VEATAL is a European Commission funded project to encourage a debate on alternative solutions for bulky or heavy or cumbersome payload complementary transportation.
Issues and Needs :
The 20th century started with the conquest of the atmosphere by aeroplanes and terminated with the conquest of the earth and moon orbits.
The 21st century could see the conquest of the cargo transportation by airships in the new economic paradigm of globalisation .
The intensification of goods exchanges in globalisation requires that :
- payloads be heavier , larger, indivisible, pre-mounted
- delivery be any time, any weather, any place, on any surface, door to door, infrastructure-free
- the carrier be “mission versatile” and if airship, hover securely - be propelled on very long distances , lift off and descent autonomously , rate highly in ecological performances.
VEATAL generic objectives :
- Challenge airship technologies to participate at the satisfaction of the above needs
- Open a sustained dialogue with needing industrial freighters to review their potential logistical missions for the benefit of the European aerospace industry and possibly other industries.
-Keep informed industrial logisticians about the real services of the promising airship technologies, based on evidential reports of real-scale transport trials, benchmarking and mapping .
- Promote and convince the European & Russian airship communities to converge their know-how into practical solutions for the given needs, interoperable and complementing the airspace and surface logistical services.
