Spirit of Dubai

Infobox Aviation
name=Spirit of Dubai


caption=The Spirit of Dubai at her mooring on the UK leg of her 2006 tour. Scale is indicated by the two aircraft technicians below her.

The Spirit of Dubai is one of three Skyship 600 aircraft operated by Airship Management Services of Greenwich, CT, USA. These ships are currently the world's largest currently operating non-rigid airships (the Zeppelin NT is larger, but has a semi-rigid design.) The airship, N605SK (s/n 1215-05) and was originally built by Airship Industries in Cardington, UK in November 1986 and it is owned and operated by Skycruise Switzerland AG. Airship Industries was bought by Westinghouse Corporation in the very early 1990s.

In November 2006, the ship was leased and decorated with new artwork and flown under the name Spirit of Dubai. The ship is planned to make a publicity tour from London to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The journey is being undertaken to promote a new land development, The Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. It is planned that the journey will take in landmarks including the Big Ben, The London Eye and Tower Bridge in London, Stonehenge, the White Cliffs of Dover, the Eiffel Tower and Versailles in Paris, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum in Rome, the Parthenon in Athens and the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

The ship made it to the island of Crete. The next leg of the journey was plannedto go through Egypt. However, for reasons unexplained, the Egyptian authoritiesrefused to grant permission for the airship to make the trip. In spring of 2007the ship returned to Europe for use in sightseeing.

Prior to its departure from London, the aircraft was used for sightseeing tours in Switzerland under its owner/operator company name Skycruise Switzerland.

pecification

* Length: 66 metres / 216 ft 5 in
* Height: 22 metres /72 ft 2 in
* 7,600m³
* Cruising speed of 30-50 mph
* Weight 5,500 kg when deflated

Links

* [http://www.myspace.com/spiritofdubai Spirit of Dubai MySpace]
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/09/ublimp109.xml Press coverage of the start of the publicity tour.]
* [http://www.spiritofdubai.ae/ Official Tour Website] -- Contains photo galleries, pilot's blog, etc.
* [http://www.airshipman.com/ Airship Management Services] -- Operators of the designation Skyship 600.
* [http://www.skycruise.ch/ Skycruiser Switzerland AG] -- Owner and Operator of N605SK, This Skyship 600 performs sightseeing passenger flights during the Summer months.