I have written in the past about airships as a green option to today’s dirty aviation. Since the disaster with Hindenburg in May 1937 we haven’t heard much from them. But now, when the fuel prices are rising, more and more people are looking towards their direction again.

This week the US navy announced that they were going to acquire a Skyship 600 (see picture above), which is almost as large as a Boeing 747. The manned airship will help the US coast guard chase smugglers between Florida’s southern coast and Cuba.

George Spyrou, president of Airship Management Services Inc, said that the airship is “considered a very green machine,” and added that a “regular jet uses more fuel to travel from the gate to the taxiway than we would to fly for a whole week.”