Cold-weather airship testing could take off in Manitoba

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This article was published 25/09/2023 (770 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Foreign airships may soon be soaring across northern Manitoba if a consortium working toward having a cold-weather testing site in Thompson gets its way.

The ISO Polar Airship Association will be presenting its proposal this week at the International Conference on Electric Airships in Nuremberg, Germany.

Barry Prentice, ISO’s president and co-founder, said he has been pushing for airships to deliver large and heavy cargo for more than two decades, and now other countries and companies are catching up with plans to construct their own.

Prentice, who is also a professor of supply-chain management at the University of Manitoba and the former director of the Transport Institute, said the intention is to create a place where airships can be tested in the frigid conditions they would have to fly in if they travel up north during winter.

“You can’t just bring an airship here and hope,” he said. “You have to have a place to work on it and fix it.

“We have the cold. Now we need a place for testing.”

Prentice said former open-pit mines now owned by the global mining giant Vale would be large enough for the airship research and cold-weather testing complex, but the company is worried about liability issues because it still mines underneath the area. He said there is also a former quarry in the area which could be suitable.

“We don’t have to worry about the weather from above,” Prentice said. “If it is in the pit or quarry, it would be below the winds from the side.

“If we could set up a facility for cold testing, we would attract every airship group in the world here.”

Prentice said Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his California-based company LTA Research have already built a rigid 120-metre-long airship and announced recently they will soon begin outdoor flight tests after doing testing inside a large hangar.

He said Thompson has an almost four-decade history of being the place companies test cars, trucks, snowmobiles, helicopters and jet engines in the cold, so airships would be a logical step.

Prentice said ISO has already received letters of support from companies developing airships, and all are encouraging the Manitoba government to help develop the testing centre.

“Safe operations of airships in the north will be impossible without proper testing and certification,” LTA Research CEO Dr. Allan Weston said in a letter of support.

“A cold-weather testing facility like this will be necessary somewhere. Thompson, Manitoba, appears to have all the necessary attributes to be an ideal cold-weather testing location for airships from around the world.”

In another letter of support, Christine Burow of Tomgat Metals, which is developing a rare earth minerals mine in northern Quebec, said the company also hopes a cold-weather airship testing facility is created at Thompson because it wants to use airships for its mine as quickly as they can come on stream.

“We plan to ship up to 200,000 tons of rare earth concentrate per year to our processing plant … in southern Quebec,” Burow said.

“However, cargo airships will not be commercialized when our mine will go into production, therefore we will build and use a temporary and seasonal road from mine site to the Labrador coast for the first few years. … We would encourage all partners in the cargo airship supply chain and ecosystem to support the development of a cold-weather research certification base at Thompson.”

Volker Beckmann, a retired Thompson businessman and the former chair of the city’s winter-weather testing committee, said he is hoping the facility is built in Thompson.

“If in five years, these airships could carry cargo and fuel to the Arctic, where would they be tested?” Beckmann said.

“They are looking for the winter to be -30 to -40, and others want snow and ice — we have all of that. Thompson also has 600 hotel rooms and jet travel to Winnipeg. We see so many benefits of this.”

Grand Chief Garrison Settee of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak said the possibility of airships and dirigibles flying to northern reserves, which are now connected only by ice roads in winter and by airplane the rest of the year, is something they have been looking at for years.

Settee said “having year-round access to building materials and other supplies such as food, equipment and machinery” is important.

“Having a cold testing centre in Thompson is ideal … to ensure the dirigibles could operate safely in the harsh weather conditions that are common in northern Manitoba.”

Settee said MKO is so hopeful for the potential of airships that it held a conference on their feasibility back in 2013.

“(I) would be interested in exploring the potential benefits of dirigibles as a transportation option for First Nation communities.”

Prentice said creating an airship industry here has so far been a missed opportunity for both the province and people living in remote communities.

“The last 20 years, a whole generation has grown up in poverty and they didn’t have to,” he said. “The idea is now more mature and people are working on it.

“The airship could be a revolutionary change for the North.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca