02.10.2025
The following article was originally published by gasworld and is reproduced here with permission.
Hybrid air vehicles have great potential as a new class of mainstream aircraft. Molly Burgess catches up on progress with UK-based Hybrid Air Vehicles.
There are several new and emerging applications for helium, from quantum computing and next-generation electronics to fusion energy. Ultimately, these new applications will add to demand further down the line, altering the supply and demand balance.
One interesting opportunity appears to be in air vehicles – a category that includes aerostats, airships, and hybrid flying-wing designs. Among these, it seems growth may lie in the larger hybrid airships, particularly for moving heavy freight in areas where conventional aviation is limited by infrastructure.
In these applications, helium is often used in the hull to create buoyancy.
Unlike traditional aircraft that rely entirely on aerodynamic lift, hybrid airships use a combination of buoyant lift from helium and aerodynamic lift from their wing-like structure.
This reduces fuel consumption and allows for longer endurance, greater payload capacity, and the ability to take off and land in remote or undeveloped areas without the need for runways or heavy ground infrastructure.
There are several companies already developing hybrid air vehicles, and while none are in commercial operation, there are a handful in promising stages of development, with certification and commercial entry targeted for later this decade.
Helium’s role
Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), based in the UK but with operations in the US, is one company that is developing a single hybrid air vehicle model, the Airlander 10.
George Land, HAV’s Sales Director, says the company initially focused on the defense market when designing the Airlander 10, largely because its characteristics were well-suited to military needs, but he says the company has now identified opportunities in the logistics and high-end leisure spaces, too.
“While a modern airliner might stay aloft for 10 or 12 hours, the Airlander 10 can, depending on payload, stay in the air for up to five days. This in its creates a lot of opportunity,” he tells gasworld.
Land says this airtime is possible largely because helium provides most of the lift, so the air vehicle is not burning fuel just to stay airborne.
Helium is central to the hybrid lift system as it provides the buoyancy. HAV has combined the buoyant lift with aerodynamic lift and vectored thrust from engines to create its particular hybrid design.
“It’s not a traditional airship, even though it gets most of its lift from helium. About 25% of its lift, depending on weight, comes from aerodynamic forces. The Airlander is a flying wing, in essence. As it moves through the air, lift is generated from airflow over the envelope, much like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft,” Land says
In a typical regional passenger setup, the hull contains about 33,000 cubic meters of helium. “The remaining 11,000 cubic meters is air, held in internal ballonet sacks that help manage pressure as the aircraft climbs or descends,” says Land.
Maintaining helium stability within the hull is as important due to the sheer volume. Land explains that purity levels are managed through commercial purification equipment, which restores lift performance, since helium gradually decays over time. Pressure is kept very low – “about the same as at the bottom of a glass of water” – to maintain the hull’s structural integrity without adding unnecessary stress to the fabric.
Leakage rates are also remarkably modest thanks to modern materials. HAV works with ILC Dover, better known for manufacturing NASA space suits, to deliver a flexible but robust hull skin. “Typically, we would expect to replace around 15% of the helium volume each year,” says Land. “That process is carried out gradually alongside purification as part of routine maintenance.”
If everything goes to plan, HAV hopes to deliver the first aircraft to customers in 2030. Of course, the number of units in the skies will be slower during initial rollout, but, looking further ahead, the company notes that 600 Airlander aircraft would account for about 1% of global annual helium consumption.
HAV USA
Despite HAV being founded in the UK, the company has a presence in the US for many years, particularly with the US Department of Defense (DoD).
“In reality, we’re quite an Anglo-American business in terms of how the product is put together,” Land says. “For example, the hull skin – a critical piece of technology – is manufactured in the US.
“That plays a vital role in containing the helium, which has very small molecules, and it has to be structurally robust and long-lasting. We’re talking about a skin that can endure for over a decade. That material is a major part of what makes the aircraft technologically viable.”
To solidify its US footprint, however, the company launched HAV USA in August this year.
At the time, the company said the move positions the business closer to its customers in the region, in particular the US government, aerospace primes, as well as commercial passenger and cargo transporters.
Establishing the US sister company is a full-circle moment for the company here as the Airlander 10 was initially developed in response to a US DoD tender during the Afghan War, targeting the need for persistent battlefield surveillance that traditional aircraft couldn’t provide.
