Lockheed sees buyer for airship

PALMDALE: Lockheed Martin Corp expects to reach an agreement next year with a launch customer for a giant new hybrid airship that would revolutionise the way oil and mining companies haul equipment to the Arctic and other remote areas without roads.

The initial version of the airship, filled mostly with helium, would carry 20 tonnes of cargo, but could easily be scaled to roughly the size of a football field with 500 tonnes of capacity, Robert Boyd, an engineer with Lockheed’s Skunk Works