World’s largest aircraft takes first flight since crash-landing last year

Hybrid Air Vehicles

On Wednesday evening Airlander 10 completed its first flight since the giant dirigible crash-landed nine months ago. The airship took off at 5:28pm BST, puttered around for almost three hours, and successfully landed at 8:15pm. This is only the fourth time that Airlander 10 has taken to the skies, following two flights in the UK in 2016 and a single flight in the US in 2012 when the aircraft was originally being considered for usage by the US Army.

The new auxiliary landing system-the giant airbags detailed below-worked perfectly, Hybrid Air Vehicles reports. The main purpose of the flight was to practice take off and landing and to collect flight performance data.

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