Cameron Balloons invented the hot-air airship in 1972, and the latest generation of these eye-catching promotional craft incorporates further enhancements including a new engine, ergonomic improvements to the passenger cabin, and increased fuel system flexibility.
Hot-air airships costs less than 5% of the price of a modern helium-filled craft — aircraft like the Goodyear Airship. Plus, the running costs are in the same proportion because the hot-air airship requires no large hanger, no portable mooring mast, no expensive ancillary equipment and only a small operating crew. And maintenance of the Cameron hot-air airship is simple and inexpensive. Yet despite these enormous cost savings the Cameron series airships provide up to 100 square meters of high visibility advertising space on each side of a hull that is more than half the length of an airship such as the Goodyear ship.
Not the Goodyear Airship. The world-famous Goodyear airships are not thermal airships. The Goodyear fleet has been flying for 60 years, and people who haven’t actually spotted them in the sky will have seen them on television, circling above major events such as the Olympic Games, Super Bowl or pop concerts — beaming down pictures. Their advertising value is legendary, but these craft are somewhat bigger than our standard Cameron airships, need large ground crews, vast hangars, enormous mooring masts, cost millions of dollars to buy, and have to be filled with expensive helium to keep them aloft.