be a great success.

The Norge reached the North Pole less than a day after leaving Ny-Ålesund, making those on board the first people to have verifiably reached that geographic point. Far from ending the expedition, the Norge continued to advance through the Arctic Ocean until it made landfall at Teller, Alaska, a couple of days later.

It’s not hard to imagine what a sense of euphoria and accomplishment the crew must have felt the moment they set foot in North America. Yet within a decade, Amundsen would die, engulfed by the Arctic, and the era of blimps would be over, or so it seemed.

Excitement and adventure

Airships have had very limited activity since the 1930s. Replaced by fixed-wing aircraft as a means of transportation, lighter-than-air vehicles (LTAs) were limited to a handful of specialized uses. . But the concept has not been completely forgotten.

About a decade ago, a British company called Hybrid Air Vehicles developed a new generation airship concept on a large scale as part of an American military research program. At that time, the Pentagon was studying the possibilities that airships could offer to support the troops in Afghanistan. However, the change in priorities caused the project to be canceled in 2012, and HAV began looking for new uses for its technology.

The result was the Airlander, a modern reinterpretation of the airship that is, by some measurements, the largest aircraft in the world.

These advances in the airship arena caught the attention of Carl-Oscar Lawaczeck, a Swedish commercial pilot with a business vocation.

The idea was to bring back the excitement and sense of adventure from the days of airship exploration, but with the comforts and safety offered by 21st century technology.

The result is OceanSky Cruises, a startup that offers luxury airship cruises, starting with a route to the North Pole and back.

And, while OceanSky has yet to officially confirm its airship choice, so far the only candidate for the mission is HAV’s Airlander.

Airships have a few characteristics that make them especially suitable for the type of business Lawaczeck has in mind. They have great resistance, which means that they can stay in the air for long periods of time, they can be equipped with really spacious cabins and, above all, they consume little fuel.

“Airships can carry payloads comparable to those of some passenger airliners, but use a minimal part of the energy to transport them the same distance,” explains the Swedish businessman, who used to fly commercial jets for the Scandinavian airline SAS and other companies. .

The downside is that airships are much slower, but this can also be an advantage.

Since one of the highlights of these trips will be the possibility of observing the Arctic fauna from the sky. This is where the blimp’s ability to fly at extremely slow speeds and very close to the ground will come in handy.

“We can go down to 90 meters, even 30 meters if necessary, as slow as a bicycle, to give our passengers a glimpse of those polar habitats,” says Lawaczeck.

Polar picnics

The 16 passengers will be accommodated in eight spacious double hotel-style cabins. The airship will carry a crew of seven, including a chef.

Lawaczeck likes to liken it to the experience of traveling on a yacht.

“We are not as limited by space as in an airplane, so we can do interesting things with the cabin,” he says. “The design is going to lean towards the heritage side of the project; it will evoke the era of the airships.”

Conditions on board will be a far cry from what the Norge’s crew endured nearly a century ago, although if they had been able to peer into the future they might have found some elements of the OceanSky project quite familiar.

Svalbard will once again be the base for the air cruiser. The OceanSky team considers various locations in the Arctic archipelago, which has proudly preserved some elements of its aerial heritage, such as the North Pole Expedition Museum in its capital, Longyearbyen, and the original mooring mast used by the Norge, in Ny-Alesund.

However, unlike in 1926, the 36-hour return trip will include a six-hour layover right at the North Pole. Passengers will be able to get off the aircraft and enjoy a picnic on the ice sheet.

Sustainability

“The airship will sit firmly on the ground for embarkation and disembarkation, with the mooring system facing the wind, so we just have to open the door and let the passengers in and out,” says Lawaczeck.

“The winds at the North Pole are very stable and have no problems with gusts or vortices or other phenomena because there is no terrain anywhere that can interrupt the flow of air. You cannot ask for a safer landing site.”

Lawaczeck says they are still considering whether to let the pilots actively control the craft with the pivot engines running during this stop, or to carry a lightweight portable mooring mast or anchor.

Lawaczeck is determined not to leave residue or other traces of activity at the site. In fact, the environmental aspects of the project feature prominently in the company’s marketing discourse. Its founder also likes to point out that his interest in airships arose, in large part, from his interest in researching ways to fly with low emissions.

OceanSky envisions that its airships will be powered initially with hybrid propulsion, using biofuel, although the goal is to move to fully electric propulsion later.

“OceanSky’s vision is to make aviation sustainable,” says Lawaczeck. “To have an impact on climate change we have to scale our operations and also penetrate lower and other market segments.”

The beginning of a new era of aviation?

The reservations are already openBut with a price tag of $ 232,845 for a two-person cabin, OceanSky’s polar rides aren’t for all budgets. Apart from the polar cruises, which OceanSky hopes to carry out on a weekly basis, the Swedish businessman intends to go beyond experiential trips to dedicate himself to the transport of cargo and passengers.

Earlier this year, its potential airship partner HAV posted the latest photos of its ship and announced its intention to launch luxury experiences in intercity airships by 2025. The plan is to link destinations a few hundred kilometers apart, such as Belfast and Liverpool or Seattle and Vancouver.

Airships could play a role in remote logistics, for example serving mines and offshore facilities, or they could even capture some segments of the scheduled air travel market, those where passengers are willing to change speed. for the convenience or the price.

OceanSky’s plan foresees that its fleet will reach more than 100 aircraft within 10 years, with the expected date for the first expedition in 2023 or 2024.

“We hope to make a dent in the way people travel in the future and we see great potential in LTA vehicles as an affordable option for comfortable, stylish and clean travel for conscious passengers. To do this, we need thousands of blimps.”