Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) in collaboration with U.S. defense personnel is set to revolutionize maritime logistics and communication, transforming the way the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps conduct operations across the Pacific and other contested and distributed environments.
Marine Corps Captains Ben Cohen and John Schmaltz, while students at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), became interested in the defense applications of civilian hybrid aircraft like Airlander, the highly efficient aircraft currently under development by HAV, as a disruptive technology, and were introduced to HAV through the NPS alumni network. Their thesis, which serves as a guide to interaction and engagement for Department of Defense personnel to navigate the innovation ecosystem while assessing commercially developed, large-capacity transportation platforms, has been instrumental in the current work with HAV.
In the latest development of this work, the Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund (OECIF) in the DOD’s Operational Energy Office recently announced funding for the Zero Carbon Logistics Support Via Hybrid Aircraft project. This ground-breaking collaboration between the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and HAV can enhance logistics, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) operations, and communications in the Pacific.