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Toledo company's low-cost alternative for transporting cargo nearly done, despite setbacks
By Larry P. Vellequette
Toledo Blade
Published on Sunday, Jul 26, 2009
There are all kinds of interesting aircraft around Toledo Express Airport or flying in and out, but the one that seems to have elicited the most intrigue is about eight inches off the ground and resting on scaffolding.
''We have all kinds of people stop and look, especially when the (hangar) doors are open,'' said Fred Rist.
''We've even had a couple flashes of light coming from cockpits (of taxiing airplanes), where pilots were snapping pictures.''
Rist, his brother Robert and two other partners are the men behind an aeronautical Moby Dick — a great white whale of an airship being built in a hangar at Toledo Express.
The craft, owned by startup company Ohio Airships Inc. and funded in part with a $50,000 grant last month from the Regional Growth Partnership's Rocket Ventures, could make its maiden flight as early as next month.
And though the 110-foot-long, 20-foot-high behemoth fills a big portion of its protective hangar at the airport, it pales in comparison to the dreams its developers have to build a fleet of sky freighters, including one nearly 1,000-feet long and 120-feet high.
''You wouldn't build a building because the next one you build would be too big for the building,'' said company founder Robert Rist, 48.
The longest airship, the company says, would be able to transport 160 tons of cargo, with a speed of about 140 mph and a range of about 4,000 miles.
The Rists and partner Brian Martin have spent a decade developing the unique design of their Dynalifter, a half-dirigible, half-plane that they hope will become the backbone of a global low-cost transport system.
The turboprop-powered airship will use helium bladders inside its aluminum airframe to haul cargo to areas where roads don't exist, ships can't reach, and other methods of delivering goods are too expensive.
In 2005, the idea was that the Dynalifter wouldn't compete with the trucking industry, preferring to view it as a form of ''roadless trucking.''
That prototype, the owners said, took nearly 100 people to build and was estimated to cost $500,000 to develop and build.
It is neither blimp nor dirigible. A blimp is a nonrigid gasbag with engines and a gondola attached. A dirigible has a rigid frame and fabric skin. It carries gasbags to provide lift.
The Dynalifter has a rigid shape and gasbags but will achieve lift like an ultralight craft or a Piper Cub airplane and can take off and land in short distances without ground crews used by blimps and dirigibles.
Ohio Airships has been fighting more than the economic headwinds to get its business off the ground.
In 2007, its previous prototype was damaged and its canvas Quonsetlike hangar destroyed when 80-mph winds toppled the hangar onto the airship on a grass airstrip near Alliance in Stark County.
''All of our competition thought we were dead, but we're not,'' Robert Rist said. ''We're back alive and living in Toledo.''
Ohio Airships moved to a new home at Toledo Express in May, towing the skeletal remains of its prototype aircraft on two trailers, said David Miller, business development manager for Rocket Ventures.
''It looked like the remains of two old, used television antennas coming down the street,'' Miller said of the move.
''When I saw it, I thought, 'What have we invested in?' ''
He said the company has received ''significant interest'' in its Dynalifter aircraft from potential customers as diverse as the U.S. military, freight-hauling firms and nations in the Middle East.
''The design makes a lot of sense because you don't need the large ground crews that blimps and dirigibles need, it doesn't require the infrastructure necessary for a plane like (military transports), and it's very economical to operate,'' Miller said.
The Federal Aviation Administration certified previous versions of the Dynalifter, so certification for this prototype shouldn't be too difficult to obtain.
He said the craft has undergone several modifications in the last decade — it is lighter and more aerodynamic than previous models — and that each prototype has advanced the design.
Robert Rist said his 22-year-old son and namesake will pilot the prototype Dynalifter on its maiden voyage.
His son is a multi-engine-rated pilot and graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and has been working with his father on the project since he was 13.
''I can't think of anybody more qualified to fly it,'' Robert Rist said.
There are all kinds of interesting aircraft around Toledo Express Airport or flying in and out, but the one that seems to have elicited the most intrigue is about eight inches off the ground and resting on scaffolding.
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