My biggest concern at the moment:
I apologize in advance to those who might consider this nit-picking or guessing, but the following paragraph from the most recent letter to shareholders has me concerned:
"The original plan called for the launch to happen at our facilities, but issues with the FAA and the concerns of such a large, unmanned airship going up in controlled airspace would delay our launch for several months. Therefore, we have been in talks with the Air Force and NASA and now plan to launch the airship from Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles. We still have one issue, which is how to get the airship from our production facility to Edwards AFB through controlled airspace. We have consulted officials and believe the best way is to place a temporary gondola that would house a single pilot to fly the airship to Edwards. Once at Edwards, the gondola would be removed and the airship would be launched unmanned from Edwards in military controlled airspace."
It appears that the issue of transporting the airship to Edwards was still unresolved as of the writing of the letter. We don't know who the consulted officials were, nor do we know if the FAA will approve their plan for a pilot to fly the ship through controlled airspace. The scary thing to me is that elsewhere in the letter, they stated this:
"Since this is a very new aircraft section for the FAA, we feel it might take months to finally get clearance to launch an unmanned airship in commercial airspace."
The assumption they appear to be making, based on their discussions with unknown officials, is that it will be far easier to obtain permission for flying an untested prototype of an unmanned LAV with a jury-rigged gondola and a live human on board over a hundred miles through controlled airspace than it would be to get permission to launch the same vehicle WITHOUT the jury-rigged gondola and live human roughly 13 miles straight up. This may actually be the case, IF the presence of a pilot allows them to avoid some specific red tape involved with unmanned aircraft which does not exist for piloted aircraft, and IF there is not equivalent red tape involved in getting permission to fly a piloted untested prototype vehicle through controlled airspace. But this is certainly not a given at this point, based on what I have read.
On the positive side, we know that piloted lighter-than-air vehicles like the Goodyear and Fuji blimps are permitted to fly through controlled airspace all the time, although I'm not sure how much lead time they are required to give to file their flight plans with the FAA. But on the negative side, we are talking about an untested prototype here, designed to cruise without a pilot at high altitudes in low-density wind conditions far from any obstructions. If I were the FAA official with the responsibility to sign the permission slip that will allow this vessel to float along Highway 5 for any length of time, putting at least one life and unestimable property at risk, I might want to drag my feet a bit, at least to do some due dilligence and go through channels (i.e., cover my butt) before I sign.
In other words, I would not be surprised to see another delay, perhaps a lengthy one, before we get to Edwards and glory. But we already knew that, right? Once again, just trying to keep expectations in check.
Disclosure: Long 279,000 shares (i.e., not a basher)
AI
