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Airship back in the skies over Bedford
Skyship 600 being readied for promotional tour
An airship designed at Cardington took to the skies over Bedfordshire this week before heading out on a journey to the Middle East.
The Skyship 600 made a striking spectacle on Monday morning while it was tethered outside the historic Shed Number One, where it has been undergoing an overhaul during the last few weeks.
And it later flew above Bedford, showing off the new livery applied during its stay in the hangar.
The craft – owned by Skycruise Switzerland – was previously seen over Bedford in October, when it still sported the name of car manufacturer Skoda for an advertising tour.
It now carries an ad for 'The Palm' – a development of luxury homes on artificial islands in Dubai.
It also received a major mechanical service while moored at Cardington, where Skycruise Switzerland rented the crumbling Shed One for the refit.
The airship is now off on a leisurely journey to Dubai to
promote The Palm, and is touring this country before travelling via France, Italy, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
It is expected at its destination around the new year.
The Skyship 600 was designed at Cardington by Airship Industries, which went into receivership in 1990.
Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) later carried the torch for lighter-than-air travel at Cardington until it too hit the skids in the summer of 2005, when it went into administration.
But the company was salvaged in March this year and has re-emerged with new investors backing it as the SkyCat Group.
The new company is 45 per cent UK-owned and 55 per cent owned by an Italian investment group containing former managers from aerospace company, Finnmechanica.
Gordon Taylor, director of marketing and sales, said the SkyCat Group is now pressing ahead with two designs from the ATG era.
One of them is for a small but advanced airship, the AT-10, while the other is for the SkyCat – a larger, cargo-carrying machine with a hovercraft-like landing system of air cushions, which will enable it to operate without a ground crew.
Mr Taylor said the new company had "several customers" lined up for the AT-10 and would put it into production first.
Three years ago the airship became a familiar sight over the Bedford area during test flights.
One trial run sparked a minor field blaze when an engine silencer caught fire over Cople and hot debris fell to the ground.
Mr Taylor could not say how long the SkyCat Group would remain at Cardington, however.
It has an office at the green Shed Number Two, which was put up for sale by its owners the Building Research Establishment this year at 4 million and is understood to still be on the market.
The vast interior of the hangar housed the Gotham City set for Batman Begins and seems currently to be under preparation for another film from Warner Bros, which has a lease on it for a further 13 months.
Shed Number One is owned by Frontier Estates, which is
proposing to refurbish it as a spin-off from a new housing
development planned on nearby land.
Mr Taylor said: "We hope to be here forever, but we will see what happens."
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Weather for Bedford
Friday 25 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
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Temperature: 11 C to 22 C
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