Will Test All 21st Century Airships' New Designs

E-Green Technologies (EGT) - 21st Century Airships, developers of state-of-the-art technologies for mid, high altitude and heavy-lift airships, announced Tuesday that it has hired Allan P. Judd to be their Chief Test Pilot.
 
Captain Judd has been involved in aviation since 1966 and with Airships over the last 23 years. He received his Oceanographic Technology Degree from the Florida Institute of Technology Jensen Beach Campus in 1976 and entered the workforce as a Quality Control Officer for Texas Instruments Geophysical Services Offshore Oil Exploration Division aboard their Seismic Ships in three oceans. Following three years at sea, he joined the Desert Research Institute Atmospheric Research Division conducting Mountaintop Cloud Seeding Studies and launching and tracking Radiosonde Weather Balloons for the National Weather Service. A mile away, the first all-composite prototype aircraft of its kind designed by Bill Lear was just beginning its assembly and they invited him to join their Assembly Quality Control Team and he did so from the main wing spar cure to First Flight which was successful in December 1980.
 
Interests in Australia changed his course and he attended the Sydney Technical College for a year completing the course requirements up through Airline Transport Pilot. Upon completion of the aviation courses, he completed the flight training and re-entered aviation as a Flight Instructor with the Royal Aero Club of New South Wales for a period of four years.
 
In 1986, he climbed aboard an Airship that had just begun operations across the runway and he instantly felt the ocean move beneath his feet again and he knew what he would do for the rest of his life. He spent 2 years with Airships Pacific, finishing as their Company Chief Pilot when the parent company sold all of their equipment to a US company interested in their machines. Hired by the new company, he returned to the US in 1989 to continue piloting these Airships, touring the US for many high visibility Clients, while making his home in Florida. Since this time, he completed the FAA Pilot Examiner Standardization Course and was entrusted with the position of FAA Designated Pilot Examiner on Lighter-Than-Air Airships for a period of seven years.

Scale Model Bullet 580 Air Ship

After 20 years operating in the US, he now joins E-Green Technologies to assist in the Flight Test Program and Field Operations Development for all their upcoming new designs.
 
"Because our airships are a considerable advancement in airship technology from anything that has ever existed we felt we needed a top flight chief test pilot that had the experience and skills to guide these ships to market," explains E-Green Technologies Chairman and CEO, Michael Lawson.
 
The Bullet 580 is a multifunctional airship intended to serve as a dedicated near-space satellite for communications relays, broadcast communications, missile defense warning, airspace/maritime surveillance and control, position and navigation (GPS), weather monitoring, battlefield environmental monitoring, electronic countermeasures, and weapons platforms as well as geophysical surveys.
 
The 235-foot Bullet 580 is designed to carry a payload of up to 1,000 pounds at 20,000 feet and fly at speeds up to 70 knots with a cruising speed 30 to 35 knots. The companies, who merged late last year, have already successfully built and flown 14 prototypes in order to test new inventions, but the Bullet 580 is the first airship to be put into production for commercial use.
 
EGT has planned an inflation test of the Bullet 580 Airship May 19, 2010 at the Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery, Alabama and all credentialed media is invited to attend. The first test flights will take place in the summer of 2010 and Judd will pilot these flights.

FMI: www.e-greentechnologies.com