{"id":34544,"date":"2026-06-04T10:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T10:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/34544\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T10:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T10:14:13","slug":"british-airlander-airship-testing-delivers-excellent-results-ahead-of-operating-in-spain-and-mallorca-plenty-of-room-in-palma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/34544\/","title":{"rendered":"British Airlander airship testing delivers excellent results ahead of operating in Spain and Mallorca: \u201cPlenty of room in Palma\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three years ago, Spanish airline group Air Nostrum<\/a> doubled its commitment for Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) Airlander from 10 to 20 aircraft, delivering a boost to the UK developer ahead of its planned production start and certification campaign which could see British tourists flying to Mallorca<\/a> and the Balearics<\/a> by airship. Air Nostrum had originally reserved 10 examples of the hybrid airship in a 100-passenger configuration in June 2022.<\/p>\n

The reservation agreement followed six months of rigorous studies and modelling carried out by Air Nostrum Group and HAV into the operation of Airlander 10 on Spanish domestic aviation routes and the associated economics and Airlander today confirmed a key development milestone has been met as Airlander 10 operational testing delivers excellent results.<\/p>\n

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Continuous development, followed by thorough testing, is part of the critical role the engineering team at HAV play to ensure the aircraft has the best design and capabilities possible as we work towards Type Certification. Utilising the Airlander simulator is a core part of this work, enabling the team to test, analyse and refine the aircraft\u2019s performance in a controlled virtual environment ahead of real-world operations. This has formed a key de-risking phase for the aircraft, proving the aircraft\u2019s operational capabilities.<\/p>\n

During the first few months of 2026, the engineering analysis team have flown several hundred take-offs and landings in the Airlander 10 simulator. This work forms part of an ongoing programme to refine the aircraft\u2019s performance as they continue to develop its operational capability.<\/p>\n

Over the last year, significant development work has been carried out as they continue to optimise the setup and operation of the aircraft. The sim testing has allowed the team to re-baseline the aircraft\u2019s performance for: take-off and landing run lengths; climb rates; accelerate-stop distances (the runway length needed for an aircraft to speed up for take-off and then safely stop if the take-off is rejected); and go-around capability (the ability of an aircraft to stop its landing approach and climb away safely to try again). This builds on earlier simulator work the team have carried out.<\/p>\n

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Alongside the updated aircraft configuration testing, the team also expanded the scope of the simulator testing. This included flying the aircraft \u2018heavier\u2019 and \u2018lighter\u2019 than the planned operating envelope, as well as in wind and turbulence levels beyond those planned as operational limits. The purpose of this expansion was to ensure the aircraft still has a safe margin of performance at its limits, rather than operating right up against the limits where there is little room for error.<\/p>\n

The team also expanded the testing to explore the limits of near-vertical take-off, where the aircraft relies more on vectored thrust than aerodynamic lift. At reduced payloads, this can provide the capability to operate from significantly smaller spaces. Airlander has previoulsy told the Bulletin: \u201cWe know Air Nostrum is very keen, so Airlanders over Spain<\/a> and between the Balearics could only be a matter of years away, certainly before 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the case of Palma Airport<\/a>, there is plenty of room to operate an Airlander, tighter or thinner airports are not suitable. However, we can operate an Airlander from green sites because the infrastructure required is minimal, damage to the ground is zero. It all depends on the space because when the airships<\/a> land they do so attached to a mast which they may swing round. So while the airships are 96 metres long, they will need a clear circumference circle area of 200 metres.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three years ago, Spanish airline group Air Nostrum doubled its commitment for Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) Airlander from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16777,16779,1254,597,5964,598,605,599,16778,600,1393,17,357,1259],"class_list":["post-34544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-air-nostrum","tag-airships","tag-balearics","tag-flight","tag-green-energy","tag-holiday","tag-latest-headlines","tag-majorca","tag-majorca-airships","tag-mallorca","tag-palma-airport","tag-spain","tag-travel","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}