THE AIRSHIP RENAISSANCE has always been just around the corner - and always will be.

I once worked on a heavy-lift airship project for a former employer. It was for a niche market; trans-ocean, where the cargo needed to be moved faster than a container ship could go, but whose value wasn’t enough to transport by conventional air. The investment money to develop and build the airship was easily available, but the economics, alas, couldn’t be made to work.