Airship dispatch / Updated October 2026
Airships never really left. They just went quiet. Now a 406-foot electric rigid airship is flying test loops over San Francisco Bay, a solar platform has crossed the Pacific at the edge of space, and factories are being planned for 60-ton cargo ships. This page tracks what is flying now and how we got here, from the first balloon over Paris to the walk-in airship we want to bring to festivals.
Latest
Sceye’s stratospheric platform launched August 9, worked above Japan for more than a week at 16 to 17 km up, and returned to U.S. airspace in early September. Nearly 30,000 km round trip. With SoftBank it tested texting, calls and video to ordinary phones from the edge of space.
Read at SceyeReaders spotted a 406-foot airship gliding over the Dumbarton Bridge and the Bay Trail. It’s LTA Research’s Pathfinder 1 on test flights out of Moffett Field. Its longest hop that week ran about five hours.
Read at Palo Alto Daily PostAt the Farnborough Airshow, Bharat Forge and Flying Whales agreed to develop and build LCA60T heavy-lift airships in India: hybrid-electric, vertical takeoff, up to 60 tonnes of cargo, and very little ground infrastructure.
Read at The WeekThe Goodyear Blimp returned to EAA AirVenture, the biggest airshow week in the U.S., flying over Wittman Regional Airport and parking at Pioneer Airport where visitors could see it up close.
Read at EAALTA Research notes that 2026 is the first time since 1938 that all three kinds of airship are in the air at once, with Pathfinder 1 as the only rigid airship flying today.
Read at LTA ResearchA new certificate for the electric rigid airship, after a fall season that widened its test area around San Francisco Bay, including a pass over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Read at LTA ResearchHybrid Air Vehicles reserved three Airlander 10s for an unnamed defense contractor. The company is readying a production site in Doncaster, England, while its civil backlog includes Spain’s Air Nostrum.
Read at Aerospace Global NewsSummaries are written in our own words from the linked reporting. Airship Simulator is an independent concept and isn’t affiliated with these companies.
Timeline / 1783 to now
Balloons, Zeppelins, a long quiet spell, and a comeback powered by helium, batteries and sunlight.
1783Nov 21
A Montgolfier hot-air balloon carries two men over Paris. Lighter-than-air flight begins, more than a century before the airplane.
1852Sep 24
Henri Giffard flies a steam-powered, hydrogen-filled airship about 27 km out of Paris. Powered, steerable flight is born.
1884Aug 9
La France, an electric airship, flies a loop and lands where it started: the first fully controlled round trip.
1900Jul 2
LZ 1 rises over Lake Constance. Count Zeppelin’s rigid frame idea sets the shape of the giants to come.
1919Jul 6
Britain’s R34 lands on Long Island after the first east-to-west Atlantic crossing by air, then flies home.
1925
Goodyear’s Pilgrim takes to the air, the first of a fleet that will hover over American stadiums for a century.
1926May 12
The airship Norge crosses the top of the world with Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile aboard.
1929Aug
The Graf Zeppelin circles the globe with paying passengers, dining rooms and cabins. Peak airship glamour.
1937May 6
The hydrogen-filled Hindenburg burns at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The age of giant passenger airships ends almost overnight.
1997Sep 18
A new semi-rigid, helium-filled Zeppelin flies. It later becomes the platform for today’s Goodyear blimps.
2016Aug 17
The hybrid airship, part airship, part wing, makes its first flight from Cardington, England.
2024Oct
LTA Research’s 124 m electric rigid airship makes its first untethered flight at Moffett Field, California.
2026Aug–Sep
A solar airship flies a 30,000 km round trip to Japan, testing phone service from the stratosphere.
Next
A walk-in airship for music festivals. The ship stays on the ground; the view lifts off. Now looking for its first pilot host.
The next entry
