THE REBIRTH OF the airship is the perennial Next Big Thing in aviation. Of course, any talk of reviving the genre that never quite rose to meet its proponents’ lofty expectations comes with the inevitable wisecracks about the Hindenburg.
Now, Lockheed Martin thinks it can make people stop laughing with its Hybrid Airship, a new sort of aircraft that combines the upsides of the airship with the abilities of a hovercraft.