World's largest aircraft prepares to take off.
Airlander 10, a spectacularly huge, helium-pumped aircraft, is unveiled fully assembled for the first time, in a giant aviation hangar near London.
The Airlander 10 is a hybrid airship, achieving lift, and thereby flight, via both aerostatic and aerodynamic forces. Unlike most airship designs, it does not have a circular cross-section, having adopted an elliptical shape with a contoured and flattened hull.
This shaping is deliberate so that it acts as a lifting body, contributing aerodynamic lift while the airship is in forward motion; generating up to half of the airship's lift in a similar manner to that of a conventional fixed-wing aeroplane.
Buoyancy is also provided by helium contained within the envelope, the pressure from which maintains the airship's unique shape. Between 60 percent and 80 percent of the aircraft's weight is supported by the lighter-than-air helium.
