Epic RC Blimp - F3 Expo

Epic RC Blimp - F3 Expo

During the F3 Expo there were more multirotors than you could imagine. What we didn't imagine was this monster also flying around the arena.

This is the Windcrafter by Carangi Airships. This awesome design scales from as small as 10 ft (3 m) to a proposed design that tops out at 200 ft (61 m) tall!

If the height impresses you the amount of weight they can carry is astounding! These can lift anywhere between 8 - 40,000 lbs (3.6 - 18,143.7 kg) depending on the size. 

Besides the impressive size and payloads, what really caught our attention was the shape of the blimp itself. 

You can find more info on the design at the Carangi Airships website.  

© Windcrafter, Inc. 

With this kind of ship the majority of the heavy lifting is done by the helium. This allows very precise maneuverability even with those insane payloads we mentioned.

With less energy being needed to keep the thing in the air, they were able to pull off an INSANE 4 hours of flight time on one 11,000 mAH battery.

Carangi did some pretty smart desiging with their gas cylinders as well. 

The internal cylinder (the shiny one that contains the helium) is inside of another cylinder that is purposefully smaller. They call this the pressure cylinder. This makes it impossible for the gas cylinder on the inside to over-inflate or pop because of the size difference. 

© Windcrafter, Inc. 

All of these genius ideas make for one impressive RC blimp. Impressive for it's flight characteristics and energy usage, but also it's ability to safely fly indoors even in a stadium full of fans.

Thanks again to Micah and Steve from Carangi Airships for letting us share your amazing ship with the Flite Test Family!