“To overcome this issue, the DoD issued a tender, and HAV teamed up with Northrop Grumman, a major US defense contractor, and we won.
The US Army contract was worth around $500m for the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) project. HAV built the HAV 304 airship while Northrop Grumman served as the prime contractor and integrated the sensor systems.
“The aircraft we offered could stay aloft for a week at around 20,000 feet, carrying a large payload of sensors: cameras, radar, and all kinds of wide-area surveillance equipment,” Land says.
“Winning that contract was a big deal. The Airlander 10 prototype was designed for that program and, though it was essentially built in the UK, it was first flown in the US.”
Not long after the first flight, however, the program was cancelled due to US defense priorities under the Obama administration changing. With that, HAV reacquired the Airlander 10 prototype from the DoD, along with full intellectual property rights: a rare move in military contracting.
The aircraft was returned to the UK, where HAV secured new funding and continued flight testing through 2017. Once the prototype was returned to the UK, the company started to test the concept and also started exploring other potential markets beyond the defense industry.
Helium efficiency
HAV is working to reduce helium loss in its hybrid aircraft through material and maintenance innovations. “We try to minimise helium waste via the technology that we invest in the hull material and the purification equipment that is used as a routine part of aircraft maintenance,” Land explains. This will become more important as the company scales up from the Airlander 10 to its larger Airlander 50 model. “Helium leakage is a function of surface area of the hull, while aircraft lift is a function of volume. This, in simple terms, means that ‘bigger is better’ and this applies to the aircraft’s use of helium versus the amount we have to replenish each year,” Land adds.
Applications
From 2017, several market applications for the Airlander 10 were explored, but Land says there are four that are most promising: surveillance, luxury tourism, decarbonizing regional air transport, and military.
The luxury tourism market is a niche one here, but one that the company is very interested in. Ultimately, the company’s looking to develop a “cruise ship in the sky,” in Land’s words.
“This market has actually seen more traction for us commercially than military use,” he says. “People have nostalgia for the ‘cruise ship in the sky’ concept, like the great airships of 100 years ago. We’re targeting this sector with a smaller passenger capacity – between 12 and 40 people, depending on the configuration.”
Lane believes this “high-end leisure experience” would be well received in places like Saudi Arabia, where they’re investing in tourism as part of their economic diversification.
Even for less-luxury-focused regional air travel, HAV believes there could be opportunity, particularly as airlines have to hit various decarbonization targets.
“Long-haul flights will continue burning fossil fuels for the foreseeable future – there are no viable alternatives yet. But for regional sectors of up to 200 nautical miles we can offer extremely low carbon solutions,” says Land.
“Because of our low energy needs, we’re also one of the most viable early adopters of hydrogen powertrains. Our goal is to be the first large aircraft – over 100 seats – with a zero-carbon hydrogen powertrain. Our largest commercial order so far comes from a Spanish regional airline looking to replace conventional turboprops on short-haul routes with a sustainable alternative.”
And despite the company’s early-days pushback in the military market, it still believes that it holds the most opportunity for its hybrid air vehicles as they progress.
“Around half of our total addressable market is in military applications, according to our internal research. Most of our military business development is focused on the US, which leads the West in both defense spending and innovation,” Land says. “That’s not a reflection on other nations’ willingness to innovate, but large budgets drive capability.”
Market impact
With companies like HAV making headway towards getting these hybrid air vehicles airborne, what does it mean for the helium market?
“The helium industry is absolutely critical to us,” says Land. “It’s our key supplier. In many ways, this is just another application for helium, but an important one, and we obviously need that industry to continue doing what it does best.”
He says that the company has been studying the helium market over the years, and he notes that stability is key to ensuring the aircraft stay afloat. Of course, in time periods where the market is how it is today, that’s a lot easier than when shortages hit.
“That said, like with any new application of a material, if our product is successful, it will start to change the picture a bit. You’ll begin to see when and where helium is needed, and in what quantities – and that demand profile may look quite different from what the market is used to.
“Ultimately, the total volume of helium we’ll use, even in full production, isn’t significant enough to disrupt the global market. But we do believe this represents a very positive use-case.”
Even if HAV’s projected demand won’t reshape the global helium balance, it would place the gas in a new and highly visible sector at the intersection of aviation, defense, and clean transport - alongside other growing applications such as semiconductors and quantum computing.
The following article was originally published by gasworld and is reproduced here with permission.