Google’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page airships
When a billionaire wish to fly he does not buy an airplane. He build one of his dream. That’s what Google co-founder Sergey Brin is doing these days. He is building his own Zeppelin-shaped aircraft in NASA’s hangar 2 at the Ames Research Center.
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Brin does not make it clear whether the airship makes for Sergey Brin’s hobby or a business venture. “Sorry, I don’t have anything to say about this topic right now,” he told Bloomberg in an e-mail.
Bloomberg News reported that Brin’s airship isn’t affiliated with Google parent Alphabet, but it couldn’t say if Brin’s new venture is for business or pleasure.
Google, Sergey Brin
Two days ago Google co-founder Larry Page’s startup Kitty Hawk published a video of a “flying car” prototype. A new, “all-electric aircraft” the company says, “It is safe, tested and legal to operate in the United States in uncongested areas under the Ultralight category of FAA regulations.”
According to Bloomberg report, Brin has long been interested in airships. This supposedly began since he started visiting the NASA research center just two miles from Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.
The Google co-founder decided to build his own Zeppelin-shaped aircraft after seeing a photo of USS Macon, that was built by the U.S. Navy in the 1930s and crashed near Big Sur in 1935.
Google unit Planetary Ventures took over some of the huge hangars at Ames in 2015. Former director of programs at NASA Ames Alan Weston is heading Brin’s new baby. He is the one who developed for Ames a prototype of a helium-based airship designed for lifting payloads up to 500 tons.
Although the airship is still a skeleton, Weston’s team of engineers already has assembled the metal foundations of it.
Weston declined to comment, but in 2013 he said airships as cargo transport could be more fuel-efficient than planes or even trucks. They could carry their loads directly to the area in need rather than drop them off at transport centers, sidestepping shipping hubs and airports.
