GUEST
Paul Adams, President, Airship Manufacturing
Don’t call it a drone. Paul Adams prefers “Unmanned Air Vehicle” because of the negative (surveillance, military) connotations of the word drone. Plus, what it will really remind you of is a tinier version of the Goodyear Blimp.
Well, depending on what your idea of tiny is.
“We’re still talking about 100 feet for the smallest one,” says Adams.
The inventor says the aircraft have the same advantages as the blimps we know from the aerial shots at football games.
“Payload and duration,” says Adams. “They can lift quite heavy loads to medium altitudes for quite long durations, and do it very fuel efficiently.”
Adams says he hopes to find a market for his blimps doing research and environmental work. But “We’re a business – we’ll sell to the military if they’d like to buy one, certainly. We’d like to do oceanographical work, stuff like that.”
Adams has a small factory in Mesquite, 4,000 square feet, and currently employs seven people.